Harman, who is also the county`s homeless education officer, wrote “6 percent” based on last year`s wage agreement, when the Salt Lake City school district was among the best in the state. At that time, he said, they were able to recruit and retain the best in the field. Now he`s not sure what`s going to happen. Acosta is particularly concerned about the loss of talented teachers of color. Some of their panels were made from used Manila folders. Some were written in pencil on lined pieces of paper. One of them has been laminated. Another was covered with golden star stickers. The Salt Lake City School District employs approximately 1,300 educators. The district and council declined to comment, saying they would keep wage negotiations confidential until they are agreed. During the public meeting, board chair Tiffany Sandberg only said the comment period could not be used to talk about contracts.
“If the speaker`s topic is not on the agenda tonight, we will not hear about it,” she said. This was included as a 3% increase for other county employees, including administrators and transportation workers. Some of the educators who came held their children`s hands or rocked the babies to sleep. It was the day before the last day of school for the year 2018-2019. “Teachers are doing more than ever,” said Chelsie Acosta, a teacher at Glendale Middle School. “And we`re done. We are prepared to be ignored when it comes to finances. This is our silent protest. (Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Teachers leave the public comment period at the Salt Lake City School District meeting for salary negotiations on June 4, 2019.
More and more teachers are leaving classrooms in Utah and one of the main reasons they cite is low pay. The state now lacks 1,600 educators, and the imbalance is expected to worsen. “These don`t have a lot of traction,” said Tobler, who teaches at Highland High School. “But the sticking point was the wage increases. We want our teachers to put their energy into their lessons and help their students instead of worrying about the next mortgage payment. “We do it because we love kids,” added O`Lynn Elliott, an educator at Open Classroom, a district charter, “but that doesn`t mean we don`t want to be paid fairly. Jon Olschewski weighed his 1-year-old daughter while wearing a red t-shirt for his East High School; she was looking for a onesie with a red apple. Olschewski has been teaching car repair there for three years and has found that most teachers leave the profession in the first five years. As part of the negotiations, the education association is also calling for more personal days for teachers, upper limits for class sizes and paid parental leave. Brett Markum, a language arts teacher at East High School, carried a sign that read: “3%? This is an insult, not a raise. He has been in the district for 18 years and said it was frustrating not to see a match so educators would be paid comparable to their counterparts in the Salt Lake Valley.
“I could be one of them,” he said. “I have a young family. And I need more money. .