RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The North Carolina Association of Educators is surveying its members about whether they’re willing to miss multiple days of school to get lawmakers to act on a state budget.

A spokesman for NCAE said the survey asks members if they’re willing to miss between zero and 10 days. 

It is illegal for teachers to strike in North Carolina.

“Educators are understandably frustrated by the decade of disrespect and marginalization they have received from lawmakers, and we will consider all that is necessary to make a positive impact for public schools and all of those educators who serve in them,” said Mark Jewell, president of NCAE.

State lawmakers left Raleigh on January 14 with no resolution to the impasse over the state budget, including what to pay teachers and other school employees.

Sen. Phil Berger (R) said one Democrat was needed to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the budget.

Cooper (D) vetoed the bill in October that would have provided teachers an average 3.9 percent raise over two years.

The governor called the raises “paltry.”

Berger’s office released a statement to CBS 17 concerning NCAE’s surveying of its members:

“It’s shocking and disappointing that there would be a push to illegally strike even though teachers have received the third-highest pay raise in the entire country. The NCAE’s own parent organization reports that average teacher pay in North Carolina is $54,000 per year, good for second in the Southeast. It’s clear that a small, radicalized minority cares more about a political agenda than about teaching children.

“In any event, if they’re going to march, they should march to Governor Cooper’s mansion, because he’s the only one blocking the sixth and seventh consecutive teacher pay raises and a $1 billion increase in public education spending.”

Pat Ryan – spokesman for Sen. Phil Berger

House Speaker Tim Moore’s office also released a statement:

It is increasingly obvious why 95% of North Carolina teachers are not contributing members of NCAE – their partisan leadership is more focused on opposing voter ID, supporting illegal immigration, expanding federal entitlements, and blocking legislative pay increases for their own colleagues, than actually benefitting educators and students in this state. 

Joseph Kyzer, spokesman for Speaker Tim Moore