Texas teachers are not public enemy No. 1. We just need better pay, work conditions | Opinion

At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, public-school employees were lauded as heroes. Teachers flipped on a dime and became virtual teachers, then adjusted again to hybrid learning, with students in class and online at the same time. Cafeteria staff developed plans to ensure students received meals while the world went on lockdown.

Custodial staff worked, often with meager supplies, to sanitize every inch of schoolhouses. Bus drivers looked about wondering if anyone remembered them as they used unknown chemicals to clean their buses before driving routes. Everyone scrambled but persisted in the task of educating children.

Fast forward three years, and public school employees are often portrayed as the enemy of the state. Gov. Greg Abbott regularly takes to social media to call us woke leftists teaching children to hate America, and he travels the state to promote educational freedom through vouchers to private schools — never forgetting to snap that photo-op with mostly white, affluent students.

It is no wonder that public-school employees are leaving their jobs faster than ever. The U.S. has a shortage of about 400,000 teachers, and in the most recent count, Texas lost 43,000 educators from the workforce. Working in public schools has never been an easy gig, but being the political football to promote voucher schemes has left many feeling hopeless, and the families we serve aren’t necessarily far behind.

Texas lags behind other states in school funding, healthcare access and economic disparity. Families are stretched thin emotionally, physically and financially. Nothing says “we care about families” like our own state government giving us the cold shoulder at every turn.

While Abbott touts Texas’ economic growth and caters to corporate America, those in public education know the truth. We are not the benefactors of the state’s boom, and in many cases, neither are the communities we serve. As public school employees take on second jobs, teacher’s assistants and other workers find themselves homeless (try living on $18,000 a year), and we watch as the mental health of our youth steadily declines, you have to wonder who is the real enemy of the state.

Public schools need fewer unfunded mandates. We need the Legislature to compensate public school employees better. But we also need lawmakers to collaborate with us to substantially change our students’ learning conditions with class-size limits, less standardized testing, mental health services that are easier and cheaper to access, less economic disparity among families and more per-pupil funding.

We need state leadership and a Legislature that works toward solving and improving the real issues plaguing our communities and schools. We do not need the Ten Commandments in every classroom or third-graders learning to “stop the bleed” with instruction on using tourniquets in case of a school shooting.

We need respect in word, deed and action.

To all public school employees, know that your work has value. To all families, you deserve better. To the state’s leadership, your actions toward your own people are despicable.

We won’t rest until all our communities and our neighborhood public schools thrive with the support of leaders who respect us.