Guess What? Teachers Don't Melt!-Strike Day #1

Since my commute is longer than most teachers at my school, I volunteered for the 6am crew.  This crew consists of our union chapter chair and myself.  We felt it was important to be at school when the parking lot gate opened to speak to all people entering the campus.

Both of us we were running on very little sleep.  I went to bed very early but found myself waking up every 60-90 minutes.  I was nervous that I may oversleep my 4am alarm and equally nervous about the act of striking.  By 3:30am, I decided to get up and start checking my email and social media in hopes of reading about a new proposal from LAUSD.

Sadly there was no magic agreement. I got dressed in my #RedforEd colors and by 5:10am I was sitting in Starbucks waiting for my coffee treat.  I arrived at my school by 5:20am and parked right in front of the parking lot gate.  Cars started to come in the gates around 6:15am which is precisely the time the rain started.  I'm happy (but still disappointed) to report that only 1 substitute teacher crossed the picket line.

I'm also happy to report that my colleagues and I ran a very pleasant picket line.  Most teachers reported not sleeping well but we’re ready for the day.  We warmly greeted our non-teacher colleagues as they entered the parking lot for work!  We high fived and hugged students as they entered the school. We smiled a lot! We had so much energy!

Our entire staff walked to our local metro station to ride downtown for our mid-day collective action.  It was amazing to see the sea of red that would enter at every stop.  The trains were filled with chants and various schools announcing their arrival on the metro.  Our trip downtown was very high energy (I felt kind of bad for the non-rally folks on the train, but they couldn't deny the positive vibes and the message we are spreading). The chanting got even louder once we got off the trains. This experience was truly magical!!!!

Massives amounts of people arrived downtown, our group was separated many times because it was just so crowded.  Again, I noticed everyone smiling.  We're not smiling because we are enjoying our time away from our students, we are smiling because there are so many people out there who share our beliefs about our students deserving better.  We smile because we're energized and ready to fight the fight about getting more resources into our underserved schools.

 Let's face it, we're teachers and we are used to surviving with very little resources and plan to fight the fight until the end.

Who said it never rains in Southern California?  It poured today but guess what?  Teachers don't melt!