We need to start paying teachers the salaries of both caretakers and educators if we want to maintain the system as it is. Teachers have shown they can do it, which is why we are demanding they do it now. But the current situation is not sustainable unless 1) we give teachers the financial resources they need to maintain their personal and familial lives as well as ours, and/or 2) we provide additional classroom staff to ensure both roles are being fulfilled among each class of 20+ kids, especially for elementary and middle school.

You can't beat a dead mule. The time is overdue to pay our teachers for their ever-increasing "productivity".

Demand of your city council members, county commissioners and legislators, state and federal, that our teachers be paid what they are worth (in $ as well as resources), assuring your elected representatives that you, as a taxpayer and constituent, will support necessary tax increases if there is accountability that the $ goes directly to teacher (not administrative) salaries.

If you don't think your child's teacher is providing the services that our most altruistic teachers are providing, remember that you get what you pay for. Our public education system is going to continue to implode until we pay teachers what they deserve and/or provide them with the additional human resources they need.

www.MelissaRooneyWriting.com

If you missed my last post, you can find it here: http://www.melissarooneywriting.com/blog/2021/02/durham-elementary-students-to-return-to-in-person-learning-4-days-week/

Elena Rodriguez Urbina, E.K. Powe Elementary School