The LWVNC Public Education League Action Team is working with the NCPTA to address the urgent need for teacher retention and to fully fund the Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan. The timing for action is now since legislators are preparing for the General Assembly short session that starts on May 18, where new legislation could be enacted. 
 
Why are we connecting with you? We want you, and every League member, and all NCPTA members (~110,000 constituents) across the state to send emails to their legislators to keep our teachers, counselors, social workers, and paraprofessionals and fully fund Leandro. There is hope that our legislators will write and pass budget legislation in the short session that would fully fund the Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan.
 
What do you need to do? Read through and complete these simple steps to contact your legislators. We suggest you do it right now to assure the quick action that is needed now. (From experience, we all know that if it is not done now, we won’t do it! We will get busy, distracted, or procrastinate.)

We are providing four sample letters as well as a way to obtain the contact information for constituents’ legislators. Here is the contact information for legislators who are in leadership positions. This email action should only take a few minutes and be easy to do.

THE STEPS
1. Look up your legislators’ emails by clicking on this link: https://www.ncleg.gov/FindYourLegislators 
Copy and paste your legislators’ information so you have it.

2. Select the letter you want to send and/or write your own. See four sample letters here to get you started. 

3. Open your email, enter one or both legislators’ email addresses – whatever you think will be more powerful.

4. Enter communications [at] LWVNC.org () to send a BCC copy to the state League so LWVNC knows what you have done and can follow up.

5. Enter a subject line as suggested on the sample letter you are choosing. 

6. Copy and paste the sample letter, or better yet, compose your own making it personal for your community.

7. Enter your name and location at the bottom so your legislator will know you are a constituent.

8. Click Send!

9. If you only sent this first email to one legislator, open another email, enter your other legislator’s email address, and repeat the process. BCC communications [at] LWVNC.org and add the subject line, body of the email, your name, and your location.

When you get any response back from your legislators, PLEASE forward it to communications [at] LWVNC.org. It’s best to respond personally to your legislator that day, thanking him/her for any planned action. BCC your response to communications [at] LWVNC.org. This way, we will know how your legislator responded, to inform us for future actions. 

Many of us have legislators who support our teachers/school staffers and support funding public education. In that case, we suggest that you copy your email to the General Assembly leadership who may not be supportive of these actions. The list of the leaders is here. That way, the leadership will realize how grassroots this action request is. They may win the primary, but they won’t win the election unless something is done for our educators and funding Leandro!

We can do this! Thank you for your efforts. 

Rebecca Poling
Chair,
LWVNC Public Education League Action Team