Teacher Appreciation Week: Speak up for our educators

This week we honor teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. People in the USA began celebrating National Teacher Day in 1953 when then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded Congress to set aside a day to celebrate and recognize the importance of educators.

I would like to begin by thanking the teachers who have educated my three children. One of my children has already graduated from college and will soon be married. The second will be graduating with honors in two short weeks, and the third is in fifth grade at the public school where I teach. I want to thank those teachers for being there for my children while I was teaching the children of others. Thank you for your love, patience and dedication to the craft of teaching.

This year’s Teacher Appreciation Week will be very different from the ones we’ve experienced in the past. In recent years teachers have taken the blame for everything from low student performance to behavioral issues. We have also received more responsibilities and demands from both parents and administrators. We work longer hours, we are given additional curriculum and standards, and we are required to attend numerous trainings, which often have nothing to do with the subjects that we teach.

Teachers receive constant barrages of emails that must be responded to promptly. We must meet with administrators to discuss data. We must meet with parents and attend school meetings that rob us of valuable planning time. Staff at our schools has been reduced to a bare minimum. Schools are no longer required to have counselors, media specialists, nurses or fulltime psychologists. Special Ed services for our neediest students have declined because of the magnanimous amount of paperwork and endless meetings.

The climate has become increasingly hostile to teachers. While there is a facade of “we love teachers” and “we appreciate what you do,” the actions of recent years speak far louder than these hollow words. Yet we endure. We endure all of this, and more, in schools that haven’t been painted in a decade, with materials that are outdated, in overcrowded classes, in facilities with roaches, smelly bathrooms, and leaking roofs.

Teachers endure salaries that fall well below the national average. We struggle to pay for groceries and daycare, and find affordable housing. We survive and endure by tutoring after school, driving for Uber or moonlighting as waiters. For years teachers have been quiet, graceful and poised, always putting the children first and keeping in mind why we do what we do — for the sake of the children.

The tide is turning and the time has come for teachers to advocate for teachers and for the students they serve. The time has come to stand up to a country, state, and society that have neglected them for far too long. This year I have learned about true courage and solidarity — seeing the teachers from West Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado and Arizona rise with one voice; our voice. I have never been so proud to be a teacher. I am humbled and honored to be in the same profession with these heroes. They have inspired a movement that will not soon rest — for educators are taking the helm and demanding the respect and compensation they justly deserve.

In the spirit of this movement, I ask that instead of a candle, chocolate or flowers, that you contact your local superintendent, school board member, state legislature, and/or governor. I ask that if you value teachers that you write letters, make phone calls, and/or write emails demanding that our public schools be funded adequately, that our teachers and school employees be compensated with a fair and adequate living wage and that our taxpayer dollars stop funding private for-profit charter schools. This would be the greatest gift you could give me or any public school teacher.

United we stand — RedForED Florida.