What is the Most Important Election for Educators in NYS?

🗳️ What’s the most important election when it comes to your finances as a public educator? It’s definitely not the presidential election. 🙅‍♀️ Believe it or not, economic data from the last 100+ years shows that it doesn’t matter if a Republican or Democrat is in the White House. 🤷‍♂️
The elections that matter the most to your work life are your local school board elections. 🏫 The school board members you elect set the policies that shape your profession and the terms and conditions of your contract. 💼
As someone who knows first-hand how hard it is to balance teaching and being a parent, with a wife who is a 2nd-grade teacher, I can tell you that it’s important to get out and vote, even if you don’t work in the district where you live. 💪 Salary, benefits, and working conditions are not created in a vacuum. Other districts always look at what neighboring districts are doing with regard to pay scales, benefits, and class sizes.
This year, your school board elections are tomorrow, May 16th. If your school budget fails and/or anti-teacher school board members get control of your school board, this can wreak havoc on your finances and your classrooms. Those rows and columns that you look at in the back of your teacher’s contract can change, and it’s not always for the better. 📉 So please, get out and vote! Your profession depends on it. 🙌