By Amy Cockerham
Public Ed Works

MIDDLEBURG (June 9, 2026) – Vance County Schools elementary teacher Loricia Martin is teaching in the same system she grew up in and hoping to change her students’ lives for the better.

“I saw a lot of the situations that students went through because I went through them myself,” Martin said. “Just knowing how much of an impact education had on my ability to make better decisions and set up a better future for myself, I wanted that for students as well.”

Martin was recently nominated for her school’s Math Teacher of the Year.

“One of my biggest goals is for any student that walks in my classroom to not be intimidated by math,” Martin said. “I like to use a lot of narrative stories in my classroom.”

Martin said despite the creative strategies she uses to engage students, it’s hard to compete with some of the obstacles her students face, like struggling to get to school and eat three meals a day.

“They come in lacking a lot of the basic needs that would allow them to learn,” Martin said. “That’s what I see on a day-to-day basis.”

With North Carolina ranking last in public school funding in the U.S., she said there’s a lot more our state could be doing to support kids.

“Funding for transportation, after-school, making sure that all students can eat a free lunch,” Martin said. “They can’t think because they’re hungry, then they’re coming to school for no reason.”

“They are the future of the state of North Carolina, and without them, there are no more teachers or doctors or nurses,” Martin said. “They’re not just failing to fund us. They’re failing to fund the future generation.”

Martin said sadly teachers aren’t able to reward positive behavior in the classroom with field trips or special treats anymore. 

“We can’t afford to send them places because there’s no funding for that,” Martin said. “We would just have to give them snacks as rewards, which is not what we typically would like to do because it kind of goes against that principle, but that’s all we can afford to do at the moment.”

Low funding means fewer teachers in schools, too.

“We had to do a strange four-way block because we did not have an allotment for another fourth grade teacher,” Martin said. “It didn’t feel like we were over capacity, but our workload was a lot higher because we didn’t have an extra person, but there are schools across our district where they have upwards of 30 kids.”

That’s not what children in North Carolina deserve.

“All students deserve a great education,” Martin said. “I’ve noticed a shift toward private and charter schools and the funding there, and that’s great, but also, don’t forget that the majority of our students are public schools, and they still need the same quality of education that those students receive. So while there’s an emphasis on Opportunity Scholarships, we should not let our other children fall to the wayside because they could not get into those schools.”