by Isabella Frost
Beth Knappenberger an older woman that stands around 5 feet 6 inches with brown hair shoulder length hair and an abled body that still works out every single day, arrived at her job late May of 2017 at Lejeune High School located in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, eager to begin her day as usual teaching eleventh grade English. For Knappenberger, it was just another day where she would begin teaching her small Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition class of ten students. Knappenberger and her AP class had grown close over the school year. Their relationship had grown from the first day where no one said anything all the way until the last day of school where students cried tears of sadness realizing they would no longer be taught by their favorite teacher in the whole school. It was just after the dreaded AP exam and the school year was coming to an end. Tiyah Snell, a student in the class looked down at Knappenberger’s feet and said, “Mrs. Knapps, are you wearing two different shoes?” Knappenberger looked down through her round glasses and stared in stunned disbelief at her feet. “Well, this goes to show just how ready I am for summer” Knappenberger said as she shook her head in astonishment due to her lack of carelessness.
This past April, teachers across the state of Arizona planned a unified walk out in regards to the low salaries and school budget cuts causing the job to be less appealing and negatively affecting student’s quality of education. After exacerbating efforts from educators across the state of Arizona, Doug Ducey, the Governor of Arizona since 2015, signed a budget bill that would give teachers a raise. However, despite the raise other educators, faculty members, and staff across the nation continue to struggle with low budgeting and no foreseen end. The Red for Ed movement began in West Virginia when teachers walked out of their classroom in protest of low wages and rising health care cost. Soon after, states such as Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and North Carolina followed suit in order to receive their fair share of budget raises. Educators were physically and mentally exhausted from the constant struggle of living from paycheck to paycheck and still not having enough to pay for bills and other necessities. According to The Times, a teacher named Mallory Heath realized that due to such low salary pay she could not see the doctor for her severe migraines that left her unable to function normally. Even after having an episode that rendered her incapable of speaking, Heath decided against going to the emergency room due to the fact that she knew she could not afford the hospital bill. In another article written by The Times, teacher’s give their perspectives of what it is like to live as a teacher with the low salary that they have. Kara Stoltenberg, a teacher at Norman High School in Norman, Oklahoma said, “I make about $34,000 as a teacher. Right now, I can’t buy a car, I can’t buy a house, but I can get by. The only thing that I’m able to save is my tax return.” The low funding that teachers receive leaves educators calling for a change in their meager salary and have not heard anything positive since.
Soon after the teacher walkouts in West Virginia, teachers in North Carolina organized a statewide walk out in Raleigh, North Carolina the state capital on May 16. The rally received an overwhelming amount of support with a least 20,000 people which is over 15,500 more people than expected. Over 40 school districts across North Carolina cancelled classes for the rally giving teachers the opportunity to express their frustrations of poor salaries. If one were to look at pictures from the rally on the internet they would find large masses of supporters wearing all red and holding personalized signs that say things such as, “I’d rather be teaching but this is too important” or “please don’t cut education.” The supporters who took the time to go to the rally battled temperatures reaching 86 degrees along with sticky, thick, humid air.
Teachers receive salaries as low as $42,000 as compared to the average salary in the United States being a whopping $56,500. Additionally, a study conducted on teachers’ salaries found that if the teacher pay had risen in proportion to per-pupil spending since 1970, the average teacher would make more than $120,000 a year. On top of that, 1 in 5 teachers will have to have second jobs in order to compensate for the low salaries.
Of course, the real question for government officials is, “why are teachers constantly protesting for higher pay?” Well, teachers spend an average of ten hours per day and 1,927 hours per school year and only receive pay for about three quarters of that. Not to mention, 46% of educators in public schools leave their profession within five years and of those, 61% is a reason of dissatisfaction of poor salaries. The real reason that educators are sick and tired of working long hard hours are due to the low salaries and poor benefits they receive.
Knappenberger has been teaching English throughout her entire teaching career with a reputable teaching background of seven schools, one being a middle school and the rest high school, and seven universities. Not to mention, Knappenberger has taught in states such as North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New York. Knappenberger currently teaches eleventh grade Standard English and AP English at Lejeune High School, a public school located on a military base called Camp Lejeune where she loves to see her students learn and grow every day. Knappenberger decided she wanted to become a teacher when she was in college and as a result, she had to work extremely hard to accomplish those desires. The large amount of experience Knappenberger has with being a teacher it is no surprise that she also empathizes with other teachers that cannot afford to live on their small salary. When I interviewed Knappenberger recounts her experiences being a teacher living off a small paycheck. “Since I have been a teacher, I have always had a part time job and sometimes even two. Maybe when my children were infants, I didn’t have two jobs, or when I was going back for my advanced degree. I knew going into this I wasn’t going to be rich. In the evening I was a college teacher and then I did some editing on the side. I always work six days a week. I also remember when I first started teaching I was a waitress in a restaurant for two years. I made more as a waitress than I did being a teacher in my first year of teaching,” Knappenberger said. Knappenberger also emphasized how she maintains her life with such low salary thanks to collective bargaining,a negotiation of wages and other conditions of employment by an organized body of employees.“That’s why collective bargaining is so important. Collective bargaining says you can have representation and the school system as a union abides by the collective bargaining for salaries and benefits. We will receive higher salaries and benefits. My pay was only a really an issue when working not through DoDEA. When I first came to Camp Lejeune we did not have a union. Then we started to follow the North Carolina Educational Association which happened in late 1990’s. After that, a lot of salaries went up, our 10-year negotiated and we were assured job security as long as the performance was there. We gained a lot of rights with that.”
Currently, along with all the teachers at Lejeune High School, are considered federal employees and cannot participate in activities such as school walkouts without facing repercussions from their government employers. The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) states that “each educator will be advanced one step on the appropriate salary schedule for each year of creditable service up to the maximum specified for the current school year. Both Federal and non-Federal experience will be so credited.” Knappenberger commented on this by saying, “We cannot go to the media because we are civilian employees and have to abide by the Federal Employee Act. That also means that we have to follow a rule that follows non-competing, meaning I can’t have a business that would compete with the school. I couldn’t have my second job unless I offer the same services to my students. Knappenberger works as a college advisor which consists of helping high school students work on improving their SAT and ACT scores along with help in AP classes, resumes, and college applications. Knappenberger continued, “However, people should remember that there are differences between federal employees and civilian and the rules they have to follow varies from state to state.” By this, Knappenberger means that federal employees do not receive the day off for events like the walkouts due to the fact that they are employed by the federal government and their pay and benefits are already significantly higher than other civilian employees.
Over at Camp Lejeune, teachers at Lejeune High School showed their support by wearing red clothes and a button that said “RED FOR ED.” Since teachers in Department of Defense Schools could not participate in the state-wide school walk out due to federal employee laws they showed their support from inside the classroom. Teachers at Lejeune were not discouraged by this and willingly wore their buttons for over a week. As for students, they are required to wear polos that are either red, white or navy blue, the colors of the American flag so students also showed their support for teachers.
I remember coming to school that day in my red shirt that I made that said “Red for Ed” that was painted in puff paint and had an apple on it. When I walked into class Mrs. Knappenberger looked as if she was going to cry. I truly believe that right then and there she had a newfound respect for me as a future educator. Knappenberger basically told me I had no choice but to take a picture with her because she was so proud of my willingness to show my support for the other teachers. I believe that teachers should have the right to express their opinions even if it just means wearing a button to show support. Also, the other walk-outs have already shown noticeable improvement for teachers states with low salaries. The main takeaway from this conversation I had with Knappenberger included talking about how we truly felt about the walkouts that were happening simultaneously as we spoke. I think that we both saw how truly important this was for all educators past, present and future to stand up for what they need even if the results are not immediately noticed.
Later in the interview, Knappenberger said, “I think ultimately this [the walkouts] benefits the students because if a school system is going to pay for top quality teachers the instruction is going to be better. The walk outs also raised awareness and supported teachers received support by receiving the day off in order to rally.”
One of the last times that I spoke with Knappenberger, she told me that I could have her bookshelf which includes some of my personal favorite novels such as Slaughterhouse Five, The Great Gatsby and many more classic novels. This was the kindest gesture that Knappenberger had ever given me from the first time I met her as an immature junior in high school and assumed she hated me, all the way until the end of my senior year where I matured into a young woman ready to go to college and follow in her footsteps as an educator. As a future teacher leaving her brought me to tears of sadness because I would miss seeing my favorite teacher every single day even if it was just to tell her about how excited I was to go off to college or talk about my boy problems.
Personally, the teachers at Lejeune High school were not affected by the state-wide walkout but the support that was shown from the teachers was gratefully expressed from other colleagues from other schools in the neighboring districts. Even though the teachers of Lejeune High School could not actively participate in the rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, their continued support for other civilian educators demonstrates the high respect that educators have for one another. This also brings me the day that Snell noticed Knappenberger was wearing two different shoes to school. Of course, being the complete random person that I am, I suggested that we all switch shoes and take a picture as a joke of how stressed the AP exams made everyone and how brain dead we truly were. Besides, this was just another way for me to avoid working on my common application for college which I eventually had to finish, sadly. We walked outside into the warm humid North Carolina air that early morning in late May and graciously switched shoes with my classmates. After laughing and joking for a solid 15 minutes, our small AP class walked back inside and thought to ourselves how in the world a teacher could not realize that you were wearing two different shoes.