{"id":349600,"date":"2018-02-24T01:35:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-24T00:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/west-virginia-teachers-demand-quality-pay-health-care\/"},"modified":"2018-02-24T01:35:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T00:35:18","slug":"west-virginia-teachers-demand-quality-pay-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/west-virginia-teachers-demand-quality-pay-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"West Virginia teachers demand quality pay, health care"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h4>\u201cWe are tired of waiting\u201d<\/h4>\n<h2>West Virginia teachers demand quality pay, health care<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    our reporters<br \/>\n    <br \/>23 February 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Thousands of teachers, students, public employees and their supporters participated in a demonstration in Charleston, West Virginia on Thursday, the first day of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/02\/23\/west-f23.html\">two-day teacher walkout<\/a> throughout the state.<\/p>\n<p>Those participating in the rally expressed great determination to oppose a derisory pay increase passed by the West Virginia legislature and the starving of the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA).<\/p>\n<p>The WSWS spoke to many of those participating in the rally.<\/p>\n<p>Kay Shirey, a guidance counselor at Eastern Greenbrier Middle School, said, \u201cWe were here 30-years ago fighting the same battles. They keep saying, \u2018wait we will fix this.\u2019 We are tired of waiting.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/036d92e1-1860-4fce-a760-47f375666fcM\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\"  width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>Teachers from Eastern Greenbrier Middle School, including Breanna, Kay and Ty<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI am fighting for the future of West Virginia. I want the kids to have qualified teachers. We can\u2019t get qualified teachers now. We have over 700 unfilled positions now, and we will have more next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir solution is to dumb down the standards, and that is hurting the students. For years they have been saying, \u2018We have to hold the kids to high standards.\u2019 Now they just want to dumb everything down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ty Braenwich has just started as an 8th grade Social Studies teacher also at Eastern Greenbrier Middle School. \u201cI went to West Virginia University. Out of my class, most of the graduates took jobs in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Virginia. I am the only one who stayed in West Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe work hard. It\u2019s not just in the classroom. We are preparing lesson plans, grading papers, getting ready for our day. Yesterday, I worked from 7 am to 6 pm and still took work home with me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are living&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/02\/23\/wvin-f23.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u201cWe are tired of waiting\u201d West Virginia teachers demand quality pay, health care By our reporters 23 February 2018 Thousands of teachers, students, public employees and their supporters participated in a demonstration in Charleston, West Virginia on Thursday, the first day of a two-day teacher walkout throughout the state. Those participating in the rally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-349600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}