Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

March 6, 2008 issue


Goss Urges District Teachers to Participate in Working Conditions Survey

State Senator Steve Goss, who represents the 45th District counties of Ashe, Alexander, Watauga and Wilkes, urges teachers and principals throughout the district to participate in the state’s 2008 Teacher Working Conditions Survey.

The survey was also conducted in 2004 and 2006, and educators can complete the 2008 survey anonymously via the Internet. Access codes for teachers and administrators to respond to the survey from any Internet location will be mailed to the schools on March 8 by way of the NC Association of Educators representative in the school.

The survey will be administered from Monday, March 17, through Monday, April 21, and this year’s version includes new questions just for principals.

The Governor’s Office is holding weekly and grand prize drawings for faculty in schools that reach 100 percent response rates. This year, each school that reaches the 100 percent response rate will enter a weekly drawing for a $1,000 grant to improve teaching conditions. In the grand prize drawing, schools will be eligible for a $2,500 grant. These new prizes are in addition to the weekly drawing in which a teacher or administrator from a school with a 100 percent response rate will win a cash prize of $1,000 and will become eligible for the $2,500 plasma TV to be awarded in the grand prize drawing.

According to Easley, the state has acted on issues teachers have raised through the survey. In a letter Goss received from the governor, Easley wrote, “After teachers asked for more planning time, we worked together on legislation that requires schools to provide educators duty-free lunch every day and more duty-free planning time. Teachers also told us that improving school leadership was important. That is why starting this fall, all superintendents will be required to use a new, first-in-the-nation evaluation tool to hold school principals accountable for improving working conditions and recruiting and retaining quality teachers.”

For details about the survey and details for participating in the drawings, click to ncteachingconditions.org.