In an amazing act of solidarity, GRPS students make demands of the Grand Rapids School Board to increase the salary of teachers

Last night some 30 high school students came to the Grand Rapids Public School Board meeting to make several demands. 

The Student Association for Leadership and Transformation (SALT), which is essentially a student union met at Martin Luther King Jr. Park before the school board meeting to talk about their action, to affirm their commitment to the work they all set out to do, and to conducted interviews with several of the local news media outlets.

When the time came, the SALT students marched from MLK Park to the Grand Rapids Public School Administration building, carry signs and shouting out chants that reflected the four demands they were going to present. The four demands they presented are: 

• Immediately increase the Grand Rapids Education Association staff and teacher salary to the county average. As GRPS students, many of us have been impacted by the teacher shortage in recent years.  To feel supported, we need consistent teachers who can develop an engaged learning environment and build long-term relationships with us.  Right now, teacher pay in GRPS is low compared to other districts, which makes it hard to maintain current teachers, much less replace folks who are retiring or fill vacancies.  Increased compensation would encourage more qualified, certified, and culturally appropriate teachers to want to work in GRPS, and help create a positive experience for us.  It would also support both the mental health of us as students and our teachers- teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. We want to learn in an environment where our teachers are cared for so they can better care for us.
• Terminate the virtual learning contract with Elevate K-12 and invest in certified teachers. Many of our peers fell behind during the COVID-19 pandemic with virtual learning. Currently, about $5M is being spent on virtual teachers and staff monitoring the classroom that should be re-invested in long-term qualified staff and educators.  We need in-person teachers who can understand the local context of our schools and help us feel connected to our school community.  We need teachers who have classrooms we can stop by between classes or after school for one-on-one support and advice, which isn’t possible with virtual teachers.
• Implement 1 hour daily of non-core instruction (i.e. PE, music, art, language) for elementary students. When we were in elementary school, we loved going to specials like gym and music.  We believe all GRPS elementary students deserve access to these kinds of learning opportunities because they allow us to express ourselves in different ways- ways that can’t always be captured with a pen and paper.  These classes help us discover our skills and passions, build community with other students and learn to work together and resolve conflicts, and support our confidence early on. This time also allows our teachers to have planning and preparation time, which helps them feel less overworked and more able to help younger students learn.
• Immediate transparency of the GRPS and GREA bargaining process. SALT students have noted how in other districts and places  community members are allowed to attend the conversations, which we think is a great idea for community and district engagement. We have noticed that we aren’t often included in decisions that impact our learning and school experience- and neither are our families or other adults in the community who care about us.  We would like to see union negotiations be more public, so that everyone can understand how these decisions are being made.  We know that transparency and accountability are values that GRPS would like to model, and this is an example of a way that could happen, and would also be an important learning and advocacy opportunity for us as students. Transparency on the GREA and GRPS bargaining process enables student and community support around district decisions and promotes community engagement and accessibility. 

The SALT students arrive at the school board meeting a full 30 minutes prior to the scheduled meeting time. The GRPS School Board President stated that there were a lot of people who had submitted public comment cards, but then said that since so many had, they were going to reduce public comment time from 3 minutes to 2 minutes for each person. This action seemed rather arbitrary and unethical.

Despite the reduction in public comment time, the students who got up to speak were amazing and inspiring. In fact, they sounded like seasoned union members, since they use words like bargaining power, negotiations, wage increases and one student even referred to the GRPS’s overuse of substitute teachers and virtual teachers as scabs. Just listen to the comments of one of the students, Gabe Jauw, who also acted as one of the media spokespersons for this action.

More than a dozen other students got up to speak, sometimes repeating the demands, but mostly speaking from their hearts and their lived experience as students, particularly about the value of having a teacher available to them in person and not on a screen. There were also several parents and other community members who addressed some of the same issues, and several people affirmed the words of the students. 

These students kept saying all during the meeting that they are the future, which of course they most certainly are. Now, I don’t know if the GRPS School Board members were truly listening or taking their message to heart, but I do know that any of the students who are part of SALT certainly will have the capacity to do great things in life. Unfortunately, on one of the 4 demands presented by the SALT students, the GRPS board voted 5 – 3 to renew a $2.4 million contract with the company providing virtual education.