Teachers Protest Pay Freeze

Woodbridge, Va. — Prince William County school teachers banded together to protest the lack of pay raises over the next three years.

In cold and rainy weather, about 200 participants at the “Rally for a World Class Education” lined sidewalks at the heavily traveled intersection of Prince William Parkway and Minnieville Road holding signs stating “no teacher left behind” and “support Prince William teachers.”

The rally comes after Prince William Public Schools Superintendent Steven L. Walt’s proposed 2013 $932.3 million budget would freeze teacher pay raises. After years of stagnant pay raises, about two percent a year according to a report in The Washington Post, a once enthusiastic English teacher, Bryan Haney, has turned to the web to research teaching jobs outside in other jurisdictions.

“When the county basically suggested this year they were going to freeze pay for another three years that would mean I would be making my second-year salary going into my sixth, seventh, eighth year, possibly,” said Bryan Haney, who teaches at C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge. “I’m also getting married this summer to another teacher who’s pretty early in the pay scale, too. When you start to think about raising a family…when you start planning long term, you expect certain things.”

While teachers are contracted to work seven hours a day, many stay after school, take work home and grade papers on weekends. When Prince William teachers began a “work to the rule” protest last week, Walt reminded them through a letter their contract requires them to be involved, even lead extra circular activities.

The teachers rallied Friday were prideful in Prince William schools, and many said this show of solidarity expresses those feelings.

Some passing drivers blew horns in support of the teachers’ plight and asked how they could help their cause. Another driver heckled the teachers and said he was against union workers – though Virginia’s right to work laws prohibit teachers from forming a union.

“I think I know someone who was a teacher in Virginia and was in a union,” he yelled from his car window.

“This is Virginia and we’re not allowed to form a union,” teachers responded.