Gov. Cooper visits Charlotte to push for early education and child care funding

CHARLOTTE — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is pushing state lawmakers to spend more money on early childhood education and child care.

The governor visited the Early Learning Center PReschool in south Charlotte on Tuesday -- it’s one of hundreds of schools that will lose pandemic-era funding at the end of the month.

Channel 9 has reported on the funding cuts previously, and districts like Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are making big changes in anticipation of losing millions of dollars in funding.

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Cooper says the loss will force some locations to close. He wants state lawmakers to scrap their school voucher plan and adopt his budget.

“We could give an 8.5% pay raise to our public school teachers, we could also provide a $1,500 retention bonus, plus we could hire more counselors, more teacher assistants and more school nurses,” Cooper said in Charlotte.

The governor’s budget also includes $200 million for child care stabilization grants to keep child care centers open after the funding ends this summer.

Lawmakers are expected to vote on the budget this week.

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