CORAL SPRINGS, FLA. (WSVN) - Schoolteachers in Broward County who are at the helm of a dispute over funding took to the streets to demand pay raises.
7News cameras captured dozens of protesters wearing red T-shirts chanting and holding up signs at an intersection in Coral Springs, Wednesday afternoon.
“Hey, hey, what do you say? We want better pay,” they chanted.
Demonstrators’ signs included the hashtags #EducatorsMatter and #PayUs.
The gathering was one of several protests that took place in parts of Broward County on Wednesday.
Participants said they are fed up for not being compensated enough for working long hours, and they just want a decent salary.
Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union, said negotiations with the Broward County School Board have stalled.
“We are at an impasse with the Broward County Public Schools, who sat down at the table with us again and came up with a measly 1.5% [increase],” she said.
Now these teachers are asking for the community’s support.
“We’re asking the community to help us out here and show that, you know you need us, you know that you love us, you know that we care about your children,” said Fusco, “and we deserve to be paid a better rate.”
But Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said teacher pay is a top priority with the district.
“We’ve made it a priority to financially support our teachers as much as possible,” he said. “Every year since I’ve been here, we’ve negotiated, we’ve paid our teachers a raise.”
Runcie said Broward teachers are already receiving an almost 7% pay increase due to a referendum passed in 2018.
“We’re working now to negotiate an agreement with the union that would give them some dollars on top of that 7% that’s already out there,” he said, “and we’re going to do our very best to find every penny that we can.”
Taxpayers voted on the referendum to pay higher taxes because of it, but that will only last until 2022.
“Possibly, at the end of four years, if we don’t get it back on the ballot, if we don’t vote it back in, it’s money that is gone,” said Fusco.
That’s why teachers want that money put into their salaries, saying that what the school board is offering doesn’t even cover inflation.
Representatives from the Broward Teachers Union and opponents of the pay increase are set to go before the Broward County School Board on March 10 to state their case. School board members will then decide how much that increase will be.
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