Teachers in black protest legislative changes

Dressed in a black Virginia High sweatshirt Friday, Tracey Mercier might have looked like she was demonstrating her school spirit. The school’s colors are black and orange.

But she wasn’t the only one wearing black; she and fellow teachers at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School said they were mourning the loss of the respect they once had from the Virginia General Assembly.

They were among educators across Southwest Virginia who participated in a statewide protest against proposed legislation that would reduce their compensation and job security.

“It’s called Black Friday, and it is to mourn the attack that the state legislature has launched against Virginia’s educators,” said Mercier, co-president of the Bristol, Va., Education Association and a teacher for 19 years. “We’re collectively wearing black … to mourn the loss of the respect and dignity that should be held for public education.”

Mercier said the biggest issues are proposed changes to the Virginia Retirement System and the proposed elimination of the continuing contract policy that shields teachers against unjust firing.

The continuing contract is what ensures that teachers will keep their jobs from year to year, Mercier said. Without it, good teachers could lose their jobs for political reasons, she said.

“If this [the elimination of continuing contract] does pass, then Virginia schoolteachers and principals will be the only public employees that don’t have a dismissal procedure and policy,” Mercier said. “We’ll be denied a fair dismissal process.”

Proposed changes to the underfunded Virginia Retirement System stem from the budgetary squeeze of the last few years.

“We would lose 5 percent of our salary right off the top,” said Mercier, referring to the amount that employees could be required to pay into the system if one proposed change takes place.

That’s significant, she said, because teachers make less money than many with the same level of education who work in the private sector, and can’t contribute as easily to their own retirement funds.

Another proposal, Mercier said, would reduce teachers’ retirement benefits by changing the formula used to calculate teacher pensions. The bottom line, she said, would be a 10 percent reduction.

Teacher pensions are calculated based on the teacher’s average salary in his or her last three years of teaching, Mercier said. After retirement, they receive a pension equivalent to a little over half of that salary.

In general, Mercier said, education is no longer the funding priority it once was in the state legislature. Without the needed funding, she said, the quality of Virginia’s schools – and therefore its future – will suffer.

“We’re not being loud; we’re not being disrespectful; we’re just quietly protesting,” she said. “We just want to bring awareness to what is happening in Richmond."

To Brittany Harris, a new third-grade teacher at Stonewall Jackson, teaching is not just a job; it’s a lifelong dream. She said she started playing school when she was very young.

“I just want to make sure my job is based on my performance, and not something where they could just get rid of me for no reason at all,” she said.

The reasoning behind a continuing contract is simple: It combats cronyism in public schools, helping to assure that teaching jobs are professional – not political – in nature.

Mark Lineburg, superintendent of schools in Bristol, Va., countered the argument that it allows bad teachers to remain in the classroom.

“I don’t think the continuing contract intimidates us one bit as to us taking action,” he said, adding that employees deserve to have safeguards that ensure a fair process.

What’s really important, he said, is good leadership and good evaluation procedures.

School system officials around the region have expressed hope that any newly required VRS contributions could be implemented over time rather than all at once.

But more than the specific issues that the Virginia Education Association is lobbying for in Richmond, Lineburg said what troubles him is “the adversarial rhetoric against schools” that he said has permeated much of the discussion.

Administrators – including Lineburg and Principal Linda Brittle – wore black Friday in support of the teachers.

“When you live and work with professionals of the caliber we have in Bristol, Va., city schools, you cannot be unsupportive,” Brittle said. “It’s disappointing that the emphasis is moving away from all that is good and right and the challenges that are being met daily.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com
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