First, the word “average” means that not all get the same raise.
Second, there will be no back pay for teachers. From NC Newsline:
“The pay increases will not be retroactive, but would begin with the budget year that starts July 1. Teachers and state employees would also receive bonuses based on their salaries.”
caffeinated rage 
once got the best advice of my life when I was 16 years old.
Of course, at 16, I had no idea it would become a lesson that would repeatedly show me exactly who people were.
I had just started dating a very cute boy who had quickly broken up with his girlfriend to be with me. I thought I had won the lottery. My best friend’s mom looked at me and said:
“If he’ll do it for you, he’ll do it to you.”
And she was right.
When he eventually left me for the next girl, that advice burned itself into my brain forever. Since then, it has applied to far more than relationships.
I went to the University of Georgia, earned my degree in early childhood education, and moved to North Carolina to teach.
What many people don’t understand is that teaching is one of the worst professions to move states in. Retirement systems, years of service, salary schedules, and benefits are all tied to time invested. You build your life around staying.
And for years, veteran teachers in North Carolina have stayed while being slowly stripped down.
Our pay has been frozen.
Longevity pay was taken away.
Raises haven’t matched the cost of living.
Insurance costs keep climbing.
We’re expected to mentor new teachers, lead initiatives, run trainings, sponsor clubs, work second jobs, and “remember our why” while struggling to pay our bills.
Meanwhile, people with no classroom experience sit in offices telling the public that long-term substitutes are good enough and advanced degrees don’t make us better educators.
Now the state is proposing larger raises for newer teachers while veteran teachers receive only small increases.
And I need the newer teachers to understand something:
This is not generosity.
This is a trap.
Because if they’ll do it for you, they’ll do it to you.
Right now it feels like you’re being valued. But eventually they will freeze your pay too. They will cut benefits too. They will ask you to sacrifice more while giving less. They are counting on younger teachers staying just long enough to hold the system together while veteran teachers leave before retirement eligibility.
The goal is not retention.
The goal is cost reduction.
Please understand this before you invest decades of your life the way many of us did.
It’s too late for me to make different choices about where I built my career. But it is not too late for me to make a new choice now.
So yes — I’m dusting off my résumé.
And I will be leaving.
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