Hundreds of Madison School District teachers and staff took to the streets Monday night, rallying for their requested pay increase and smaller class sizes as the district proposes freezing wages at current levels for the next school year, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.
Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI), representing around 2,700 district employees, is asking for the maximum increase allowed by state law — 4.12%. Over 200 teachers and staff marched around Dayton Street’s Doyle Administration Building ahead of the school board meeting. The board received a petition from the teachers with 2,000 signatures calling for increased staff allocations and reduced class sizes.
Teacher unions have only been able bargain over their base wages, not other compensation elements, since the passage of Wisconsin’s Act 10 in 2011. The requested pay increase would cost the district almost $13.3 million, but MTI President Mike Jones says anything less is effectively a pay cut for teachers due to inflation. The district is already contending with a $12.4 million shortfall for the next school year.
