What is the #RedforEd movement?

Knowing that I had had meetings all week, and had been routinely getting home by 7 pm, that I was exhausted, the march loomed closer. I finally made the decision that morning, pulling on my red shirt, that I would go. As soon as school ended, and after my meetings, the art teacher and I made two signs and drove over to the meeting spot.

If you joined me on Instagram March 28 you would have seen thousands of Arizona teachers descending on the State Capital to protest low teacher pay, large class sizes, and low student spending. I felt exhiliarated by the movement and solidarity with other teachers I met at the march.

Then, Thursday came around, and I started reading the comments on KTAR, NBC News, and AZCental. We made national news and I was reading comments like "They knew what they were getting into when they took the job" and "If you can't make it on 35K a year in Arizona there's something wrong with you!" and my favorite, "Summer off and you want more?!"

...

I was irate, shocked, angry, and saddened by these comments. These were Arizona citizens, most of them, and they just didn't understand. This blog and brand are mostly geared towards teachers, but if you happen to stumble across my humble site, here are some facts about the #redfored movement:

• ​Most teachers work beyond their contracted hours in the morning, afternoons, and weekends.
• Most teachers work a second or third job during the school year and at the very least work every summer.
• Teachers who choose to get paid through summer (not the same as Summer School) have to take a pay cut August through May, and the money that was taken from their checks is given to them in a "lump sum" at the end of June to last through our first payment (often not til September.) If we didn't we would get $0 from the last week of May to the middle of September.
• We have to pay into the Arizona Retirement System (ARS), and have no say in the percentage that comes out of our paychecks. Any extra money we earn through the district goes into ARS, including our lump sum money.
• Many teachers contribute $500-$1000 (or more) of our own money into our classrooms every year for basic supplies like pencils, paper, and notebooks (sometimes even furniture).
• Many curriculums are outdated, many buildings/furniture is outdated due to budget cuts.
• Many veteran teachers had their base pay cut back during the Great Recession and haven't seen their salaries recover yet. Many haven't received a raise in over 10 years.
• Many teachers cannot afford to have their dependents on their health insurance because the monthly cost might be $800/month or more!
• Teachers do not receive maternity leave pay. They basically take a paycut to have a baby, and often return to work early before their leave is over.
• Many teachers paid a years salary to receive a Master's degree in Education and their monthly take home after taxes and retirement is under $2400.
• We do get breaks throughout the year, but many teachers come in on their own time during those breaks to grade papers, lesson plan, make copies, and get prepped because we did not have time to do those things when we are not on break.
• During summer many teachers have meetings, work one or two jobs, work Summer School, go in on their own time to get their classrooms set up, and descend on Walmart to buy supplies with money they don't have.

#redfored aims to correct many of these problems by increasing Arizona teacher salaries by 20%, which still will not bring Arizona up from the bottom, but will get the ball rolling to correct some of the errors our state legislation has made in the past in terms of our Education sector. There is a lot more I could include, but these are the main points I could think of.

Please share and comment below and stay in Solidarity with the states that are fighting for better teacher salaries.

​-Mae