Arizona opening day cares to prepare for teachers’ strike
PHOENIX — From gathering gift cards, prepping boxed lunches and opening church doors for child care, communities across Arizona are getting ready for a historic teacher walkout that could keep hundreds of thousands of students out of school indefinitely.
Working parents had a week to figure out where to send their children starting today after teachers voted overwhelmingly to hold an unprecedented statewide strike in their push to increase funding for public education. While tens of thousands of educators descend on the Arizona Capitol this week in protest, students will be cared for by friends, family or community organizations.
“Everybody is banding together and helping each other,” said Stephanie Barton, an exercise physiologist and Phoenix mom of two.
She will send her kids to a church while she and her husband are at work. Others are leaving their children with stay-at-home parents who offered to help or are taking advantage of day camps that sprung up statewide.
Volunteers also are busy gathering food for students who rely on free meals at school and collecting gift cards for hourly workers who will not be paid while schools shut down.
The walkout is the climax of a teacher uprising that began weeks ago with the grass-roots #RedforEd movement. It grew from red shirts and protests to costly demands: a 20 percent raise for teachers, about $1 billion to return school funding to pre-Great Recession levels and increased pay for support staff, among other things.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey offered teachers the pay bump by 2020, but they say his plan didn’t address their other demands and are concerned about where the money might come from.
Nearly 80 percent of teachers voted for the first-ever statewide strike, though it could put them at risk in this right-to-work state without many union protections.
A 1971 Arizona attorney general opinion says a statewide strike would be illegal under common law and participants could lose their teaching credentials. But no school district has said they would fire educators who walk out or revoke teaching certificates.
Some districts have said they will try to stay open if they have enough staff, but the walkout has left Barton and other parents scrambling. Still, she supports the action.
“Teachers deserve a raise but also to get funding for the schools to meet their basic needs,” Barton said.
While many parents are supportive, others are frustrated.
“I would have gladly walked out to show support for our teachers, rather than the teachers walk out on our kids,” said Katy Crawford of Tucson. “I know they keep saying they’re not ‘abandoning’ the kids, but that’s what it feels like. My 11-year-old son doesn’t understand their situation, and he shouldn’t have to yet.”
Ester Skiera, a suburban Phoenix mother of three girls who works from home, said she’s offered to look after the daughters of two other moms so they don’t have to take time off work. She said education should be a priority, not a partisan issue.
“It breaks my heart that teachers are underpaid,” Skiera said. “I want those teachers not to worry about second, third jobs to make ends meet so they can focus on giving their best in the classroom.”
As the strike nears, a growing number of community organizations are offering free child care. The city of Phoenix is opening 24 recreation centers, churches are welcoming students and even the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff has a day camp. Other arts, athletic and educational organizations are offering care for a fee.