Cumberland County Board of Education adopts 2025 legislative agenda, emphasizes teacher pay and recruitment

The Cumberland County Board of Education on a vote adopted its 2025 legislative agenda, a document the board’s legislative committee recommended to the full board.

The legislative committee presentation and subsequent vote focused on state-level priorities the board will ask the county’s legislative delegation to pursue, most notably raising teacher pay and expanding recruitment and retention incentives.

Miss Morris, the legislative committee presenter, told the board the agenda mirrors recommendations from statewide school boards groups and emphasized pay and pipeline concerns. “We would also like to recommend they implement step increases at every level … provide pay raises for every school employee with extra bonus for STEM teachers, special education teachers, and bus drivers,” Miss Morris said. She added the committee wants to “expand recruitment programs to address a large number of vacancies” and to provide signing bonuses for new hires.

Why it matters: the agenda sets the board’s formal requests to state lawmakers. The committee framed the measures as responses to local staffing shortages and regional pay comparisons: in her remarks Miss Morris said Cumberland County is “below 3 of its 4 neighboring states and 5th out of 12 Southeastern States” on average teacher pay, language she used to justify the board’s push for higher statewide pay and expanded step increases.

Board procedure and outcome: a motion to adopt the legislative agenda was made and seconded on the floor; the full board then voted to adopt the committee-recommended agenda. The transcript records the motion and the board’s vote but does not include an itemized roll call or individual vote tallies in the meeting record.

Discussion points noted by the committee included: increasing state average teacher pay, implementing step increases at all levels rather than at limited service milestones, targeted bonuses for STEM and special education teachers and bus drivers, and recruitment and signing-bonus programs to address vacancies. The agenda document presented to the board was described as aligned with recommendations from a statewide school boards association.

The board did not adopt any new local pay policy at the meeting; the action was limited to approving the board’s legislative priorities for 2025 and directing those priorities to the board’s legislative outreach.

The board’s next regular meeting was announced for February 11, 2025.