In the aftermath of last year’s historic pay raise and teacher walkout, Valerie Milzarek returned to her classroom in August with a little more money and even more students.
Milzarek teaches more than 60 sixth-graders every day in a trailer behind Jones Elementary School in Tulsa. Her two classes of 31 students are the largest she’s ever had, and the single-wide makes for a tight fit.
No bathroom. No timeout area. Some days feel more like crowd control than teaching.
“There’s just no space,” Milzarek said. “As a matter of fact, my principal just ordered some tables for my classroom instead of desks because they take up too much room.”
Teachers across the district are experiencing identical classroom deficiencies due to a lack of state funding for education. Some teachers like Milzarek say the increases to teacher pay and school funding approved by the Legislature in March weren’t enough, and they remain disappointed by the result of the nine-day walkout.
People are also reading…
The Oklahoma Education Association is seeking about $400 million, including $150 million in classroom funding and a $3,000 raise for teachers, during the 2019 legislative session. Many educators believe another walkout could happen in the next two years if that funding goal isn’t reached.
Amanda Shine teaches a class of 27 kindergartners at Jones Elementary. Her students share workbooks because there aren’t enough for everyone.
“We’re teaching the future. We’re teaching the next governor,” Shine said. “But it’s hard to do with so many students in your classroom that you feel defeated sometimes. I know I’m not reaching every student like I should. There’s just too many of them.”
Milzarek said the possibility of a second strike has been a hot topic in education circles, though at this point they’re just rumors. She wouldn’t be surprised if it happened, with the renewed attention surrounding teacher walkouts in Los Angeles and Denver.
During Oklahoma’s walkout, Milzarek said she and her colleagues were prepared to give up their summers and scheduled vacations to keep pushing for classroom funding. She believes enough momentum is still there to propel teachers to finish the fight.
“I think there’s definitely a vast number of teachers that would say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it again. And this time, let’s make it count,’ ” she said.
Shine thinks there’s a “high possibility” of another walkout, or at least some kind of significant action, if the Legislature doesn’t fund the OEA’s request. She says she still struggles with finances despite the raise, and she’s tired of having to trim her budget every year.
Shawna Mott-Wright, vice president of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association, said it’s imperative that education advocates don’t forget the primary goal of last year’s strike: secure funding to help kids.
Failure to meet the OEA’s demands this legislative session will result in some kind of state collective action, Mott-Wright said.
“We’re getting more kids than ever before, less teachers than ever before, less qualified teachers, and we’re getting more kids with trauma,” she said. “So this is not a multiplication problem. It’s an exponential problem. We’ve been digging, digging, digging. So to stop digging, that’s great, but we’ve got to fill in the hole, which is a lot deeper than it used to be.
“So we don’t want a walkout, and I’m not saying that there will be one. But I will tell you this,” Mott-Wright said. “If we don’t have what we need for the educators and the schools of Oklahoma by April 1, there will be some huge statewide something. We don’t know what it looks like yet, but there will be.
“Because we’re done. The quintessential teacher is gone. You’ve got mama bear and papa bear now.”
Monroe Demonstration Academy teacher Deitrya Anderson, who has classes with upward of 40 students and about half as many workbooks, said there’s been discussion about implementing other strategies if the funding doesn’t come.
One of those is a rolling walkout, meaning school districts essentially take turns sending teachers to rally at the state Capitol.
Anderson agrees that teachers don’t want another full-scale walkout, if possible. She called it an end-game plan that should be executed only in the most dire situations.
Keith Hanson, an advanced placement teacher at Memorial High School with class sizes ranging from 29-35 students, isn’t optimistic about the possibility of another strike.
He rallied for general education funding at the Capitol all but one day of last year’s walkout and was frustrated by the OEA calling off the strike. Many teachers, he said, were angry that the teacher association’s decision reportedly came immediately after school districts began pulling support. OEA leaders said the decision came after negotiations reached an impasse.
“It did seem, at least from the people walking, that we were going through this whether the districts supported us or not,” Hanson said. “And when push came to shove, our association leadership gave in.
“I can understand the reasoning behind that. We are a right to work state. We don’t have any legal rights to strike. But that’s not going to change until something happens and somebody takes a stand.”
Hanson said it would be difficult to organize another walkout unless there’s major support from school districts. He doesn’t believe that’s likely without “something special” happening to prove that more could be accomplished.
For Stillwater Junior High School teacher Alberto Morejon, that something special could involve one of several recently filed bills cracking down on teacher strikes.
A handful of Oklahoma lawmakers are making headlines for proposed measures that seek to punish and limit future protests. One would require the payment of a $50,000 bond for anyone planning a protest at the Capitol by 100 or more people. Another would make disrupting the Legislature a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and six months in jail.
Morejon, whose Facebook group was instrumental in gathering support for last year’s strike, said he doesn’t see one happening in 2019 without something drastic happening to hurt public education. He believes the fallout from one of those bills passing could spur another walkout.
However, Morejon acknowledges that the chance of any of the bills gaining traction is slim. He said it’s more likely for teachers to strike in 2020 if the Legislature fails to fund education this spring.
“I really hope that (legislators) stick to their word and we don’t have to do this,” he said. “It’d be nice if they pass something this year that’s another step in the right direction, and we can just keep building upon that. But if nothing gets passed this year, then I have a hard time thinking that they’re actually serious about it, so I guess we’ll see what happens.”
State Sen. Gary Stanislawski, R-Tulsa, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said education is the No. 1 priority in the Senate, which aims to make a “good-faith effort” into putting as much money as possible into classrooms.
The problem is there’s not enough money to go around.
Stanislawski was told in December that the state had a little more than $600 million in additional funds to spend. He’s since learned that close to $400 million already have been spent on needs like bond payments for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and ad valorem reimbursement for schools.
All that’s left is about $200 million, which he said makes it “virtually impossible” to meet the OEA’s demand.
“My goal is if we can get even 50 percent of what we have available, then I think we did really good for common education,” Stanislawski said.
Bartlesville Superintendent Chuck McCauley said it’s important to give the new governor and legislators time to boost schools’ finances.
McCauley, whose online survey gauging support for a walkout helped spark the 2018 teacher movement, is confident the Legislature will prioritize education and said a walkout this year would be too extreme.
“In Bartlesville, what we’re hopeful for is — now that we have a regionally competitive teacher salary — our state’s next goal should be regionally competitive per-pupil funding,” he said. “We realize there’s not enough money available to make that a realistic possibility in a year. It’s going to take a few years to get there.”
Meanwhile, Milzarek has no plans to stop teaching despite the overloaded class sizes.
There are some days she comes home from school and thinks about other jobs she could take with her degree and experience. She and her husband have talked about moving to another state where education is more of a priority.
The conversations always lead to the question of where Milzarek feels she can make the most difference. Tulsa has been the answer every time.
But in the back of her mind, she said she knows that if conditions don’t change soon, she’ll be the one who has to change.
“Everybody has a breaking point. I’m just not sure when I’m going to hit mine.”
