Teacher turned actress feels pressure from state budget debates

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Surf City native Ashley Mewborn left teaching because she said in North Carolina it just was not a viable career option.

“The week that I left I was working three jobs.”

Mewborn said, as a teacher, trying to make ends meet and pay off her student loans was just too difficult, so she started considering other options. She always told her kids to follow their dreams, now shes taking her own advice and following hers.

“Why am I not doing what I’m telling all these kids to do? Like, if I can’t make a living doing this, I might as well move to the Wilmington area and try and pursue my dreams. So I came here and got started and things were going great. Now all of a sudden theres another wrench thrown in.”

While the future of North Carolina’s film incentives looks brighter, it’s sill up in the air.
But even in the uncertainty, and the possible 7% teacher salary raise, Mewborn says she’ll never go back to teaching.

“The salary is not the only problem,” Mewborn said.
“There’s no way I’d put myself back in that position because I know what the common core is doing to the system and I know all of the struggles that my friends that I have that are still teachers are going through and there’s just no way.”