Petition is addressed to: Polk County residents

Teachers in Polk County Florida have been blocked from receiving their raise this year by a school board that does not believe in taking care of their teachers. Our union has been proposing the same, equitable solution to end the wage compression gap for long term teachers, provide a level-based raise, and propose a millage to support teacher pay in the future since June. As of today, Sunday February 8, 2025, the Polk County School Board has not budged, but they have given themselves a raise. Polk County is one of the last remaining counties that has not fixed wage compression since Florida raised beginning teacher pay to $47K/year. This means that a new teacher can start at a higher wage than a teacher that's been doing the hard work of educating our students for 10 years! That is unacceptable and downright disgusting! And the big news is that the money is there to make these changes, but the board wants to save that money for a rainy day. Well.... it's raining and teachers are in desperate need of your help! Please sign this petition and tell the Polk County School Board to take care of their teachers and stop putting their raises first. Our students deserve to have well-paid teachers in their classrooms, not 700 substitutes from a temp agency because our school board doesn't want to pay a living wage.