By BRADY KOKOJAN
Student Reporter
To strike or not to strike has been the question going around the state of Oklahoma this past week. The Oklahoma Schools are ranked 49 out of 50 for teacher’s salaries, and therefore many of our teachers here in Oklahoma are striking. On Monday, OEA estimated that 30,000 teachers and 500,000 students were not in school, with most of those schools being in the metro area. Gov. Mary Fallin on March 29 signed a $424 million-dollar tax plan that would ultimately provide $6,100 pay raises to teachers.
This pay raise was not enough to stop most of the teachers in Oklahoma from going on strike. KOCO news has already released the list of schools that will continue to be closed all the way up until the middle of this week. It’s a touchy subject, but one thing is for sure, we can all agree on the fact that the Government needs to do something.
“I believe the Oklahoma teachers need to advocate themselves. They are terribly underpaid for what’s requested of them” said Dr. Henry Trabuc Assistant Professor of Education At NWOSU. “Most of my students understand the need to advocate for a better work environment, but that didn’t affect them going into education. Some of them did state they might look elsewhere for higher paying jobs, but I was very impressed that they still wanted to go into education as if it was their calling.”
Alva High School and several other schools around Northwest Oklahoma have not gone on strike; however, the teachers that are on strike are demanding a $3.3 billion dollar raise over the next three years for school funding, benefits and pay raises for all public employees according to Alexia Fernandez Campbell and Kainaz Amaria. I feel like the government needs to do something and act on this issue immediately for the sake of our youth.