Private School Voucher Toolkit

This toolkit contains resources that you and your organization can use to advocate for public schools and against vouchers with elected leaders and business/community leaders. It includes sample resolutions, letters, links to social media images, and links to data so you can pull together your own materials. This is a work in progress; you can reach us at [email protected] with questions and suggestions.

We are specifically asking you to help us urge legislators to sustain Governor Cooper’s veto of HB10–the private school voucher expansion. Here’s how!

1. Sign our petition.

When you sign and submit the petition, it automatically goes to all legislators in the NCGA. This is a good way to communicate to everyone that you are against voucher expansion, but it is especially important to contact your legislators directly.

2. Contact YOUR legislators to urge them to uphold Governor Cooper’s veto of HB10.

The most direct action you can take is to contact and mobilize others to contact state legislators to urge them to uphold Governor Cooper’s veto. If citizens voice their strong support for public schools and remind legislators of our public schools’ critical role in healthy communities, they are more likely to let the veto stand.

3. Contact other elected leaders such as school board members, county commissioners, and PTA, business and civic leaders to urge them to contact state legislators also. This is a community problem and needs a coordinated local campaign. 
4. Write an opinion piece or letter to the editor to your local news media

Raise awareness of the voucher scheme and the damage it will cause to the local community by sharing information through your local media. Community members often don’t know about important legislation such as private school voucher expansion that, if not stopped, will impact whole communities.

For example, in 91 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, the local school district is one of the top three employers in the county. Defunding and damaging public schools could have a devastating impact on the local economy including its labor force and tax rate.

Sample letters to the editor. Click on a sample letter below. Then copy/download it from the Google drive and edit to personalize. Use the contact information for media outlets by county to find places to send your letter.

5. Encourage your school board, PTA (and others) to pass a resolution opposing vouchers. 

A resolution is a statement of the will or opinion of an elected body.  As the governing body of our schools and stewards of tax dollars, a resolution sends a clear statement to our state lawmakers that our school districts want legislators to reject voucher expansion and instead to pass legislation with full, permanent funding of our public schools. 

Gather other public school advocates to sign a petition in support of the resolution and speak about it at a board meeting. Our NC Public Education Network lists pro-public education organizations in each county and statewide to help you grow your network.

In North Carolina, county commissions are responsible for funding school districts and have local taxing authority. When the state fails to fund schools, county commissioners must bridge the gap. In many communities, the local tax base is not strong enough to make up for the state’s lack of funding and schools suffer greatly. Your county commissioners and city government can and should also pass resolutions in support of your school district and against vouchers.

Many school boards in North Carolina have already passed resolutions against vouchers. School boards are already working hard to provide a strong public education for our children without the funds they need–voucher expansion will only make it more difficult.

If your school board has not passed a resolution, you can use an example below as a starting point to create one for your district and ask them to sign on. Before the school board’s next meeting, send the resolution to board members and then speak about it during the public comment period.

6. Share our infographics to help inform everyone about vouchers in North Carolina.
7. Use our data and social media graphics.
  • Opportunity Scholarship Distributions by Schools and County includes spreadsheets showing how much each school has received since launch in 2014 and data by county as well as individual graphics for every county. Use the data to create messages and raise awareness in your communities!
  • 2024 Opportunity Scholarship Voucher Expansion Impact includes images for every county showing Opportunity Scholarship waitlist funding by county and examples of alternative uses for the funds statewide. 
  • Leandro and Voucher Impact Images show how much funding is owed to each county and how much each county could lose to vouchers. 
  • Leandro Impact by County (Every Child NC) has detailed funding information (2022) showing how much funding the Leandro plan (Comprehensive Remedial Plan) allocates to each county. Show these to every person who asks what fully funding public schools looks like!
8. Connect with other public school supporters in your county and across the state.

NC Public Education Network is a resource to help connect people who are passionate about public schools. Click on a county to see county-specific organizations. Find more organizations by clicking on NC Statewide Organization and National/Other State Organizations.