Dear Former Gov. McCrory,

I read without surprise in the past couple of months that you have had a little more than a hard time obtaining gainful, full-time employment since your last day as governor of our state.

No doubt many potential employers in North Carolina are hesitant because of your role in passing and defending the controversial “bathroom law” otherwise known as HB2.

Even you have made such an admission. For instance, there was the News & Observer report on March 13 by Colin Campbell entitled “McCrory, working as consultant, says HB2 makes some employers ‘reluctant to hire me’” (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article138266443.html#storylink=cpy).

It begins,

Former Gov. Pat McCrory says the backlash against House Bill 2 is making some employers reluctant to hire him but he’s currently doing consulting and advisory board work.

McCrory has been appearing frequently in interviews with national media outlets to defend the controversial LGBT law, but he hasn’t announced what’s next for his career. In a podcast interview recently with WORLD, an Asheville-based evangelical Christian news website, McCrory talked about his challenges on the job market.

The former Republican governor says HB2 “has impacted me to this day, even after I left office. People are reluctant to hire me, because, ‘oh my gosh, he’s a bigot’ – which is the last thing I am.”

Well, there will be many who will always judge you by that one ill-fated bill. And you did have every opportunity to veto it and not sign it into law. But you did and you did a rather bad job of defending it to the rest of the country and even the world.

There is a reason that over 20,000 voters who voted for Donald Trump in North Carolina did not vote for you. Well, maybe there’s more than one reason. History will tell.

But as far as being unemployable beyond the “consulting” realm is concerned? I think I have a solution.

Substitute teaching.

I know. It sounds a little “out there.” But you might actually be ready for it. Think about it and imagine…

• Imagine being able to teach fill in for a math teacher and using math to see how one candidate gets more votes than another candidate.
• Imagine being able to teach a civics class and talking about how democracy works when the candidate who gets more votes actually wins the election.
• Imagine then being able to go to a social studies class and could talk about how that doesn’t always work when we have an Electoral College that allows a man who loses the popular vote by nearly three million votes can still become president.
• Imagine being able to teach an English class that is reading your favorite book (Orwell’s 1984) and being able to actually refer to passages from a dystopic novel that seem eerily true 100 days into this current presidency.
• Imagine being able to talk about the effects of coal ash residue into clean drinking water during a science class.
• Imagine instructing students in a speech and debate electives class about the need to verify “pseudo-facts” before proceeding with unfounded claims of voter fraud.
• Imagine being able to help a physics class be able to see how much hot air it really takes to make a giant balloon float above reality.
• Imagine being able to help an economics class calculate the effects of a law like HB2 on the economy of a state like North Carolina. Wait, already been done.
• You could even imagine being able to perform hall duty near a bathroom and be bold enough to ask everyone who goes into the facility for his/her birth certificate.

But maybe the primary reason for this possible venture is to see the real effects that our state government has had on public education and the students who attend those schools – effects that either you allowed and/or even abetted.

1. HB2 – Bathroom Bill
2. Medicaid Expansion Denied
3. Teacher Pay still at the bottom tier in the nation
4. Removal of due-process rights for new teachers
5. Graduate Degree Pay Bumps Removed for new teachers
6. Bad Teacher Evaluation Systems
7. Push for Merit Pay
8. “Average” Raises and neglecting veteran teachers
9. Central Office Allotment Cuts
10. Attacks on Teacher Advocacy Groups (NCAE)
11. Revolving Door of Standardized Tests
12. Less Money Spent per Pupil in Traditional Public Schools
13. Remove Caps on Class Sizes
14. Jeb Bush School Grading System
15. Opportunity Grants Expansion
16. Allowing Private and Religious Schools To Profit From Tax Payer Money
17. Charter School Growth Without Regulation
18. Virtual Schools Deregulation
19. Achievement School Districts
20. Reduction of Teacher Candidates in Colleges
21. Elimination of Teaching Fellows Program
22. Attacks on Teacher Assistants
23. Elimination of State Employees Rights to File Discrimination Suits in State Courts
24. Dan Forest’s request to have Charter School Report to be Rewritten
25. House Bill 539 – Giving Charters Money For Services They Do Not Provide
26. Chad Barefoot’s Appt. to Senate Education Committee Chair
27. Teach For America Expansion Plans
28. SB 873 – Access To Affordable College Education Act
29. Arresting of Teachers Who Protested and Saying They Were At Fault
30. Appointing People Who Are Not Qualified to the SBOE
31. Special Sessions of the General Assembly

It also might give you the incredible opportunity to maybe actually become that which you always claimed you were – a public servant.

Maybe after your tenure as a substitute teacher, you could then become a true advocate for public schools. Maybe start focusing on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system. Considering the possible effects of HB13, HB800, and HB514, your hometown is literally becoming a breeding ground for “reformist” agendas that seek to reinstitute segregation.

But then again, I am only making a suggestion.