Common Dreams reports
Colorado's teachers' union expects more than 400 teachers at a rally that's planned for Monday at the state's Capitol in Denver.
[...] Englewood School District, outside the capital city, announced on Sunday that schools would be closed the following day as 70 percent of its teachers had indicated they wouldn't be working Monday. It was unclear on Sunday whether more school districts would be closing.
"We are calling Monday, April 16th a day of action", Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association (CEA), told KDVR in Denver.
[...] According to[1] KMGH in Denver, "The CEA estimates that teachers spend on average $656 of their own money for school supplies for students." The state's teacher salaries rank 46th out of 50, with educators making an average of $46,000 per year.
Public schools are underfunded by $828 million this year, Dallman told the Post, and lawmakers have said they could inject at least $100 million more into schools--but they have yet to do so.
[...] The planned protest follows a trend that was seen in West Virginia and Kentucky before moving west this month to Oklahoma and Arizona as well as Colorado. In all the states where teachers have walked out and rallied at their Capitols, teachers have reported paying for school supplies out of pocket, working second and third jobs to make ends meet, and coping with funding shortages while their legislators hand out tax cuts to corporations.
[1] For a laugh (or perhaps a deep sigh), check out all the whitespace in the source code of the page.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 16 2018, @10:05PM
I forget the specific arrangements (I was in grade school at the time), it could be that the paychecks were distributed across all 12 months, but effectively the pay was reduced as if those vacation months were not being worked. Either way, all I heard in the car on the way to and from school is how I shouldn't become a teacher, bad pay, lousy benefits, etc. etc.
There was definitely extra money paid if they (were allowed to, not everybody could) work summer school, but those were mostly the "bad" kids, so it wasn't a very appealing option.
Mom was a teacher from ~1968 to ~2013, by the time she retired the second time she was making respectable bank.
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