State of education report finds teachers in need of more support

BY ALISON BERG ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS

Survey results conducted by the largest educator’s union in Colorado paint a bleak picture of how most educators feel in their jobs.

e Colorado Education Association recently surveyed around 1,600 public educators in the state and found their main concerns were lack of investment in the education system, disrespecting their professional experience and feeling unsafe at work. ose issues were more pronounced for LGBTQ+ educators, who said they felt particularly unsafe existing authentically at work.

Education association leadership members presented the report in a press conference last week they called “State of Education,” mimicking the nationwide “State of the Union,” address.

“Respecting our educators as experts means centering our voices in legislation that a ects our work,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, a high school counselor and president of the Colorado Education Association. “We need to be asking our educators who do the job every day what is needed.”

Baca-Oehlert said the COVID-19 pandemic, skyrocketing costs of living with wages that haven’t kept up, an increase in school shootings and politicization of the classroom have all pushed teachers out of the profession.

Most survey respondents pointed to low pay as their primary reason for leaving the profession. An average teacher’s salary in Colorado is about $60,000, the report states, which is 35% less than comparably-educated adults. e National Education Association also reported Colorado ranks 49th in the country for paying its teachers a liveable wage.

Dave Lockley, educator and president of the District 12 Educator Association, said his district in Westminster currently has 40 vacant paraprofessional and educator positions, meaning teachers are stretched even thinner trying to ful ll roles outside their job description without pay matching the extra work.

“Every time we’re missing one of these key cogs in the larger machine of education, it means our students don’t get the education they deserve,” Lockley said. “We’re asking our educators to sometimes do double the amount of workload that they’re doing and they’re falling o and leaving at an unprecedented Twenty-one percent of survey respondents said they considered leaving education due to politicallymotivated attacks on their curriculum or themselves.

“Especially as social studies teachers and across the board with educators, we try to present a variety of perspectives for kids so they can learn, be e ective problem solvers and be critical thinkers,” said Kevin Vick, vice president of the Colorado