Recent news reports have highlighted calls from teachers and education advocates for coordinated absences, also known as “callouts,” in response to teachers’ funding complaints and the lack of a state budget. Protest organizers plan to have a callout once a month through April.
Some commentators in the press and on social media characterize such callouts as expressions of protest or free speech. That framing obscures a key legal distinction. Coordinated refusals to perform assigned public duties should not be seen as merely expressive conduct, but rather as unlawful work stoppages.
North Carolina General Statutes § 95-98.1 expressly provides that strikes by public employees are “illegal and against the public policy of this State.” The law is clear: “No person holding a position either full-or part-time by appointment or employment with the State of North Carolina or in any county, city, town or other political subdivision of the State of North Carolina, or in any of them, shall willfully participate in a strike by public employees.”
Some have suggested that the strike prohibition does not apply because the demands associated with these callouts are directed at the General Assembly rather than local school boards. That reading is inconsistent with both the text and purpose of the statute. North Carolina law defines a strike as a coordinated cessation of work used “as a means of enforcing compliance with a demand upon the employer,” and the focus of that definition is on the use of a work stoppage as leverage, not on the formal identity of the policymaker being pressured.
Local boards of education remain teachers’ employers, even though the General Assembly controls much of the funding that determines compensation. A coordinated callout intended to influence legislative budget decisions necessarily pressures the employer by disrupting its operations and student services. Interpreting the statute to allow work stoppages whenever demands are framed as legislative rather than managerial would create a loophole that swallows the rule.
Public employees in this state do not possess a legal right to strike, regardless of the policy issue at stake. A state committed to educating its children cannot normalize illegal work stoppages by those entrusted with teaching them the meaning of civic responsibility.
Teachers, like all citizens, have full First Amendment rights to petition the government and express dissent. They can organize marches, lobby lawmakers, and speak out about public policy. What they cannot do under state law is orchestrate a collective withdrawal of labor.
This issue isn’t just about the law itself. Public schools are charged not only with delivering academic instruction but also with modeling lawful civic conduct and engagement. When educators knowingly disregard the law, particularly in a highly visible and well-publicized manner, the message conveyed to students is obvious: compliance with the law is optional. If we teach students that laws may be ignored whenever they become inconvenient, we should not be surprised when respect for those laws erodes beyond the classroom. After all, if people can violate inconvenient laws, why not break any inconvenient rule?
The North Carolina Constitution protects the rights of free speech and assembly (NC Const. art. I, §§ 12, 14). Still, those protections do not create a constitutional entitlement for public employees to abandon their duties in violation of duly enacted statutes. The Constitution also guarantees students’ right to the opportunity to an education. The Constitution declares that “the people have a right to the privilege of education” and requires the State to maintain a system of public schools (NC Const. art. I, § 15; art. IX, § 2). Coordinated callouts that disrupt instruction interfere with the State’s constitutional obligation and with students’ constitutional right to uninterrupted access to education.
Nothing in this legal framework silences teachers or diminishes their ability to advocate for policy change. Educators retain their full constitutional rights to speak or protest, outside the performance of their public duties. What the law does not permit is the use of coordinated work stoppages during instructional time as a means of political leverage against the public employer.
Encouraging or normalizing conduct that violates existing law is neither principled advocacy nor sound public policy. It undermines legal order and places students in the middle of disputes that should be resolved through lawful channels.
Students deserve continuity, stability, and adherence to the constitutional framework that governs public education. Upholding both requires a clear distinction between protected speech and unlawful conduct — and a firm commitment to resolving disputes within the rule of law.
North Carolina’s students deserve an education grounded not only in academics, but in the example that change in a free society is pursued through lawful means, not unlawful disruption.
