Thanks for the volunteers, business community. Our schools still need money.

Two years ago, much of our society was brought to its knees as a once-in-a-century pandemic killed thousands of Americans daily and interrupted education as we knew it. Like many, my wife and I struggled to juggle our jobs with ensuring that our son was engaged with remote learning — something new to us, as school itself was relatively new as well. We heard from many parents, along with the corporate community, about how important education was and how important in-person learning was. Many expressed an epiphany that our educators were heroes.

As the son of a retired veteran teacher, it was an awakening that I thought was welcome and overdue. Whenever I see educators, I say “thanks for your service” and truly mean it, as very few of us would be in the jobs we are without the educational foundation that educators provided.

Recently, I was pleased to learn about a partnership between Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council (CELC). I grew up in this city when we were fortunate that our business community, led by folks like Hugh McColl and Harvey Gantt, wisely recognized the value that public schools brought in growing this old mill town into the attractive city that brought many of you here the last few decades.

And while I’m happy that there is bridge building between the district and our business community, I invite the CELC to take the next step and support our schools being fully funded under the Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan.

A group of more than 50 leaders, including major corporation executives and directors, former leaders in education, and civic leaders filed legal support for our General Assembly to comply with our state constitution and appropriately fund our public schools, as ordered by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

While I appreciate volunteering and donations, I will truly believe the CELC is partnering with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools when I see it advocating for proper funding that allows schools to be properly staffed with educators, social workers, teaching assistants and the fundamental elements that will produce the global workforce so many say they want.

A question: If a $6 billion pot of money (as is being hoarded by our state legislature) had been siphoned from BofA, Wells Fargo, Ally, 5/3, Duke Power, Atrium, Novant, and those companies needed more money because they were hemorrhaging vital and underpaid employees, how many of those leaders would say money’s not the problem?

If we are going to use words like partnership, I’m inviting us to do it with full integrity, as I know we can. Volunteers are great, but only if we aren’t pitching them as substitutes for those who are experts and do this as their life’s work.

The greatest act of partnership from our business community would be to take the next step and publicly support appropriate funding of our schools and state compliance with the Leandro order. Schools are not properly funded in North Carolina. Let’s use the same energy for our kids’ education that’s been used to lobby our corporate tax rate down to zero.

Otherwise, our world-saving is a charade; and our donations are tantamount to robbing our kids’ lunchboxes, giving them monthly breadcrumbs, and saying we started a food pantry.

This story was originally published August 24, 2022 at 1:00 PM.