It all started February 22nd, when about 20 thousand teachers across the state of West Virginia started a strike against the low pay rate, an issue many teachers face across the United States. For nine consecutive school days, 55 schools were forced to close their doors and cancel school due to lack of teachers and staff.

The protest continued strong through the next week which prompted the state government to make a decision to offer a 5% pay increase across the state school district. The teachers eagerly agreed to the offer and were planning to return the schools and start teaching once again. Unfortunately, the government signed a 4% increase instead of the promised 5%. The teachers weren’t going to stop the strike until they got their promised 5% increase, so finally Jim Justice, Governor of West Virginia, signed it into law. With this new law, West Virginia is now 48th in terms of how much it pays teachers. Justice tweeted his statement on the issue, ” I’m an educator, I believe in your purpose, I believe in you, and I love our kids.”

This strike is just the start of a wave of them popping up across the US, even here at Sahuaro we had our very own voice.  On March 8th, 2018 teachers across our home state of Arizona wore red to protest for low wages. Over the weekend, a group of Arizona school teachers posted a possible strike called #RedForEd. 20,000 teachers took part in the protest showing up to schools in red attire, and many members of the community sent words of encouragement to the teachers standing up against low wages. “I hope that everybody realizes that teachers have legitimate power right now, and we haven’t fully used it yet but we can,” said Noah Karvelis, one of the protest’s organizers and a music teacher at Tres Rios Service Academy in Tolleson.