CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – One week from today teachers from across the state will descend on the South Carolina State House.
The group ‘SC for ED’ is calling next Wednesday “All Out” day. The goal is to get hundreds of teachers to the State House to protest the current education legislation that’s being proposed.
The Horry County School District thinks despite the possibility of a number of teachers taking the day off, classes will go on as planned next Wednesday.
“Our mission is to educate students,” said Horry County District Spokesperson Lisa Bourcier, “and we need to make sure we follow that mission.”
To follow that mission, the Horry County School Districts feels it would be best to have teachers in their classrooms.
“We support our teachers and the efforts being put forth, but we need to make sure we provide the instruction needed for our students on a daily basis too,” said Bourcier. “So we’re very committed to making sure that our students get their education. Again, we’ve missed so many school days because of the past storms so we need to make sure we finish strong the rest of the school year.”
One week before “All Out” day at the State House, Bourcier is confident that with 44,000 students, 6,000 employees, and 3,000 teachers, if a number of teachers do take next Wednesday off, they’ll be okay.
“We do have a large pool of substitute teachers,” said Bourcier, “which of course when you have a large population of employees they do get sick from time to time so we make sure that we have to protocols in place for substitutes.”
There’s actually a pretty unique reason Horry County has that large pool of substitutes.
“We’re fortunate to be a retiree community that we have a lot of retired educators that come here and still want to work,” said Bourcier, “so we do have a pretty decent population of substitute teachers, quality substitute teachers here for Horry County.”
As for what the rally is all about, the current legislation being voted on at the State House calls for a $159 million dollar increase for teacher salaries, or 4 percent. However ‘SC for ED’ is calling for a 10 percent pay raise, along with undisturbed lunches, and smaller class sizes.
