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Debbi Berggren has helped Arizona teachers support students with special needs since 1994. She’s one of many classified school employees worried about how Thursday’s teacher walkout will impact her.
On one hand, she earns a few dollars above minimum wage, and she appreciates the #RedForEd movement’s push for more money for educators. On the other, she needs the job and says the kids need her.
Classified staff represent a range of school employees that are not required to hold teaching certificates but assist students and teachers in classrooms, serve daily meals, maintain buildings and help get children to school, whether as bus drivers or crossing guards.
Classified staff voted along with teacherslast week as part of the Arizona Educators United #RedForEd movement to reject Gov. Doug Ducey’s proposal to increase teacher’s pay 20 percent by 2020. Organizers said it didn’t go far enough to address inadequate school funding and appeared to omit non-teaching staff from the raises.
Like teachers, classified workers are conflicted about walking out of school and worry about the impact of a prolonged walkout on students and their own livelihoods.
Unlike teachers who can use PTO days for the walkout and still get paid, most classified employees will not be paid while schools are closed.
Last week, in a poll of Arizona educators, 78 percent of 57,000 participating voted in favor of a walkout.
Berggren said she supports the teachers and their efforts, but she voted against a walkout, citing ACT testing and preliminary AP testing that is underway this week at Chandler High School where she works.
“The kids that I work with are at-risk kids and it puts them behind,” she said. “A lot of them come from homes where it’s safer for them to be at school.”
Berggren, who also works three jobs to survive, also worries about what it will mean for her finances.
“I’m 57 years old. I’m probably going to have a hard time finding a job somewhere else,” Berggren said. “I have put my whole heart and soul into what I do, but if I don’t have a job, I won’t be able to pay my bills.”
Julie Standridge has worked as a food service worker in Arizona for eight years and was told not to report to work after her district announced it would close for the walkout. With three jobs, Standridge said she would be fine with a one-day walkout. But a prolonged strike worries her.
“If it goes longer than one day, I would feel the impact,” she said. “When you work eight hours a day, that adds up.”
State law requires schools provide at least 180 educational days per school year. Schools on 180-day schedules that shut down may have to add days at the end of the year to make up for instruction time lost during the walkout.
Classified staff would get paid to work those makeup days. But an extended school year would eat into one of Standridge’s other jobs that she works full time when the school year lets out.
Although she didn’t cast a vote on the walkout, Standridge said she supports teachers and believes students in Arizona schools deserve more resources.
“I feel what we do is important. We’re feeding the kids, we make sure they’re eating all good things,” she said.
Janine Menard, a school counselor in the Isaac Elementary School District and board chair of Arizona School Counselors Association, said she supports the walkout. She views it as a necessary step for state lawmakers to grasp the gravity of the situation.
“I feel invisible,” Menard said. “I believe we need to make our voices heard. They haven’t been listening and hopefully after Thursday they will.”
Menard said counselors are classified as administrators, paid like teachers and not acknowledged in Ducey’s proposed pay increases.
“Teachers desperately need pay raises, but they are walking out, despite the money on the table. They know it’s not right either. They are standing up for us, so we are walking with them,” Menard said of school counselors.
The counselors association is pushing for a 20 percent pay increase for all support staff, and increased school infrastructure funding. For counselors, the stakes of a walkout are high as there are few counselor positions in schools. Arizona has 924 students per counselor, which is nearly four times the ratio suggested by the American School Counselor Association.
“When I first heard talk about walkouts, it kind of did scare me because school counselor positions are so vulnerable,” Menard said. “I may not have another position to apply to in this state.”