Officials in West Virginia are set to introduce 50 elk that were captured in Arizona.
Gov. Jim Justice and the state Division of Natural Resources are scheduled to hold a ceremony Tuesday at the Tomblin Wildlife Management Area near Logan.
The governor’s office says in a news release the elk have been in a 5-acre holding pen since March to comply with federal disease testing guidelines. The pen is on reclaimed coal mine property, where grasslands have been cultivated and are considered key for sustaining elk.
They’ll join 35 other elk previously acquired from Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.
The elk from Kentucky were first reintroduced in West Virginia in December 2016. Before that, elk herds hadn’t roamed the state since 1875.
Officials are touting the elk’s potential to help tourism.
The public education uprisings that began in West Virginia and spread to Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky share similar origin stories.
Teachers, long tired of low wages and a dearth of state funding, begin talking to each other online.
Their Facebook groups draw tens of thousands of members. They share stories of their frustrations and then they demand change.
Kentucky public school employee Nema Brewer co-founded the KY120 United Facebook group that drew more than 40,000 members in a month. Teachers there are calling for more education funding, triggering actions that forced more than 30 schools to close last Friday.
“We had no idea it would light a fire under people,” Brewer said.
Educators communicating online played a key role in forming grassroots groups that are storming statehouses and holding demonstrations. It started in West Virginia, where two teachers set up a private Facebook page last fall that grew to 24,000 members. The group provided a private forum for educators to plot strategy, bolster resistance and plan demonstrations. After they went on strike and won a pay raise, educators elsewhere took notice.
Jennifer Grygiel, a communications and social media professor at Syracuse University, said people are increasingly realizing they can coordinate online for social causes, such as the #MeToo movement. Engaging online can also be a way for people to form their own identities, she said. “It’s where we congregate now.”
In Arizona, teachers formed a Facebook group called Arizona Educators United that now has more than 40,000 members. Co-founder Noah Karvelis said social media has been “incredibly vital.” He said the first #RedforEd demonstration day was Twitter-driven.
Most recently, the group used Facebook Live to share news of a planned vote on whether to strike in their quest for a 20-percent raise and more than $1 billion in new education funding. Voting started Tuesday after Gov. Doug Ducey has put forward a proposal to raise salaries 20 percent by 2020 and the voting was scheduled to end Thursday.
The online genesis of the Arizona movement cropped up outside of organized labor. But Arizona Education Association President Joe Thomas said the union stands in solidary with the grassroots group. He spoke at a rally where Arizona Educators United unveiled their demands, joined them in a letter to Ducey asking for a meeting, and appeared in a video on the Facebook page.
He called Arizona Educators United a “breath of fresh air” in the fight for higher education funding.
“It shares the same purpose, and that’s why I think we can stand so easily next to each other,” he said. “I’ve said multiple times, ‘I don’t care who throws the touchdown, I want to win the game.'”
Tammy Custis has been acting as a site liaison for Arizona Educators at the school where she teaches in Peoria. In addition to staying tuned into the main Facebook group and a few other discussion pages, she’s using communication apps to stay in touch with teachers at her school about organizing efforts so they don’t have to use district resources. Online platforms have been key to staying connected, she said.
“It’s amazing how engaged these already-so-busy-teachers are in this fight,” she said. “They are finding a way to get their teaching done, and still finding time to have a voice.”
In Oklahoma, eighth-grade history teacher Alberto Morejon in early March founded the Facebook group supporting a teacher walk-out that’s now being used by about 80,000 teachers. Morejon, who said he doesn’t belong to a union, is continuing to push for new funding for public education.
“We’re going to keep showing up until they do something,” he said.
Once it started, the group grew quickly; within six hours of adding members to the newly created group, it had 17,000 members.
“I think it shows there’s a problem, and it needs to be fixed,” Morejon said.
Beth Becker, a social media coach and strategist in progressive politics, said that social media is “the great democratizer” and thus a powerful organizing tool.
“It has given a voice to people who in the past didn’t have a voice, because they didn’t have that $1 million to buy a member of Congress with,” she said.
But online activism can’t be the sole front, she said. Marches and demonstrations are still necessary to draw attention to a cause, Becker said, citing the Parkland, Florida, students becoming activists to change gun laws and spurring the March for Our Lives.
“You’re not going to win just because of your social media or anything online, but you’re not going to win without it,” she said.
When Oklahoma teacher Sally Salmons saw momentum building toward teacher protests in her state, she immediately reached out to family ties and educators in West Virginia. She said teacher walkouts in the Mountain State provided her and colleagues across the state with the courage they needed to take a stand.
“We looked at West Virginia and said, ‘Now’s the time to get on it.’ I think it gave us confidence to really, finally cross that line,” she said.
Credit Ryland Barton
/
Kentucky teachers fill the capitol for a rally.
Salmons has been teaching first graders in Norman, Oklahoma, for the last 15 years and she said in that time, school buildings and students have been neglected by lawmakers who control state purse strings.
“This [protest] is to provide essential materials that we need to teach children; to get class sizes down, to get them the materials they need, to have them in safe buildings that have chairs and desks for all of them. That’s why we’re here. That’s it,” she said from Oklahoma’s state capitol, surrounded by thousands of teachers.
What started with grassroots activism in some rural West Virginia counties has now helped spark protests in four states and could end up having effects far beyond the classroom. The teachers are injecting energy into a moribund labor movement and are organizing to influence midterm elections in some of the country’s most conservative states.
Unique Perspective
In Kentucky first grade teacher Rachel Keown was also inspired by West Virginia’s nine-day strike.
“You look how communities in West Virginia rallies around their teachers and the support they got, and it gives me so much hope,” she said.
Credit Lisa Goodin
/
Kentucky teacher Rachel Keown also taught in Oklahoma and West Virginia.
Keown has a unique perspective. She got her teaching degree in West Virginia, then worked in Oklahoma schools before moving to Kentucky. She said working in crumbling, poorly funded Oklahoma schools was an eye-opener.
“I just remember one day when I was in my classroom and they couldn’t find another teacher to fill a classroom position so I had my first grade class and half of another first grade class,” she said. “So I was way over-packed, no heat, and it’s the winter in Oklahoma. Can you imagine being a child in that classroom?”
In these deeply red states where organized labor has been in decline, teachers seem pretty fed up with underfunded schools, low pay, and changes to public pension programs.
Educators in Oklahoma want funding for their schools. Arizona teachers want a raise. Kentucky educators like Keown are rallying for classroom and pension funds.
Arizona, West Virginia and Oklahoma all ranked near the bottom when it comes to teacher pay. Kentucky teachers are better compensated, but have seen class funding decrease.
“I look at these budget cuts,” Keown said, “and I look at what’s happening in West Virginia and I see what’s happening in Kentucky. And I can’t say what’s going to happen, but I think about my experience in Oklahoma and I think, ‘Oh gosh, is this the road we’re going to go down?’”
Labor Lessons
The grassroots action spreading among teachers also raises questions about what’s down the road for organized labor.
Wheeling, West Virginia labor lawyer Pat Cassidy sees the teacher protests as part of a broader groundswell of desire for systemic change.
“I think [the teacher walkouts] mirror what seems to be happening with a lot of people organizing with various movements – the anti-gun lobby, the #MeToo movement, the Women’s March, the Climate March,” he said. “There is a lot of ferment for grassroots organizing right now. I think it will invigorate the labor movement.”
For example, Gorby said, in West Virginia union leaders announced a deal had been struck a few days into the strike and encouraged teachers and personnel to return to the classroom. But that didn’t happen. Schools remained closed for another week until legislation was signed. Gorby said stronger union leadership and negotiating authority could have made things different.
“If [teachers] actually had collective bargaining agreements, it would probably prevent some of the disorganization,” Gorby said. “‘Why did this happen?’ There’s no clear bargaining entity to talk to.”
Conservative analysts offer a different perspective. JessiTroyan, development director at the right-leaning Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, said teachers are reacting to larger shifts in education.
“The way that we see education now I believe is going to look fundamentally different in probably ten years,” Troyan said. “It’s going to be unrecognizable from what we see around us. And I think there’s a self-preservation here and just the general human tendency to resist change.”
Midterm Momentum
Teachers are also seeking change come Election Day, registering voters and recruiting candidates who will work for their cause.
In West Virginia, union leaders like Dale Lee from the West Virginia Education Association are out canvassing the state, endorsingpro-education candidates.
Lee said members are still energized and looking forward to elections. Mostly, unions are supporting Democratic candidates, but union leaders are also targeting incumbents on both sides of the aisle who didn’t support teachers during the legislative session.
In Kentucky the Associated Press reported that at least 28 former or current educators, mostly Democrats, are running for office this election cycle in Kentucky, and that list is growing. Only five of 138 state legislators in Kentucky are teachers.
Credit Scott Finn / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
During a recent swing through Kentucky, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said teachers are responding as red state lawmakers push policies too far to the right.
“In states where you have Republican control of governorships and state legislatures, you see massive overreach,” Perez said. “And what you see as a result is Democrats are winning special elections up and down the ballot.” Perez pointed to recent special elections in Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania where Democrats won in districts that voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
“I’m inspired by what the teachers are doing,” Perez said. “They’re not only fighting for fairness for teachers, they’re fighting for a fair shake for children.”
Best For Kids
Kentucky teacher Rachel Keown said she and her colleagues are now more engaged in both union and government processes and expect to remain so.
“Going forward, we have that momentum to make sure that we are electing and supporting pro-education government officials,” Keown said. But her main focus remains the children in her classes — her “babies,” she calls them.
“I wish you could visit my classroom! Six-year-olds and seven-year-olds who are learning how to read and excited about books,” she said. “Don’t you want them to have the best?”
The following reporters contributed to this report: Ryland Barton, Jessica Lilly, Liz McCormick, Dave Mistich, Ardath Osborne, and Becca Schimmel.
A teacher rebellion that started in the hills of West Virginia spread like a prairie fire to Oklahoma this week and now threatens to reach the desert in Arizona.
In the deep red state of Oklahoma, the Republican-led Legislature approved money for teacher raises and more school funding, even hiking taxes on the vaunted oil and gas industry to do it. Republican Governor Mary Fallin rushed to sign the measures into law Thursday.
Oklahoma teachers were inspired by West Virginia, another red state where a 9-day strike led to 5-percent teacher raises. Oklahoma teachers haven’t had a raise in a decade of Republican control and they won raises of between 15 and 18 percent. Now, teachers in Arizona thronged their GOP-run Capitol this week, demanding a 20 percent teacher pay hike.
“West Virginia woke us up,” Arizona Educators Association President Joe Thomas told a cheering crowd at a protest this week in Phoenix.
In Oklahoma, the tax hikes on cigarettes, fuel and oil and gas production will be enough for raises averaging about $6,100 annually, as well as funding boosts for schools, support personnel and state workers.
Oklahoma ranks 47th in the nation in public school revenue per student, nearly $3,000 below the national average, while its average teacher salary of $45,276 ranks 49th, according to the most recent statistics from the National Education Association.
“A lot of teachers are just tired of the promises,” said Alberto Morejon, a junior high history teacher from Stillwater, Oklahoma, who launched a teacher walkout page on Facebook that quickly reached more than 70,000 followers.
Many GOP-led states are feeling the pushback after years of tax cuts that have slashed funding for core government services such as public schools, said Lily Garcia, president of the teachers union NEA, .
“It has been an unmitigated disaster, and it’s now coming home to roost on all those folks who blindly cut taxes, not caring how that was going to impact communities,” said Garcia.
The reversal on tax cuts in Oklahoma was particularly stunning, because lawmakers there included a hike on the normally sacrosanct energy industry, increasing the production tax on oil and natural gas from 2 percent to 5 percent. In the Legislature, where lawmakers needed a three-fourth’s majority in both bodies to pass a new tax, the House voted even as billionaire oil baron Harold Hamm, the chairman and CEO of Continental Resources, glared at them from the gallery.
Fallin, who in 2014 signed into law tax cuts on both income and energy production, signed the measures quickly with a hope of averting statewide school closures. Earlier, she praised bipartisan support of the package and said she hopes the teacher walkouts scheduled to start on Monday will instead become a one-day rally for education.
“That’ll be up to the teachers, but I hope that they can come up here, say ‘thank you’ on Monday and go back to the classrooms,” Fallin said.
In both Arizona and Oklahoma, teachers are mulling whether the current offer from the Legislature is enough to avert a work stoppage. The union in Oklahoma was demanding $75 million in new funding for education, and is expected to get $50 million under the plan.
While some Oklahoma school administrators and board members are giddy over the infusion of new cash, many rank-and-file teachers are demanding that all of their needs are met before they agree to stop a walkout.
“They need to fund our schools better, and until that happens, we’re going to walk out,” said Adrien Gates, an elementary school teacher in Norman. “We need to take this all the way. Otherwise, we’re settling.”
Associated Press reporter Melissa Daniels contributed to this report from Phoenix.
