Would You Keep Going to Work if You Stopped Getting Paid?
Educators in Pennsylvania’s Chester Upland School District were forced to make that very difficult decision recently, when the district announced that without an infusion of new cash from the state, it would not be able to make payroll starting January 18.
But members of the Chester Upland Education Association and the Chester Upland Education Support Personnel Association have vowed to keep schools running as long as they can. These educators and education support personnel have passed a resolution vowing to stay on the job for as long as they are individually able, even if the district fails to pay them in the near future.
Why? Commitment to students. As elementary school teacher Sara Feguson said in The Philadelphia Inquirer,
"It's alarming. It's disturbing. But we are adults; we will make a way. The students don't have any contingency plan. They need to be educated, so we intend to be on the job."