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It is difficult to be a teacher in the United States today. We face impossible challenges such as being at risk every day of potentially being the next target of a school shooting. Our profession is underfunded across the country, so we work in facilities that are falling apart, we have class sizes that are too big, and we are asked to take on more and more responsibilities with fewer resources.  We are also underpaid, making it nearly impossible for many beginning teachers to be able to afford to live in the communities where they work. All of this while there is hostility and mistrust toward teachers and education in general, mostly caused by slanted and often false information put out there by political groups. Why would anyone want to become a teacher these days?

The community where I live and teach is facing all these issues. This week there was a threat of a school shooting written on a bathroom stall in one of our high schools. It did not prove to be a credible threat, but it made everyone uneasy. It also spurred rumors at the middle school where I teach causing students, teachers, and families to be concerned about whether we were all safe at school. Luckily, we were. This time.

The district in which I teach is also struggling right now because, for the first time in 22 years, the teachers have started the new school year without a new contract. We are on last year’s contract because the district and the teachers’ union were not able to reach an agreement on a new contract. Negotiations continue, but it has been very tough on morale knowing that the district is fighting teachers on basic requests to be paid a living wage in what is now considered to be the most expensive state in the United States in which to live.

The district is in a budget crisis right now partially due to issues outside of its control. The state of Montana uses an outdated formula to fund schools, and that needs to be changed. Our state is currently ranked dead last in beginning teacher pay, and the district in which I work is dead last for beginning teacher pay for AA schools across the state with a base salary of $38,197 per year. The cost of living in our town is one of the highest in the country now due to an influx of people moving here during and after the pandemic. Rent, home costs, and the overall cost of living here have skyrocketed in recent years, making it nearly impossible for new teachers to be able to afford to live in our town. In addition to the out-of-control cost of living in our area, our town has not passed a high school levy since 2007, so our schools haven’t been fully funded in all that time.

All these factors are contributing to low morale of teachers in our district. Why doesn’t our community support us? Why doesn’t our district value us enough to pay us a living wage? Why do we have the highest paid central administration of AA schools in our state, but the lowest paid teachers? Why doesn’t our country as a whole value a free public education as much other countries do?

Last week many teachers went to the school board meeting. Our union had sent out a survey asking teachers how starting the school year without a new contract was affecting them. The response was large and consistent. Many teachers said they felt undervalued, unappreciated, disrespected, and they shared example after example of problems happening in our schools. At the school board meeting, many of us read those comments out loud to the board. Some teachers got up and spoke about their own experiences. Some were angry, but most who spoke were sad. They were in tears because they give their heart and soul into their work and their students, and some were worried about being forced to find something else to do because they just aren’t making ends meet as a teacher in our area.

My story is a little different. I’m maxed out on the pay scale, and so is my husband. He is in his 31st year of teaching, and I am in year 27. Our salaries don’t make us rich by any stretch, but it is about double what new teachers make since we both have our master’s degrees as well. You would think, at our end of the pay scale, things would be a lot better for our finances, and they are, but people our age and in our position still have a hard time making ends meet. There have been administrators in our district who have implied that if many of the older teachers retired, the district could hire younger teachers for about half the price. That doesn’t help one feel appreciated for the years of service and commitment to a school district. And, at this point, even after all our years of experience, my husband and I can’t afford to retire. We still have a mortgage to pay off. We are putting our only child through college, so we have double expenses right now. I’m only 48 years old. I still want to teach and bring in my full income. If we retired now, our income would be cut in half, and we would have to pay for all our own health insurance until we’re both 65.

And how much does it cost to become a teacher these days? I happen to be very familiar with that answer right now since my daughter is currently in her year-long teaching certificate program. This is after getting her four-year bachelor’s degree in English.  The answer to that question is approximately 63,000 dollars, and that is just for tuition. Granted, my daughter attended school out of state, so it could have been done a little cheaper than that, but it also could have been more expensive too. She went to a state school in northern California. There, the teaching certificate is a year-long program after you complete your undergraduate degree. She qualified for the WUE (Western Undergraduate Exchange) so she didn’t have to pay full out-of-state tuition for her undergrad, just about in-state and a half. Tuition per year was about 10,000 during her undergraduate degree, so that total was about 40,000. Her one-year teaching certificate program is going to be about 23,000, though. She was told she wouldn’t have to pay out-of-state fees for her certificate program, but it turned out that that information was incorrect. She has to pay about 6,000 above what in-state students pay for the certificate year. She’s getting a wonderful experience, and it is so valuable that her student teaching experience is for an entire year, but it has come with a large price tag. One that her stepdad and I have paid for ourselves in addition to her room and board costs. That’s a lot of money for a couple of school teachers, but we know that if she intends to make a career out of teaching, starting with tens of thousands in student loans would have been an impossible weight to bear.

I took out student loans back when I went to college. I think my loans totaled about 23,000 which was a lot back then. I also made every mistake in the book with those loans. First, I consolidated them when I got married with my then husband’s student loans. We then placed them on forbearance many times while we were working on paying them off. This gave us a break from the payments we couldn’t afford, but also caused interest to accumulate, causing the amount we owed to almost double. We eventually divorced, but our loans could not be separated. I paid my portion off when I turned 40. Those loans weighed me down for all but the past eight years of my working life. That is another reason that I am not ready to quit teaching and why my husband and I are so committed to getting our daughter through college debt free. Thank goodness we only have one child, otherwise, we could not have afforded to do this for her.

While listening to the teachers who spoke at the school board meeting this week, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I was proud to be a teacher. All those who spoke with so much passion and knowledge were such good people. They committed their lives to their profession and to their students. They were all deserving of a living wage in communities that respect and appreciate their commitment to their children and to the future of all our communities.

This morning, I was watching TV, and I had it on CBS Sunday Morning. They did a story about Finland and how much they value education. They showed classrooms where students were fluent in multiple languages already in 4th grade. They are also ranked number one in all nations on teaching students digital literacy, especially when it comes to teaching students to be able to discern real news from fake news. They know it is a skill that successful and happy societies will need in the future and now. It made me wish our country valued education as much as they do there. What if school funding was a top priority? What if educating children was respected for the important calling that it is? What if?

It’s all a big puzzle. Much like the one I bought for my students this week because one of them suggested we should have a puzzle table in our classroom, so they could work on it before school. I love puzzles, and I was thrilled that students wanted to do something with their time that didn’t involve looking at a screen, so I got on Amazon and ordered a puzzle tray and a fall puzzle for my classroom. I paid for it myself. It’s what teachers in our country do. There isn’t a budget for much of what you see in a classroom, but the teachers are so devoted to their students, that they give their time, their money, and their hearts to their profession. Maybe one day our country will appreciate that and direct proper funding to our schools.

I hope education in America will be what it should be one day. I hope my daughter will see a shift in education making it a sustainable career that she deserves to have. We need to do better for our teachers and for the future of our entire country.