C.O. teachers join statewide protests, urge more funding

(Update: More teacher comments)

Holding signs and wearing T-shirts declaring “Proud Educator,” teachers across Oregon were staging a day of protest Wednesday, some walking out and prompting canceled classes while others rally, march and distribute flyers to call for more state school funding.

Many schools in Oregon were closed for at least part of the day Wednesday, including dozens in the Portland area. In other locations, including Bend-La Pine Schools, teachers handed out information as students and parents arrived for the day and held up protest signs at street corners. They also held several after-school rallies and marches.

Many Bend High faculty lined the streets leading to school Wednesday morning with signs about the issues teachers and schools face due to what they call inadequate funding;

“We have experienced cuts in programs, staffing, and overwhelming workloads, all of which compromise the quality of instruction our students receive,” social studies teacher Amy Sabbadini said.

“We have been carrying the load despite the conditions because we love our students and understand that society is only as strong as its next generation of citizens, workers and parents,” she added. “Our students deserve better. It’s time to fund schools to the Quality Education Model level.”

Douglas Nelson, the former superintendent of Bend-La Pine Schools, was at a rally at The Alyce Hatch Early Childhood Special Education Center in Bend Wednesday morning, as youngsters and parents arrived. He stressed the need to reduce class sizes and for people to look at the big picture of education.

“This is an investment, not only in schools, but when you think about who benefits: our children and our students benefit,” Nelson said. “When they’re productive, they thrive, and they contribute to the overall well-being of our society.”

Oregon schools have some of the largest class sizes and lowest graduation rates in the United States.

At a downtown Bend rally that drew some 2,000 “Wear Red for Ed”-clad teachers and supporters, a teacher at High Desert Middle School, Dean Prudhomme, said he witnesses the effects of the lack of resources and large class sizes have every day.

“As class sizes get bigger, we can’t get with our kids as much,” Prudhomme said. “So we can’t focus on individual learners, it becomes more just managing large classes. The kids don’t have as much support with like counselors and librarians and we just don’t have the funds that we need.”

Other teachers in Sisters and Redmond echoed those thoughts at rallies Wednesday.

Barry Branaugh, a teacher in the Redmond School District, said the solution to these issues are simple.

“Oregon has demanded higher graduation rates, so you have to get more people in,” Branaugh said. “And that takes money.”

The demonstrations come amid a new stalemate in Salem, as Oregon Republican senators protested by skipping a session Tuesday and another Wednesday in which a vote was scheduled on a $1 billion business tax to fund schools.

Part of that bill would fund early childhood special education, which teachers say is in desperate need of a boost.

Diane Tipton, early childhood special education director with the High Desert Education Service District, said, “We’ve grown 11 percent this year, and our funding has not kept up, so we just have larger class sizes, bigger caseloads, and we try to do the best we can with the funding we have.”

Educators were not the only ones wearing “Red for Ed” to support teachers’ efforts.

“Schooling is not left to the teachers alone,” said Erin Henderson, a Bend mother of three at the Alyce Hatch Center rally, “School should be family-involved, community-involved, teacher support staff-involved. Without the entire support system of all of us working together, the children suffer.”

The Oregon Education Association estimates that 25,000 people showed up at a teacher walkout and rally in Portland to call for more education funding.

Hundreds more people turned out Wednesday in Eugene and Salem, where they protested on the steps of the state Capitol and in a nearby park.

The walkout comes as Republican lawmakers prevented a vote on a $1 billion education tax for the second day in a row.

Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, the Portland Democrat who helped craft the legislation, says it’s now up to teachers to keep up pressure on Republicans.

Dallas High School senior Braydon Wallace says classes are so crowded that students have to sit on the floor and textbooks are missing pages.

Kathy Paxton-Williams grew up in the Portland Public Schools and has been teaching for more than 20 years. She says she has seen dramatic changes for kids and that every year there’s been cuts after cuts.

Some school districts in Oregon think a walkout isn’t the right way for teachers to air their grievances about how much money the state is spending on education.

Grants Pass Superintendent Kirk Kolb says students will instead be participating in volunteer events to show why the community should value education.

Kolb’s district is in one of the most conservative cities in Oregon. He says “walking out of school and closing school, we agree that’s not a message we want to represent.”

Most schools gave a week’s notice and offered day care and free lunch programs, something parents say they appreciate.

Wednesday’s actions follow a wave of teacher activism that began in West Virginia in 2018 and was followed by Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and elsewhere.