Wake County Teachers Stage Walk-In Protests Over Proposed Special Education Cuts

Thousands of Wake County teachers and special-education staff gathered outside Enloe High School in Raleigh shortly after sunrise Thursday, part of a wave of walk-in protests at multiple sites across the district opposing a budget proposal that would slash roughly $18 million from special-education funding and eliminate about 130 teaching positions.

A second demonstration was planned for Fuquay-Varina at 8:30 a.m., with educators at both locations pushing Wake County Public Schools to reverse course on cuts that the North Carolina Association of Educators argues would severely harm students and staff.

The protests followed Superintendent Robert Taylor's Tuesday preview of his upcoming budget proposal, in which he warned that the absence of a state spending plan has placed the district in a challenging financial position. Taylor said cuts to special education remain a possibility as the district works to close funding gaps driven by inflation, child nutrition shortfalls, rising fuel costs, and uncertainty over how much local, state, and federal money will be available.

Taylor also plans to ask county commissioners for a local funding increase of approximately $25 million this year and has proposed higher school meal prices as part of a broader effort to balance the books. The full budget proposal is expected to be formally released to the school board on April 7, when specific details of the proposed cuts will be made public.

The structural problem facing Wake County runs deeper than any single budget cycle. North Carolina provides about $5,500 per special-education student but caps that funding at 13 percent of a district's total enrollment. Wake County is among 85 of the state's 115 school districts whose special-education population exceeds that threshold, a situation that leaves 14,919 special-education students across North Carolina without state funding. Wake County school leaders and the State Board of Education have been lobbying state lawmakers to raise or eliminate the cap.

Thursday's action was not the first time educators have taken to the streets over the issue. On January 7, dozens of teachers demonstrated at the intersection of Green Level Church and Carpenter Fire Station roads in Cary, with leaders of NC Teachers in Action reporting that 650 to 750 educators from 52 schools, including 30 in Wake County, called out of work that day to pressure state lawmakers on public education funding.

With the April 7 budget release approaching, the scale of Thursday's turnout signals that district officials will face sustained public pressure before any final decisions are made on special-education staffing.