{"id":29463,"date":"2018-03-08T17:58:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T23:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=29463"},"modified":"2018-03-14T12:24:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T17:24:48","slug":"oklahoma-teachers-union-lays-out-1-4-billion-in-demands-from-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2018\/03\/08\/oklahoma-teachers-union-lays-out-1-4-billion-in-demands-from-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Teachers Union Lays Out Demands For Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_29464\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29464\" alt=\"President of the Oklahoma Education Association, Alicia Priest, says teachers are frustrated with lawmakers for not doing their jobs. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/180308_AliciaPriest-WEB.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/180308_AliciaPriest-WEB.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/180308_AliciaPriest-WEB-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/180308_AliciaPriest-WEB-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2018\/03\/180308_AliciaPriest-WEB-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Emily Wendler \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">President of the Oklahoma Education Association, Alicia Priest, says teachers are frustrated with lawmakers for not doing their jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>In the first public press conference since talk of a statewide teacher walkout began, the largest Oklahoma teachers union laid out their demands for the state legislature.<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p><a href=\"http:\/\/okea.org\/assets\/files\/TWS-Handouts.pdf\">The demands<\/a> include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$10,000 pay raise for teachers over the next three years.<\/li>\n<li>$5,000 raise for school support professionals, like secretaries, custodians, and bus drivers.<\/li>\n<li>$200 million in increased school funding over three years.<\/li>\n<li>$213 million for state employees raises.<\/li>\n<li>$256 million in health care funding over the next two years.<\/li>\n<\/ul><p>Oklahoma Education Association President Alicia Priest says the goal is not to close schools, it\u2019s to fund education. But, if the legislature doesn\u2019t come up with the revenue by April 1st, schools will shut down.<\/p><p>\u201cSchools will stay closed until we get what we are asking for,\u201d she said.<\/p><p>The first year of <a href=\"http:\/\/okea.org\/assets\/files\/TWS-Handouts.pdf\">OEA&#8217;s plan<\/a> will cost lawmakers $812 million. Priest says the union did not identify specific revenue-raising methods because the legislature has developed several proposals of their own over the past few years that could be used to raise the funds.<\/p><p>Senate Pro Tem Mike Schulz says a $10,000 raise over time raise is possible, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oksenate.gov\/news\/press_releases_audio.aspx\">but it\u2019s going to be tough.<\/a><\/p><p>\u201cThat would [require] about $600 million in additional revenue. We\u2019ve seen a struggle in the House to pass anything that would raise $300 &#8211; $400 million. So I think if you\u2019re asking that chamber to raise $600 milllion\u2026 that would be very difficult.\u201d<\/p><p>He said he thinks a $5,000 raise is more obtainable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the first public press conference since talk of a statewide teacher walkout began, the largest Oklahoma teachers union laid out their demands for the state legislature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":29464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[776,779],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29463"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29469,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29463\/revisions\/29469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}