Teacher VS The State of Texas

Scroll to the bottom of this post to see the details of the Texas State Legislature's poor decision.

Come say that we aren’t worth it to my face. Come sit in my classroom and hear what I do that’s not in my contract and look me in the eyes and say you’re not worth it. Listen to my students stories and backgrounds and how school is the only thing that feels like home to them and how much their teacher makes them feel loved and cares and then tell me that I’m not worth it. You’re losing GOOD AND AMAZING teachers. It’s you, you’re the ones deciding if we stay or not. We can’t live like this anymore, we financially can’t do it. If you can stand by your decision come tell me. Not in a press conference, not in an email, to my face. Own what you’ve done.

To a legislature that does not care,

Why are we, not enough? Why are we consistently at the back of the line? Why don't we matter?

I have rewritten this letter so many times. I would prove to you for the thousandth time why we deserve to be paid a reasonable wage. I would bring light to the many things that we do that are not within our curriculum and our schedule. I would tell you how much we spend on our students and our classroom every year. I would plead with you that we are more than enough than what you are allotting us now. I would explain to you that our families are depending on us and many teachers are having to choose better pay over their passion to earn a reasonable living.

But I'm not. You know what you have given us to live on is not sufficient. It's why almost every teacher that I know has a supplemental income coming from somewhere else. We are constantly looking elsewhere for a second income because what you give us is not enough. OR teacher's leave, and trust me I've thought about it. There are so many remote EdTech companies that are paying teachers over $100,000 STARTING. But you already know that.

You handed out raises to various pieces of government ran careers. But not us.. again. It's like a tale that's as old as education. How do you think the saying "You don't teach for the money" came about? It wasn't just made up one day, it holds a lot of ground. This year I moved states and grade levels and districts. I worked and planned and learned more this year than any year before. Did I care more? No. Each year a teacher perfects their craft, and this year with everything being new, it was a lot of extra work. That's okay if I was compensated for all of the extra time I put in. You could ask, "Why did you not do this during the school day?" Every teacher would look at you and laugh at that question. Not that you care for the answer but there is not time. Throughout the day we are with students every minute but roughly 50 minutes. We are supposed to plan rigorous lessons for the week, add and survey data, plan small groups, keep up with parental contact, grade papers, and then update system grades and go to meetings for students, I COULD GO ON FOREVER. Your teachers are stressed. We don't have enough time to get everything done unless we work after hours that are not supplemented with pay. You're asking us to take time away from our families to finish the many components of our job and not pay us for that. Am I used to it? Yes. Is it right? No. Any other profession would walk out and save it for the next day. We don't have that luxury. Students depend on us to complete those components, regardless of whether they have the time. So, we get it done like always.

I'm not sad about this anymore. I'm mad and you don't care. You don't care that teachers are leaving the system. You don't care that we are working under hard conditions. Our responsibilities have grown to a crazy amount, and you don't care. We are having to take more time away from our families to finish our job and then have a second job to supplement our LOW pay. You're supposed to look after us, you're supposed to have our backs and fight for us, and you can't. You don't even have the guts to say why. You hide behind your papers and can't face us.

I adore what I do. A lot of teachers LOVE what they DID. They didn't leave because they didn't care. They left because you didn't.

Hopefully you'll correct your years of mistakes while you still have teachers to fight for.

Sincerely,

An exhausted teacher tired of having to prove her worth.

xoxo,

Spilling the Tea

Despite having a surplus of 32.7 BILLION dollars, the Texas legislature made the rash and poor decision to NOT in ANY WAY increase funding for THEIR KIDS AND TEACHERS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. AGAIN. Public schools have been forced to make very hard decisions when it comes to programming and class sizes and resources.

You have the power to change that. I urge you to contact your local representative and elected officials and express your support and the important of funding public education. Your children and your families are affected. Every child deserves a high quality education and we CAN MAKE A difference with you! There is power in numbers. Let's stand together.