More than a dozen teachers, wearing bright red T-shirts, marched outside of Cottonwood Elementary School on the morning of Wednesday, April 11, just before school. The teachers were proclaiming their solidarity for the Red for Ed movement with other teachers across the state.
“Fired up, ready to go, Red for Ed,” one teacher chanted.
The teacher’s colleagues cheered along — some came with signs — and they erupted in excitement when passing cars honked.
Teachers at other schools in Cottonwood also partook in the movement, such as Mingus Union High School, Cottonwood Middle School, Dr. Daniel Bright Elementary School and Oak Creek School, whose teachers staged walk-ins — demonstrations similar to strikes or walkouts, but with the intention of continuing to do their jobs.
It was the latest salvo of the Red for Ed movement in an attempt to pressure the Arizona Legislature to increase education funding. And with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announcing on Thursday, April 12, that he plans to raise teacher salaries by 20 percent by 2020, the movement seems to be making some headway.
“I’ve been here 27 years in the district, and we’ve never done anything like this,” said Cherie Heath, a sixth-grade math teacher at Cottonwood Middle School.
Heath noted that teacher pay in Arizona has reached low levels, and that taking action has become a necessary step to take if looking for change. She also said that some teachers she knew often considered leaving to places like San Diego or Oregon, where they could expect close to a $10,000 increase in salary within one year.
“I’m not really a supporter of protest in general, but I think our Legislature needs to be embarrassed,” Heath said.
Arizona frequently ranks near the bottom in national comparisons of education funding. A recent study of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Expect More Arizona — a nonprofit that advocates for increased education funding — found that with a median salary of $44,990 in 2017, 78.7 percent of the national average, Arizona ranks 49th in teacher funding.
According to a May 2017 study by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, 22 percent of teachers hired in Arizona between 2013 and 2015 had left the state in a year, and 42 percent of those hired in 2013 left the profession after three years. According to a fall 2017 study of U.S. Census data by Arizona Town Hall, in 2014 Arizona funded education at a rate of $8,786 per pupil, 68.7 percent of the national average of $12,774 and 48th out of 50 states.
Education funding in Arizona has gone down in recent years, as the Great Recession and tax cuts led to budget cuts from the state government. According to the Morrison Institute study, Arizona’s elementary school teachers were paid 11 percent less in 2016 than in 2001 when adjusted for inflation, while secondary school teachers were paid 10 percent less.
“It’s been 30 years I’ve been working, and it feels like it’s going down, not up,” said Randy Koeppe, a physical education teacher and former principal at Cottonwood Elementary School. “Back when I started, if there was an open position, we’d get 30 applicants. Now we’re lucky to get three or four.”
“We’ve been hit very hard in the last 10 years,” said Steve King, Cottonwood Oak Creek School District superintendent.
As a school administrator, King was not involved with any of the demonstrations, but he supports more school funding from the state budget.
“In that time, hard decisions have had to be made,” King said. “I wasn’t here for those hard decisions, and I don’t envy anyone who had to make those decisions. But really in the end what we’re trying to do is increase opportunities for kids, and increasing opportunities for kids equals resources. One of my favorite quotes out there is, ‘You can talk all you want to about what your priorities are, but you show me your budgets and I’ll show you what your priorities are.’”
The Red for Ed movement has been ongoing for weeks across Arizona, but Wednesday was its first time the movement was demonstrated in Cottonwood. Teachers in COCSD joined those from all across the state, and the combined action quickly elicited a response.
According to a plan posted Thursday afternoon on the governor’s website, teachers will see an across-the-board 9 percent increase in their current pay in Fiscal Year 2019, coupled with the 1 percent increase planned for FY 2018. The Governor’s proposal hopes to restore $371 million in district additional assistance and charter additional assistance that was cut during the recession over the next five years.
But with Ducey’s plan remaining a promise without fulfillment, short on specifics of where the funding would come from and focused simply on teacher pay without the wider funding increases for schools and other staff, teachers across the state and in Cottonwood don’t seem ready to accept the governor’s offer.
“He said it’s a win for teachers, but the teachers weren’t in there fighting for just us. We can’t run our school without personal support staff behind us. This has got to be about them as well,” said Brenda Lewis, a fourth-grade teacher at Cottonwood Elementary School. Lewis has become one of the informal leaders among the organized teachers of COCSD.
Cottonwood teachers have planned a second walk-in for Wednesday, April 18, coinciding with a statewide action.
When asked, some Cottonwood teachers were unsure about how they would react to a statewide strike. For some educators involved, this is the first time they’ve engaged in just a walk-in at the schools, let alone a work stoppage. Knowing that a walkout could stifle the education of students, some teachers expressed a desire to find a way to ensure that any protest that taking action would consider children to ensure that the needs of the children are met along with the needs of the teachers.
“They’ve made promises to give stuff to education before, and we’ve not gotten it,” said Lewis.
At the very least, Lewis and other teachers will be back marching a week after their first walk-in.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551 or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
