7 questions for Erica Newsome, West Virginia teacher, about the West Virginia teacher’s strike
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I met Erica Newsome at Netroots Nation 2018 where she was one of the panelists speaking about the West Virginia teachers strike. Other panelists included Zanetta Stallworth, Ryan Frankenberry, and Brianne Solomon (now running for state legislator in WV-14).7 questions for Erica Newsome, West Virginia teacher, about the West Virginia teacher’s strike
I met Erica Newsome at Netroots Nation 2018 where she was one of the panelists speaking about the West Virginia teachers strike. Other panelists included Zanetta Stallworth, Ryan Frankenberry, and Brianne Solomon (now running for state legislator in WV-14). I told Erica how the strike had been an inspiration to many educators and others around the country and asked her if she’d share her experiences. What’s your background as a teacher, Erica? My parents always told me that they thought I would be a good teacher, so that’s always what I leaned toward. I originally wanted to be a Music teacher but eventually switched to English Language Arts. I have taught English in West Virginia as well as Toronto, Canada, and South Korea. This will be my ninth year teaching. What led to the strike? For a very long time, teachers have been mistreated and overworked. Central Offices spend millions of dollars on programs that take control away from educated professionals and put us at the mercy of a different school’s programming, or a computer generated lesson, while we can barely obtain school supplies for our rooms. West Virginia, as a state, has failed its teachers spectacularly. Years ago, lawmakers told us that we would never be at the top pay scale but we would have good benefits from the state and be taken care of in terms of insurance and retirement. For the past several years, the state has not contributed any money to the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) and have passed the rising costs of health care onto their underpaid state workers, including teachers. This past year, the PEIA board decided to cut premiums for the top tier of public employees (which would include people such as Dana Holgorson, West Virginia University’s head football coach, who reportedly makes over 2 million a year) because they were “paying too much” and shifted additional costs onto lower income workers instead. They also planned to charge extra to married employees, and charge per child instead of offering a single family plan. Deductibles were to be higher than ever while our salaries have been stagnant for several years. I think the last straw was when we learned we would be forced to download a phone app that would track our movement, food intake, body measurements, and more. Failure to do so would result in even higher deductibles and would force even retired employees to report their biometrics regularly via a phone app. Some teachers who downloaded the app reported that they already had targeted ads and other evidence of tracking appear on their phones even before signing up for the program. Invading our privacy while asking more and more of us each year and paying less was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The lack of respect and basic decency afforded to some of the most highly educated and important employees of West Virginia left us little recourse than to walk out of the classroom. Read more