top of page

Bennett Valley Teachers Need Our Help

Email from Christopher Brunette

Jun 23, 2023

You can’t put students first, if you put those who teach them last.

Bennett Valley Students Deserve the Best:


This requires attracting and retaining the best educators for our students.


Bennett Valley Union School District Residents,


Our elected school board trustees and the superintendent have created a crisis in our schools with unacceptable wages and working conditions that prevent us from recruiting and retaining the best education staff for our students.  Just this year our schools are losing nearly 25% of the qualified educators because we simply cannot afford to teach and work in Bennett Valley.


Despite receiving historic new, on-going dollars in 2022-23 and 2023-24 and the District reporting healthy and increasing reserve levels, our District is unable to attract and retain educators because they refuse to provide educators with a living wage. (Note: the Highest Salaries chart above includes any Master’s Degree stipends provided.)


After months of futile negotiations and mediation, 98% of our members recently voted to authorize a strike if the district does not provide us with a fair offer.  Having financially overwhelmed staff who cannot pay their rent, have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, and are forced to apply to other districts, is not good for anyone, especially our students. 

 

You can’t put students first, if you put those who teach them last.

 

The district's failure to come to an agreement prior to fact-finding is baffling given what has been revealed in other fact-findings and strikes across Sonoma County in the last three years. 

 

Help us avert a strike and pressure the Bennett Valley Union School District to settle at our factfinding by prioritizing those closest to the students. The students' learning conditions are our members' working conditions. 

 

Please contact the board members now and demand they do what is right for students by providing a competitive and living wage for educators in Bennett Valley. 

 

Since our schools are the heart of our community and our democracy, everyone, regardless of whether they have school-aged children or not, is impacted by the quality of schools.  Therefore, we are asking every resident in the BVUSD to help with the following actions in support of our educators and students: 


 

  • Regularly visit the BVTA (Bennett Valley Teachers Association) Facebook and help share all BVTA posts with your social media networks.

 






bottom of page