A political endorsement and an award
Endorsement and award given as NCAE met for its 53rd annual convention
At its 53rd annual convention, the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) endorsed Attorney General Josh Stein in his 2024 bid for governor of the state.
The NCAE is the state’s affiliate of the National Education Association, one of the two largest teachers’ unions in the country.
“Josh Stein is a proven champion for pro-public-school policies and has the best interests of our students, public school communities, and staff at heart,” said NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly in an Instagram post announcing the group’s endorsement of Stein.
Stein accepted the NCAE’s endorsement.
During the NCAE’s annual conference, NCAE Vice President Bryan Proffitt told the attendees,"I know that y'all are in this room because you haven't walked away. You've dug in. You're fighting for our kids, for each other, for our public schools, and our professions.”
Proffitt was a former history teacher in Durham Public Schools with an extensive activist past. In the past, he has described himself as a Socialist and has been a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).
Another photo posted to Twitter shows NCAE’s Charlotte area representative Justin Parmenter wearing a t-shirt of a protest fist holding pencil while posing with Stein.
This past week, Parmenter took to Twitter to attack Rep. Tricia Cotham after she announced she was changing her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. He used emojis to represent the word “horse shit” and called her claims of being persecuted and her children targeted by her former party “whiny.”
“Coming from the biggest victim, whiniest dude in NC who staged a funeral procession to keep schools closed, a fake trespass in his yard…..,” the grassroots director for the John Locke Foundation Kelly Mann tweeted in response to Parmenter’s complaints.
Mann included a photo of Parment’s COVID school closure hearse stunt, which Parmenter had said was a “nice touch” to have driven it back and forth in front of the house of the Superintendent for the Union County Schools district.
Interesting endorsements.
More To The Story
The NCAE also bestowed a “2023 Friend of Education Award” on a racial justice activist, Letha Muhammad. The award was for her work to “dismantle the School to Prison and School to Deportation Pipeline" in the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS).
The work being referenced by the NCAE goes back to the participation of Muhammad’s education activist group in a U.S. Office of Civil Rights complaint which lead to WCPSS creating its “Office of Equity Affairs.”
Another participant in that complaint was the Youth Organizing Institute, which was a project of Action for Community in Raleigh (ACRe), a registered 501c(3) organization. Proffitt was affiliated with ACRe at the time.
Muhammad is currently the executive director of the Education Justice Alliance (EJA).
Last May, I reported that EJA’s new activism endeavors involved children; a new youth social justice activism project called the “Youth Power Institute” that literally is recruiting WCPSS students to be activists.
Muhammad herself garnered national attention for her expletive-filled comments at a WPCSS board meeting. Video captured Muhammed defending books that other parents said are inappropriate and contained sexually explicit language and images. Apparently, an audience member called her a pervert to which she responded with a very audible "F*** You."
Interesting “Friend of Education”.
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