State doesn’t respect teachers

Plenty of reform needed in the next legislative session, especially when it comes to education. However, the collective bargaining and binding arbitration that resulted in me, as a teacher, only receiving a quarter of the raise I was promised this year, is not the reform needed.

I have been a teacher in Clark County for 12 years. I began this school year without a contract, the fifth time that has happened since I began working here.

That means I have gone into five different school years on a salary freeze, not knowing if my agreed-upon, contracted raise would be honored. This year, I will not receive my raise until after the school year. So the district paid me less all school year than they had agreed to pay me. I won’t see my raise until after my 245 students are on summer break.

Going on strike as a teacher in Nevada is against the law. We aren’t allowed to join our comrades in Oklahoma and West Virginia in walking off the job to demand that our profession and our field be given the funds it deserves. Instead, we go through collective bargaining and binding arbitration, not our first choice. It would be much more effective to go on strike and show the state how vital teachers are. Instead, we continue to teach our students each day, wondering if we will be paid the salary promised to us.

Nevada doesn’t fund education at levels that show we care. We are facing a teaching shortage in part because of the lack of support received at the state and district levels.

Matt Nighswonger,

North Las Vegas