By Sherry East, SCEA President | As we enter the second half of the 125th session of the General Assembly, the South Carolina legislature should further prioritize education.
The first half of this session saw significant strides for educators, such as paid parental leave and increases to the minimum salary schedule. But while these policies are strong improvements, there is still a vital component that is missing from our education policy: respect for educators.
One of the biggest factors driving teachers out of classrooms is a lack of respect. Whether it’s members of the legislature trying to tell educators which books they can teach or what topics they can discuss, members of the community trying to police teachers that aren’t even in their district, or administrators refusing to listen to educators and give them the support they need, educators do not feel like their leaders or their community respect the job they do. If we truly want to end the educator shortage, then it is imperative that we treat educators and public school employees with respect. One effective way to do this is through legislative policy.
The South Carolina Education Association (SCEA)’s legislative agenda focuses on three main policy outcomes: ensuring equitable and effective funding, respecting educators as professionals, and providing an education of excellence. The longest and most detailed part is the second section, because this is the key to solving the teacher shortage.
Let’s look at the policies we believe will create this culture of respect.
Respecting educators as professionals must, of course, begin with competitive compensation. Educators should not have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. While teacher pay has increased over the past two years, Education Support Professional (ESP) pay has not. The average ESP salary in South Carolina is $29,579. That means there is not a single county in the state where a support professional earning an average salary can afford to live without a second job. For our state to be competitive, we must raise teacher salaries to a minimum of $50,000 and support staff salaries to $36,000.
Respect also means trusting teachers as education experts. We are highly trained in best practices in the classroom and on the subject matter we teach. We know which materials work best for our classes and which assessments best measure concept mastery. Most importantly, we know how to teach our students the skills they need to thrive. Our elected officials can show us that they respect our training by rejecting legislation like H.3728 that limits what history our students can learn or which books they can read. Our legislators can respect our training by allowing us to teach curriculum without political censorship, undue scrutiny, or top-down bureaucratic policies that limit natural communication with parents.
Respecting educators includes ensuring that every educator receives unencumbered time during the school day. Thirty minutes of unencumbered time went into effect for elementary school teachers at the start of this school year; this is a big win, but it is time to expand that to educators at all levels. The lack of planning time means that educators work far above their contracted hours in order to plan lessons, grade papers, and complete other tasks that cannot be done during instructional time.
Educators, parents, community members and legislators share the goal of providing our students with quality, affordable, accessible education. But the only way to provide South Carolina students with the top-tier education they deserve is to create a culture of respect for educators – because our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. Implementing these policies would show educators that their hard work and professional expertise are respected, which would reduce burnout and turnover and ultimately create better academic outcomes for students.
- You can read our full legislative agenda at www.thescea.org/legagenda.
Sherry East of Rock Hill is president of the S.C. Education Association. She is a high school science teacher. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
Glad to see teachers are getting what they want. Too bad the parents and children aren’t getting what they pay taxes for, a real education instead of the forced K-12 sexual transition and conjured US history being fed from our teachers. Go back to teaching and stop making everything about the teachers. This country is manufacturing future production line labor for the Chinese.