By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | A new South Carolina group of educators says teachers in the Palmetto State don’t want to walk out like peers around the nation who are fighting for higher pay. But the group says it is putting pressure on the General Assembly to raise wages that long have been lower than average.
Members of the group, SCforEd, say it is working to unify teacher voices in the state while pushing for lawmakers to fix teacher pay and education funding.
“First and foremost we want our voice at the table. A lot of decisions are made by people who are not in the classroom,” SCforEd founder and Blythewood High School teacher Lisa Ellis said. “Our goal is to prevent walking out … (and) getting people advocating for themselves.”
SCforEd started as a Facebook group in May. Since then, the group has grown to more than 15,000 educators. For perspective, there are an estimated 49,475 public school teachers in South Carolina, according to Education Week.
The group initially started to help teachers talk about their struggles, but now the group is focused on political and legislative action, such as hosting candidate town halls and seeking to drive policy decisions.
There are two teacher associations already in the state: The S.C. Education Association (SCEA) and Palmetto State Teachers Association (PSTA). Ellis said SCforEd’s advocacy efforts won’t be backed by dues, but will partner with the associations on advocacy. For example, SCforEd partnered on the SCEA’s May rally at the Statehouse for better teacher pay, according to SCEA spokesman Skot Garrick. PSTA’s Executive Director Kathy Maness told Statehouse Report that she has met with Ellis and has attended the group’s Midlands caucus earlier this summer.
While SCforEd says it has more than 15,000 followers, the PTSA has about 13,000 members. Membership numbers for The SCEA were not available, according to Garrick.
Solutions for dropouts
After Statehouse Report’s Aug. 3 story about the state’s increased dropout rate, some educators responded with the hashtag #SCforEd, encouraging lawmakers to ask teachers for solutions.
SCforEd volunteer Nicole Walker of Blythewood said curbing dropouts comes down to having good teachers who aren’t working multiple jobs or tasked with wrangling 35 students in a classroom.
“Relationships are the key,” said Walker, who works at Ridge View High in Richland School District 2. “(If) you increase class sizes due to lack of funding, you inhibit the personal relationships teachers can build with students that might be the key to keeping a student in school.”
She also noted that public schools in South Carolina fail to meet the American School Counselors Association’s recommendation for guidance counselors, psychologists or social workers.
“The thing most of the people in our group keep coming back to is, because we have not met our financial requirements each year, what you’ve seen is fewer teachers, more overcrowded classrooms and you don’t have all the counseling staff in place … all of these things that would impact a dropout rate based on our lack of funding,” Walker said.
Policy push
Lawmakers included a 1 percent salary increase and bumped the starting salary of teachers in this year’s budget, seeking to an exodus of educators. But Walker said that with inflation, the raise will do little to help teachers.
She said that inflation is at 2.5 percent, which means a 1 percent increase isn’t even a “cost-of-living raise.” She added that increased insurance costs have also eaten into the pay increase.
“You’re really experiencing a cut,” she said.
Ellis said SCforED is realistic about expectations and realizes the state only has so much money to go around. Last week, members of SCforEd talked with State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman. Walker said they talked about a 5 percent raise in the broader context of making the teaching profession better and classroom discipline.
“Every kid deserves to have a teacher that is rested and ready and focused on them,” Ellis said. And teachers can’t do that if they are working second or third jobs to pay the bills, she added.
Also on SCforEd’s agenda is ensuring administrative follow-through on student discipline and encouraging educators to vote. Ellis said educators tend to not participate in elections, but that elected officials, from the local school board up through federal office, have big implications on their jobs.
Walker said the group will have a statewide caucus Sept. 29 at University of South Carolina College of Education in Columbia where former educator S.C. Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, will be the keynote speaker.
At the caucus, there will be experts to discuss how to the group can further advocate for educators in the state.
“That’s going to be the push into October and trying to start meeting with legislators in that pre-file season so they come into January with understanding what our needs are,” Walker said.
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