Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Indiana teachers rally
INDIANAPOLIS — Several thousand teachers wearing red surrounded the Indiana Statehouse on Tuesday to call for better pay and more respect from the Republicandominated state government in a protest that closed more than half of the state’s school districts for the day.
The union-organized rally represented Indiana’s biggest such teacher protest in a wave of educator activism across the country over the past two years.
Nearly 300 school districts closed because of the rally, according to teachers’ unions. It came as legislators gather for organizational meetings ahead of their 2020 session that starts in early January.
The Indiana State Police agency reported at least 5,000 people entered the Statehouse through public entrances, but the agency didn’t estimate how many were on the grounds.
Teachers chanted, “Fund our schools,” and “Put kids first,” as hundreds of them lined entrances to the Statehouse, many holding handmade signs with sayings such as, “Less Money on Testing, More Money on Students.”
Indiana State Teachers Association President Keith Gambill told a few thousand teachers who covered the Statehouse lawn that the Legislature should direct money from the state’s $2 billion cash reserves toward helping schools.
Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb has said he was waiting for a teacher pay commission he appointed in February to make recommendations on increasing salaries by the end of 2020.