On Feb. 28, Utah teachers received an email from Gov. Cox, Senate President Adams and House Speaker Schultz with a bold-lettered heading, “Supporting Our Educators, Investing In Our Classrooms.” That made me chuckle.
But then, as I read on, I felt angry, confused,and frustrated.
The email stated at first how the legislation has been supportive of public education in the last few years. Dollar amounts were listed with each bullet item. But then it continues to say how the legislation continues to support public education this year, with a few bullet points; but no dollar amounts.
Is it fair to say that this was a poor attempt at making public education teachers feel better after passing a bill that bans unions?
Did the firefighters, police, and other union members get the same type of email?
I feel like this is a slap in the face! Public education is the foundation of our society. Teachers are passionate about what they do, just like other public employees. We don’t earn a ton of money, but we can look forward to a good retirement, just like anyone else. Why do legislators want to harm us and play around with our livelihood?
I, we, work very hard to make sure our students are showing growth; there are more and more non-English speaking students; we are dealing with more social/emotional problems in behavior; we are developing ways to be creative in our lessons because we are competing with an electronic world that has stripped our students of basic life and social skills.
Legislators can guess what it might be like to be a teacher, a firefighter, or a police officer, but they will never fully understand until they walk in our shoes for a day. But very few actually do that. Despite inviting our legislators all the time to come visit our schools, they don’t. They pretend to care and try to convince us how their bills actually do support public education, but they don’t.
Despite the massive gatherings at the Capitol and dozens upon dozens of their constituents speaking out, they don’t care.
How can I teach 5th graders about our historical documents and try not to say anything about how our current elected officials ignore the Constitution?
Heidi Jensen, Midvale
