On May 8th, all across Oregon, school staff did a walkout. The teachers walked out to increase funding for schools, to decrease class sizes and fund many needed school programs.
Renee McKinney, English teacher at YCHS said, “To urge the Oregon legislation to increase funding for schools to reduce class sizes, and fund needed programs. The state has been underfunding education each year for the last 10 years at 21-38% below what their own experts say is needed to adequately fund schools.”
The state of Oregon has been underfunding education, causing the class sizes to be larger, and many schools are lacking beneficial programs.
Sadly, many schools could not participate in the walkout, because that would cause the school to be closed for that day, causing the teachers to lose pay for that day.
The teacher’s in the YC schools district instead wore red shirts in support of #RedforEd. “I wore my #RedforEd shirt and made many more for our staff to wear in solidarity and posted messages on social media. I didn’t want to close school for a walk-out but I wanted to show my support for increased funding,” McKinney said.
When asked if they would join if students could, 9th grader Cheyanna Skahan responded, “Yes I would. The teachers deserve it, I mean they ARE teaching our next generations and our futures starting from the beginning and many schools (like ours) are run down and could really use the funding.”
Over 600 schools were involved in the walkout across Oregon.
Fortunately, the state passed the increase in funding for schools, McKinney said.
With this increase in funding statewide, schools should expect to see higher pay for our school staff and a decrease in class sizes per class. Schools should also see a larger number of programs that will benefit our students coming into action.