Portland teachers walked off the job this week because they are apparently, overworked and underpaid.

According to this, Teachers have asked for $372 million in new spending over the next three years. The union, Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), is demanding $236 million for salaries and $106 million to cover additional planning time.

How are the students learning while their teachers are picketing on the streets? Send in the paraeducators.

I am extremely overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I teach stuff like handwashing, sneezing into your elbow. It felt like I needed to have prerequisite classes in order to understand the concepts.”-Charlotte Fisher, paraeducator

Paraeductors’ primary goals in the classrooms are to assist teachers with classroom management, assist students with life skills and occasional testing of students to make sure they meet targets. Paras assist with lunch duties, recess duties and arrivals and dismissals. Most often, these lifesavers in our school districts do not have degrees in primary or secondary education. In Portland, they are being asked to fill in the gaps.

“We’re being used as a divisive tool,” said Fisher, who believes they are being used as a wedge between the school district and the teachers. She is not wrong. In most cases, teachers do not want to be out of the classroom. But when the union says “strike”, they strike.

If you think $80,000 a year (for 9 months work, actually) isn’t enough, then you’ve got a huge problem.

— Sometimes Sarah (@Sarah_E_57) November 4, 2023

I would take $80K to have my summers off, just saying.

NEA cited 50 reasons teachers in Portland are currently on the picket lines. Yes, 50. These reasons include enormous class sizes, low pay, too little planning time, rodents and mold in schools, inadequate HVAC systems, student behaviors and large caseloads for students on IEPs and 504s. There were also a token few teachers who are striking for “racial inequity” and “lack of diverse curricula with lack of time to plan and find diverse curricula”.

So, in the meantime, the paraeducators deal with the rats and the mold and faulty HVAC systems and the behavioral issues and students falling even further behind. They are getting paid a small fraction of what a teacher makes to manage an already crowded class filled with bad behaviors, and to perhaps assist students who may need special services. This is all too common. The Portland Association of Teachers strike is a glaring problem that many school districts across the United States are faced with:

A PAT report published in September found that the district could spend up to $53 million from its budget reserve and still have enough saved away to meet the board’s policy to keep that account at 5% to 10% of its operating budget. The report also shows that in the last five years, the district hired more administrators, even as it cut the number of teachers, counselors, and other licensed educators.”-Mallory Grueben, nwlaborpress.org

Portland teachers make upward of $70k a year, and Portland superintendents make upward of $250k a year. Every time they demand and receive more money, the test results get worse!

They are holding children for ransom!

— Dr. Platimus (@SWGaspar) November 2, 2023

More administrators. Less teachers. Less in a budget of reserves to fund necessary improvements to school buildings. What do school districts need? Less worker bees. More fluff at the top sitting in their DEI meetings while all hell breaks loose in middle school classrooms. The liberal media will blame this on just guns. But in truth, these kids have been locked up for almost two years in some cases since 2020 with no structure to speak of. The state government and the teachers’ unions dictated to the teachers to stay OUT of the classrooms. Stay home. Stay safe. Save lives. When students returned, they were academically behind and socially challenged-a perfect storm for any classroom.

Thank you! Stay strong! This might take years, even decades, but it is the right thing to do!

— Mixy Pisa (@MixyPisa) November 2, 2023

Hey, dummy. Children don’t have years or decades for our broken educational systems, top-heavy school districts and greedy unions to pull their heads out of their asses.

Personally, I think it is the very concepts that some school districts and leaders in education are pushing that are showing off the glaring faults of a broken system. Who needs math? Isn’t math racist or something? Better to teach the kids that girls can be boys and boys can be girls during Drag Queen Story hour for Kinders. Gotta be more “equitable in grading“, right?

One consequence of low performance in math is the inability to understand a budget.

— Carlos Flambo (@FlamboCarlos) November 1, 2023

Here’s the crux of the problem. PAT does not know how to read the damn room. They do not see how the optics of a teachers’ strike during the school year is actually hurting their cause/goals. School districts also don’t see how the optics of hiring more administrators working four-day weeks in their offices, (they “work at home” on Fridays), but providing less support for the staff members who are in the schools, day after day. They barely assist them with their curriculum and their planning, leaving them desperately looking for guidance and answers. These administrators also don’t have to deal with faulty, sub-par facilities with poor heating, no A/C, mold or rat droppings. They don’t see the kids breaking out in brawls and interrupting instruction time. They don’t experience the day-to-day frustrations of teachers and building principals calling for more support-or, at the very least, consequences for students who have behavior issues.

And when school bonds or levies are brought to the table on a ballot, the general public votes “no”. Why? Because of all of this BS in a very broken system.

Are teachers really needed in Portland. It’s a complete idiocracy anyway

— Frank Drizzo (@DrizzoFrank) November 3, 2023

I’ll just leave this one here.

Solidarity, my foot. Honestly, I am relieved my child is almost finished with his time in public schools. My prayers go out to parents of young children who have to endure this for another few years. It may be time to shop around.

Featured image via alamosbasement on Flickr, cropped, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)