Oklahoma public school teachers want a $10,000 raise by April 1, or they’re walking out April 2 — and many Tulsans support them.
Civic and business leaders hosted a lunch hour rally Thursday at downtown’s Williams Green attended by dozens of teachers and many parents and community members. Mai Cazenave is the parent of a Booker T. Washington high schooler. She said students end up feeling their teachers’ financial stress.
"Our teachers can’t even operate in their full potential to teach because they’re worried about how they’re going to pay the light bill, how are they going to pay for day care, how are they going to pay that copay because they’re sick?" Cazenave said.
Tulsa Public Schools Board President Suzanne Schreiber said she’s seen teachers’ pay stubs and heard about their trouble making ends meet, but it really hit her when she made a 9 o’clock Target run with her school-age daughter one night and ran into a Memorial teacher working in the store.
"This was a person who’d had a day like I’d had, working all day long and then not even time to get out of her school uniform, go to work and put on her Target badge and work and probably close down at 11 o’clock," Schreiber said.
Gordy Guest, the CEO of building firm Cyntergy, said he’s having a hard time finding qualified architects and engineers, and he knows he’s not alone.
"We will fail. We will not have a bright future if our legislature and our state doesn’t fix the education funding, including school teacher pay, and fix it now," Guest said.
Guest and other speakers urged ralliers to contact their state lawmakers to tell them they support teacher and support staff raises. Guest also encouraged more businesses to get involved in educational programs.
Tulsa City Council adopted a resolution this week imploring the legislature to act quickly to give teachers and support staff a raise, but it does not specify an amount. TPS has not formally endorsed the Oklahoma Education Association's plan for a $10,000 teacher pay raise.
