- [Kelly] Senate leaders suggests bills could be moving soon in Raleigh, including immigration legislation, and could 25% of all local school districts statewide openly violate the state school calendar rules.

This is "State Lines."

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- Welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

What a great panel we have today.

Our good friend Dawn Vaughan of "The News & Observer."

To my right, Representative Zack Hawkins of Durham County is here, and who Representative Hawkins calls the rookie.

[Zack laughing] Representative Heather Rhyne of Lincoln County debuting on "State Lines."

Always welcome the first-time attendees of "State Lines."

You're with a great group.

- Thank you, yeah.

- Good to have you here and to-- - Glad be here.

- Well, we're glad to have you.

And Joe, I know you're excited to have everyone here here too.

Joe Stewart, political analyst.

He's done a million things in this state.

This is the 1,000,001 job.

[panelists laughing] That he has as a panelist.

Let's get started.

A lot of topics, I write more show than we can ever get to in a half hour, but you really wanna get to that last story about Western North Carolina.

So let's start back towards Raleigh, where House Speaker Destin Hall's been touting the House approval and now Senate action on a rather broad immigration law enforcement bill.

I'm referencing House Bill 318 in this case, if you wanna look it up, it establishes a class of felonies that would trigger an immigration status check.

Now, these are new bill versions.

These bills change, you know, throughout the process.

Well, this week, the bill that moved authorizes an immigration check on anybody arrested on any felony charge, as well as impaired driving charges.

Now, jailers would report the upcoming release of any inmate held at least partially under an immigration detainer and alleged drunk drivers would be fingerprinted and checked with US Homeland Security if citizenship status could not be determined by the magistrate when you appear in court.

Dawn, subtle changes in the bill, but it seems to be refining, adding the drunk driving component of allegations, a little bit more specific on what triggers an immigration check.

- Yeah, we knew this was coming.

House Speaker Destin Hall, after they passed HB10 last year, had talked about how they wanted to do a little more with immigration legislation.

The Senate has its own bill that they're running next week that's going through committee.

And of course the House changed a little bit of the Senate version of this, so it'll have to go back.

But we're kind of at the point in session now where the things that, although everyone's divided on the budget still between House and Senate Republicans, there are certain issues they have agreement on.

Immigration is one of them.

It's just a matter of tweaking and refining the bill so they all sign off on it, and then send to Governor Stein.

- Representative Hawkins, hundreds of bills are out there, do you think this immigration bill's flown through?

We've talked about it a couple of months ago.

They go away and then pop- - Sure.

- here they come slightly different.

What's the stance on the immigration bill?

Destin Hall and the Republicans wanna make hay with this and use it to draw a distinction with Democrats.

- They do, and funny enough, I was flipping back through old stories of mine and I was talking about this my first term, my rookie term in 2019, because the same bill about ICE and immigration continues to come up.

And there was a federal bill that the president of the United States stopped that was bipartisan and that could have solved what is a federal issue.

I'm very wary of the state of North Carolina, with its limited resources and the need to make sure that we're taking care of our citizens, to wade more deeply into federal issues.

And so I think that while we can talk about immigration, we can talk about enforcement, we're a few miles away from the border, but we can still talk about the impacts seriously and the ways that we can be helpful to people, but to try and take on what is a federal issue in the state of North Carolina is just disingenuous.

And if you look at the whereas clauses, it really hints to a lot more political.

And we can talk about reasons for that later.

- Representative Rhyne, I've thought a lot about this bill and this issue in general.

It is a federal issue at its core, but this seems to be targeting law enforcement at the local level from what I've seen.

You're telling sheriffs and police, "This is what you need to be doing," and it's just compliance with federal law.

How do you see the issue?

Is it popular at the state level?

Do people who vote on state issues care about immigration as much as those federally issue-focused voters?

- I think the thing that's interesting to me is how politically divisive this has become, because it's such a common sense bill.

North Carolinians want to know who is in their state, they want to know, you know, when somebody commits a crime, they wanna know, are they here legally or illegally.

And I think we have to remember when we talk about it being a federal issue, that that's why we're in the situation we're in as a state right now where we're having to put some things in place.

Over the past four years, there hasn't been enforcement and we've let a lot of illegal aliens into our country.

And so I think that's why we are where we are today and why we're having to put in as a state some better enforcement on this.

- Joe, there's a House bill, there's Senate bills.

I just distinguished one bill, 318, of the ones that are out there and have been there.

Is this one of these issues that every session you think going forward they'll find a way, some politician will find a way to tweak it, to add to it.

'Cause there are certain issues that never go away, and it seems like we've settled it, and then here comes some little twist and nuance.

- Well, ironically, as Representative Hawkins said, this is an issue that needs to be addressed at the national level.

We need a comprehensive reform of this nation's immigration law.

One of the most important things for any country is to control its borders, to make sure that people are following the law that want to come to this country.

The other part as Representative Ryan said, legislators by their nature have a tendency to be responsive to the issues that are raised most frequently by their constituents, and this is an issue many people are concerned with.

Folks that have come to this country, and if they've come here unlawfully, by and large, they've come here because of the economic opportunities that are present for them here, for their children and for the future.

We need the workforce that we have, and many times, people that have come here, even if they've come unlawfully, are necessary for the jobs that are out there, that are otherwise gonna go unfilled.

But at the end of the day, the legislature is doing what it thinks is best to address this problem, but the remedy is comprehensive immigration reform.

- Next topic, we follow a report of the news and observer, Don.

Thanks for the good work this week on this from your team.

This week it reported less than 10% of those opportunity scholarships or school vouchers actually went to public school student's families.

The report says the state paid out $34.4 million last fall to former public school students, who had they stayed in public school, would've translated into $44.5 million for public school funding.

So figure the math out on that.

Families receiving school vouchers up over 100%.

The assumption is that private school families have tapped these scholarships, primarily families entering kindergarten may have signed kids up for private school as the first stop in the educational journey.

Some families may have moved from outta state.

Representative Ryan, big price difference, but kids are going to school.

It was cheaper to pay a voucher than to fund them if they were to stay in public education.

What gives?

- So it's interesting to me when we talk about this debate, that we're always talking about the money, and we never are really talking about the child.

And when we begin to reduce children down to a dollar figure, when we say things like, "Well, if we would've made this child go to this school, my school could have had more money," then I think we're not doing right by children.

And so this debate is one that I've followed for a long time.

I was chair of the board of education in my district prior to this role.

And you know, one of the things when this started happening, I remember looking at it and saying, "Not a problem.

We'll be the best option.

We'll make sure our school system is the best option."

And that's the route we took.

And that's the mentality that we took in our district.

And, you know, the fact of the matter is, there are fantastic things happening in our traditional public schools across this state, and in our public charter schools across this state.

And I'll intentionally use the word and instead of but, there are still children who need another option.

And so that's what this is about.

And so I think we've gotta look at children and what a individual child needs, and some of them need different options.

- Representative Hawkins, this is an interesting debate in certain urban areas , because there are some strong Democratic voices out there that are very pro school choice.

They get drowned out a bit.

But does it get complicated when a report comes out?

Not to criticize the report, we're not doing that.

But to say, "You educated this number of students for 34 million, it would've cost 44 million had they gone to public school, if you're a state taxpayer."

- Yeah, sure, and part of the reason for that, now I'll use my two sons, kids with developmental disabilities, two kids with autism.

It cost a little more in the public setting to educate those children.

Kids that have IEPs, that cost a little bit more.

And the issue is, is that, when you talk about private education, you don't always have to...

They serve who they wanna serve.

They don't have to serve in the same way... That price differential is a little deceiving.

And you know, I think, at the end of the day, we have to make sure that, as she said, and I'm so glad for Lincoln County and we want everybody to follow that suit, that the public education system is the place where most of our kids, of the 1.5 million kids, are educated in North Carolina.

We have to make sure that that's the best option.

And by making sure that people... We don't want people to circumvent that system, right?

We want them to have options, but we want them to know that the public school is not a place to be demonized, and that teachers are working really hard and the amazing work that's being done is being valued, and that we are putting forth the best product for our children.

But by, you know, taking $500 million that could be used for other things, out of the general fund to support people who can already pay for education.

Taking people who already have their children in private schools, that's taking away from the product and then saying that it's bad.

And so we really have to make sure, in North Carolina, a state that was built off public education and ensuring that every school system around the state of North Carolina, any kid coming off the farm could be educated.

We have to continue to value that if we're gonna remain competitive.

And you can't be number one in business if you're not number one in public education.

And that has shown it.

And the more that we have done in public education, the more that we funded it, the better we've done.

And so these public school vouchers are really a deterrent to allowing North Carolina to be as great as it possibly can.

- Don, how does this roll out, this philosophical debate?

Is it every school system's guaranteed constitutional funding or is it every student is funded based no matter how we do it as a taxpayer and as our elected leaders choose to disperse education funds?

- Well, there's court cases about that, right?

About the role of the state and what you do.

I think there's two different things at play.

It's how much do you think of public money should subsidize private enterprise?

So that's one, you know, just like policy debate that people have of how much taxpayer money should go to something that's not public.

The other factor, and when I listen to the debate between Democrats and Republicans is a focus on public schools.

A lot of Republicans who support vouchers also talk about themselves being a product of public schools, teachers and their family being, you know, real champions of that.

Where Democrats will argue that if you agree with that, why do you wanna take some money away?

And of course, the budget is a lot of money.

It's, you know, as far as taking away, you can move other money from different things.

So I think that, you know, if people are happy with the public school system here and it helps the economy and that's, you know, always gonna be top of mind when you think about, okay, what else do we wanna spend money on too?

- At this point, Joe, private school and the vouchers are real competition for public schools.

What can each of these systems learn from each other?

They're both educating kids.

Both are hiring teachers from the same colleges.

Teachers a teacher, qualified for the most part, and where do we go?

What do they learn from each other?

Do we get better as a result?

- You know, when I was Chief Deputy State Treasurer, I was 50th.

My license plate was 50.

Meaning if 49 other people had gone by the way, I would've been governor of the state of North Carolina as closest I would've ever come, quite frankly.

But if it had happened, my recommendation would've been this.

We need to look at what it takes to educate the children of the 21st century for the economy of the 21st century, whatever system we have in place, I don't want it to discourage innovation or creativity at the local level.

I don't want it to fail to tap into necessary technological advancements that might make it easier to educate children.

I'm not sure that the system we have is right.

And quite frankly, building a building and making children come there to learn is deeply rooted in the third century BC.

So I'm not entirely sure even that's the right approach to take for this.

So again, not as though I'm making a commission on, every time I say this, I think it's time for comprehensive reform of the way we educate children.

Because going back and forth, whether dollars are being spent appropriately, it's not answering the question, are we doing the best thing for the kids?

- One thing too, and I forgot to say this, is we're about to go off a fiscal cliff in the state of North Carolina with tax cuts going at the rate they are, with the triggers that are in place with North Carolina taking in less revenue.

And on top of it being at a place where we have an excess of a hundred million dollars that was not used in that public voucher system and 500 million that eventually will be committed.

North Carolina just can't afford it right now.

And again, where we educate 1.5 million kids in the public school system.

So any dollar that we have needs to go in that direction.

- Stay right there, I'm gonna come right back to you Representative Hawkins.

A quarter of North Carolina's public school districts may take their chances and violate the state's laws and school calendars.

29 school districts have voted to start school outside the state mandated dates, which are always in August.

15 school districts violated that calendar law in summer of 2024.

These rebellious districts largely plan to open school the week of August 12th, one week earlier than state legislators say they need to.

Okay, state legislature says one thing.

The school board that I helped elect, if I voted, said something else.

What do we do about this local governments or trust our legislature?

- So Durham County, as well as every district, every legislator in the House.

We actually passed a bill, multiple bills out of the House last session for comprehensive school calendar reform.

- Finally, finally.

- And I am not advocating for our district, the LEAs to break, you know, the law at all, but I do understand where they're coming from because when I was in school in North Carolina public school, we had X amount of people.

Now we're approaching 11 million people.

The economies, depending on where you are, are much different.

And every district has a need.

And so we need to move in their direction.

If 25% of any district is saying that we need and are willing to take the chance to have the speaker and the Senate pro temp come down on them, we as legislators in corner offices have to take that seriously and have to make sure that we're doing what's best for every county to succeed and make sure that their kids and their economies are being put forth.

- Take the school board perspective since you served there publicly and were elected.

- That's right.

- Who do you owe your loyalty to?

The local parent or to the state legislature that won't change a law that a lot of school districts won't change?

- I think in both situations, we all have constituents that we represent.

Right?

And I think what we're seeing here is really civil unrest.

When people fight for this for over a decade and your constituents are reaching out and, you know, I fought for it at the school board level too to have calendar flexibility.

I think this is what you see happening when you have civil unrest like this.

And so I'm very thankful that this year, for the first time that I'm aware of that the Senate is entertaining some potential changes to the calendar.

And I hope we'll have some good negotiations in that process.

But certainly the House, historically, and again this year, as Representative Hawkins says, has always put forth legislation for calendar flexibility and in strong support of that.

- Joe, civil unrest is a big term.

It's starting to, it's starting to be parents.

- [Guest] There's no riots over it.

[group laughs] - Maybe, maybe the first day, but Joe, when we talk about civil unrest, this isn't groups of people against, these are parents who are both suing to preserve summer, parents who want changes and then a bunch of folks in school districts fighting a couple of lobbyists in Raleigh who get the ear of leaders that they can't get the ear of.

Have I got this kind of sized up?

- Yeah, you know, I always say politics is one of the interesting human phenomenas where two things that seem diametrically opposed can both be true at the same time.

And it is true, there's an industry associated with kids being able to take vacations and go to camps, and there is a need for North Carolina to have an educational infrastructure that prepares young people for the economy of the 21st century.

And that probably necessitates the kind of local flexibility to determine a calendar that makes sense for what they're trying to accomplish.

But that's why these two elected officials get paid the big salaries they do.

So they could come to Raleigh and figure out what the right middle path is.

- One thing as a parent that I've noticed is because of the way the calendars work and I'm a Wake County parent, is that the finals are after winter break.

- [Dawn] That's right, that's right.

- Which I feel like is something that comes up in debates all the time.

And as far as how this would actually result on the ground, tourism industry is important, of course, but as far as like students and how their lives are gonna change, that's probably gonna be the thing that you would notice the most if the calendars shift, I think.

- And I think from a tourism perspective, I think there's an argument to be made too, that if we could start a little bit earlier.

You know, tourism has historically been directed to the eastern part of our county, and it's extremely important for our economy.

But I think there's an argument to be made right now, if we could start a little bit earlier, you get to put in a, like we, you know, workday, two work days to have a long weekend to go to Western North Carolina who really needs our tourism right now.

And when you get those exams finished before Christmas, then you actually have a break, that families feel like they can go, and you know, maybe they're skiing in Western North Carolina.

So I think it's, I think it's an important point to make.

- Doctor, we always think about the beach, the mountains are out there as well.

All right, Joe, one of your favorite topics, this is your live, well partially your livelihood.

Let's talk about hurricanes.

2025's hurricane season officially underway folks, state leaders are calling attention to it.

Noah is predicting a 30% chance of a normal hurricane season, a 60% chance of an above average season.

And they believe there's a 10% chance we'll have below normal hurricane activity.

Here's the governor.

- So let's get our things ready, our evacuation and communication plan ready, and our homes ready.

Preparing now may make all the difference if a disaster does strike.

What we want to make sure is if a storm hits a community again, we've done everything in our power to ensure that the degree of damage is substantially less the second time.

- The governor doing governor's things.

They're telling you to get your flashlights and all of that.

The 25 seasons here, we can't let 24 go.

- No, well, we think of hurricanes as a Eastern North Carolina phenomena.

Certainly Hurricane Helene taught us, no part of the state is immune from the devastation that could be caused by a storm coming to North Carolina.

It is a slightly above average prediction for this year in terms of named storms and devastations.

But even if it's not a major storm, if it causes damage to your home, it feels like it was a major event.

Preparation is important.

We've gone through a couple of tough years in the property insurance markets.

It's a good time to make sure that your coverage for your home or your commercial property is adequate, given the peril of natural disaster, preparing yourself and your family as the governor's instructed is good.

But it is important for us to remember that Hurricane Helene and the impact on Western North Carolina, we all have an obligation to remind people, Western North Carolina is open for business.

It is a big travel and tourism industry.

Lots of the attractions that were impacted by Helene are back open again.

We need to go and support those local businesses.

- That'll be our next topic.

But talking about hurricane season kicking off, Western North Carolina devastated, Eastern North Carolina always waits every year for a hurricane.

So would people get nervous by just bringing up this issue that it's hurricane season?

- I think definitely people look at hurricane season a little differently than they used to with what happened last year in North Carolina.

And you know, it's one of those things, we can't live in that fear, but we've gotta be prepared.

As Joe said, I think we have to, you know, we have to prepare now, and we have to be ready for it.

But to say there's not probably a little more anxiety over hurricane season this year would be a falsehood, I think.

- Yeah, Representative Hawkes, I can't imagine a storm hitting this fall, and then you've got legislators competing for recovery dollars.

- Oh.

- [Kelly] I can't imagine that.

And it's possible.

- Yeah, and you know, not to mention there are federal cuts to Noah.

So their capacities are limited.

We're the third state that has been told "no" for federal funds for disaster recovery and relief.

And as a native eastern North Carolinian, I know what it's like to suffer through and have people who've lost everything.

And so our friends in the West have every right to feel that anxiety, most importantly, because there's still debris everywhere and their lives are not always, you know, they're not all the way back, you know, to where they could be.

And so one thing that I'll say about this is that the House passed a bill, a clean, clean bill to make sure that we helped support the governor's efforts in our Western North Carolina partners to ensure that they help with debris removal, roads and bridges, small business grants.

And so we ask, I'm publicly asking our senate colleagues to take that bill up so we can get relief to them as soon as possible so that they can get moving, in case there is another storm.

- Who wants to be caught off guard?

- Nobody wants- - So it's always- - To be caught off guard.

- Good to be early.

Better than too late.

- In the Senate, it's not a matter of whether or not they've been funding recovery, it's just how to do it.

Once in the state budget has those funds baked into a state budget bill, the other would have a separate standalone bill coming out of the house.

- And still not knowing what the end result's gonna be for federal money.

- That's right.

Let's go to this final topic, much more positive.

It's open for business week.

As announced in Western North Carolina, news of Helene recovery has been giving tourist second thoughts about planning trips to the mountains.

"Don't do that," they say.

The recovery efforts have been praised.

One told us a couple weeks ago, it's almost been miraculous how clean it's been.

Many businesses are reopened.

Now they need tourism dollars.

Governor Stein appeared on CBS's Late Show to promote tourism, and U.S.

Congressman Chuck Edwards is also promoting tourism.

He spoke with me here on PBS North Carolina this week.

- We've got craft stores, we've got museums, our wineries, much of our ag tourism is back up and running.

Our rafting companies, our river fishing guides are back in business.

And we sure could use folks coming back into Western North Carolina to enjoy all the beauty and the great things that we have.

- Representative Rhyne, now rhetoric matters.

The more legislators get loud and complain about funding that we don't have enough to get the job done, families are going, "The job isn't done."

So how do we balance tourism and saying, "Let the politics be what they will.

I'm gonna have a good time in the mountains."

- I think there's probably no better way to end this show than to say Western North Carolina is open.

And while efforts still continue, they're open for business.

And as North Carolinians, we need to get to the mountains and we need to spend some local dollars there and pour back into their economy and help them as much as we can.

So what a great way to end the show, to be able to say, "You know what?

Let's all get to Western North Carolina."

- Yeah, being public media representing North Carolina, it's one of these shows.

We've made a special coming up I think on June 12th.

It will air, people can watch that interview as part of it.

But to see the Democratic governor on Colbert, very safe audience there.

And then Congressman Edwards coming on PBS North Carolina, good to have him on there.

Both parties touting, singing from the same hymn book, it's good to see.

- That's exactly right, and I agree with my colleague that while they're in recovery, the best way to be supportive of your North Carolina neighbor is to go and spend those dollars.

I'll never forget growing up, that's one of the reasons I fell in love with Western North Carolina, is I would go with my grandmother's garden club to see the shows in Western North Carolina.

Me and my sisters getting a chance to go to Asheville, even as an adult, growing to learn the intricacies of the way that Western North Carolina is so beautiful and what it provides to our state as it relates to tourism and the impacts of tourism.

So we are asking everyone to leave their homes, go to Western North Carolina, and showcase, share your social media.

Let others know that it's nothing wrong with going out and making sure that our neighbors are getting the kind of need, the help they need.

- 20 seconds to, yeah, or is the tide changing with what we're hearing about Western North Carolina?

Is it time to go back to normal?

- I was out in Boone a couple of months ago.

I mean, that's like not all the way, further west on the mountains, but one of the reasons that North Carolina is the best state in the country is that we have the mountains and the beach.

So yeah, of course, go check everything else.

- 20 seconds, Joe.

- Some of the most spectacular golf courses in the country in Western North Carolina.

I personally will go and play in those courses and report back how wonderful they are, if that's helpful to the cause.

- Please.

- I'm glad to sacrifice in that way.

- Stand by on the Zoom call.

We'll check you on the 17th Hall.

Thank you, panel, for being there.

Representative, good to have you.

Hope you'll come back and see us.

- Thank you so much, I've enjoyed it.

- It has been just a pleasure.

Even more of a pleasure for you to watch us every week.

So if you have a thought about what this crowd's been discussing, email me, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

I hope to see you next time.

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