By Megan Tuttle, President of NEA-New Hampshire
As we start the holiday season, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for being a member of NEA-NH and for your dedication to improving the lives of New Hampshire’s children and their families. The craziness of the season creates demands on our time, so it is important to take just a minute to pause, relax, and reflect.
It seems we are constantly bombarded with bad news: an educator shortage; schools unable to hire and retain ESPs; public tax dollars intended for our public schools are diverted to subsidize private and religious schools through vouchers; book bans; and people who haven’t set a foot in a public school since they graduated are telling us how to do our jobs.
During my 20-plus years as an NEA-NH member and leader, either as a teacher, board member, or officer, I can tell you that the threats to public education are real. I can also tell you that our efforts to counter those threats are real as well.
I am determined, as your president, to fight these efforts with all our resources.
Just last month, a New Hampshire Superior Court judge ruled that how public education is funded is unconstitutional. It said that the state’s contribution to school districts was not nearly enough to fund an adequate education. Your dues dollars contributed to that legal fight. Our efforts are not just in the courts. We testify at legislative hearings and attend coalition meetings with our allies in this effort. We recognized the efforts of the lawyers in this fight when we presented them with the NEA-NH Friend of Education Award.
We have been telling legislators that the deteriorating mental health of students creates learning environments that are too stressful to work in. The lack of pay which represents the work provided by educators, together with these learning conditions, is driving educators from our schools and making it impossible to replace them.
A recently released legislative committee report confirmed this. While it didn’t surprise us, because of NEA-NH’s efforts, it is now officially on record and legislation will be introduced to act on the recommendations.
NEA-NH, working with its legislative allies, backed bills to create a meaningful mentor program, develop a structure for student loan forgiveness for educators, and stipends for student teachers. We are working with an organization that offers apprenticeships which help students in pre-service education programs work in schools as ESPs while taking classes at night. As they enter the pipeline, this will alleviate the teacher shortage, and provide ESP support, both of which are critically needed.
NEA-NH is not just looking out for your interests while you are working. This year, NEA-NH successfully convinced the Legislature to make a significant change to your retirement benefits. As of July 1, 2023, unless you were already retired, your pension will NOT be recalculated and thereby reduced by approximately 10% between age 65 and your full Social Security eligibility age (as was past practice). Because of this new change, you will save more money (amount dependent upon your retirement amount). For instance, if you retire at age 63, and your full Social Security eligibility age was 67, and your annual pension is $24,000 – you will realize a total of $4,800 in additional pension.
NEA-NH has been fighting to eliminate this unfair reduction in income for retired educators for years. This year, we got it done. I am so grateful for all the members who contacted their elected officials on this issue and for the bipartisan support it received.
At this year’s Fall Instructional Conference, rather than hearing from a key-note speaker, members were asked to tell NEA-NH leaders about their needs so that we could address them. Work-related stress was a main issue. I took that input to a weekend-long, multi-state convening of NEA members, staff, and leaders examining ways to provide members with a safe and compassionate learning environment. The work of this group will guide us in our work to improve school environments.
It is important that we continue these efforts, as well as many others I have not mentioned, on your behalf. The challenges are too great not to succeed. If these forces against us appear determined and well-organized, they are, but so are we.