Rally for Retention

media release: Rally for Retention: 5:30 p.m., Monday, May 23, Doyle Administration Building, 545 W. Dayton Street

As part of our Cost of Living base wage bargaining and Handbook campaigns, MTI members have organized a Rally for Retention to ensure our schools are properly staffed next school year.

We are experiencing extreme shortages of teachers and other educational professionals, special education assistants, and substitute teachers this school year, leading to exhaustion and burnout for those who have remained. Our students’ social and emotional health, as well as their academic needs, have been impacted by these conditions.

MMSD must prioritize staffing concerns for the 2022-23 year or we will lose even more experienced educators to other districts and to other professions.  

We will gather at the Doyle Building in a show of solidarity for the schools our students deserve, ones that are fully staffed with high-quality educators.  

We encourage MMSD to provide the 4.7% cost-of-living increase and to respect the Employee Handbook process to help recruit and retain educators and education support professionals to adequately staff our schools next year.   

Attendees are asked to wear a mask or face covering and be prepared to social distance during the event.

WHEN:                       

Monday, May 23

5:30 p.m. - Activists will walk the sidewalk (Dayton Street) around Doyle Building to raise public awareness. 

5:45 p.m. - Presidents Mike Jones and Judy Ferwerda will speak to the crowd from the Loading Dock. 

6:00 p.m. - Activists will mask up and head into the Doyle Auditorium Building for the MMSD Board of Education meeting. Many will provide public testimony. 

WHAT:

We are asking MMSD to: 

• Budget for the 4.7% COLA in the base wage increase
• Include annual salaries with step increases on teacher contracts
• Provide a $5 increase to all Educational Assistant and Security Assistant salary schedules
• Increase substitute pay rates to keep pace with the teachers salary schedule