WEA members ride the bus to Olympia to lobby on levies, support for students
A busload of WEA members lobbied their legislators this week – including K-12 education support professionals, school nurses and teachers.
Meeting with legislators in their Olympia offices, educators laid out WEA's legislative priorities, including:
- Restoring levy flexibility for local school districts. (Click here to email your legislators)
- Funding training for paraeducators.
- Fully funding special education and positions such as counselors, social workers and others who support students’ health and safety.
- Competitive compensation for college faculty.
WEA Fourth Corner UniServ Council sent a busload of nearly 50 members to Olympia Tuesday. Throughout the day, educators told their legislators that state-imposed levy reductions, the state’s failure to fully fund special education and increasing school safety concerns mean their students aren’t receiving the support they need.
The House budget plan released this week restores levy flexibility, but falls short on fully funding special education, school safety and faculty compensation. Some districts are threatening budget cuts.
“We keep hearing that somewhere between 50 and 80 (positions might be cut). That’s equivalent to an entire middle school staff. That’s a whole’s school worth of staff being cut from a school district. That impact is not insignificant. That hits and hurts everyone,” said Eva Chazo, a Bellingham teacher.
Chazo said the existing understaffing in schools makes it feels like adults are telling their students, “Sorry kid, we can’t really support you. You need to go sit in that corner over there because we don’t have enough people to support you.”
Registered nurse Heather Schutza is a new member of the Stanwood-Camano Education Association and worked in a local hospital until 2017. She told legislators the opioid crisis is affecting the students she serves.
“These are recovering addicts we’re trying to educate. They are in a really tough spot,” Schutza said. “These kids are growing up, there are in our school system now, and they have huge emotional-social needs. They have huge medical needs and learning disabilities.
“They have a huge amount of needs and we’re not able to meet those needs. And this is not going to go away, it’s only going to become more severe. So we need more money to take care of those kids.”
Bellingham paraeducator Karanbir Deol stressed the important role that all school staff play and how they work as a team to help their students succeed.
“One of the resounding themes throughout the day is that when you support paras, they support teachers. When teachers are supported, they can support our students.”
