Dear colleagues,
Students are back, and after 27 years in the classroom, this is still one of my favorite stretches of the year. We get our rooms ready, learn names fast and start figuring out what each student needs from us. Utah public educators are good at building relationships. They are at the heart of strong classrooms, strong schools and a strong UEA.
Some challenges are bigger than any one classroom. Class size. Planning time. Pay that has not kept up with the cost of living. Support when student behavior makes it harder to teach and learn. Whether educators have a real say in decisions about our schools. No one educator can change those things alone. We make progress when we organize and work on them together. That is what UEA is. When people say “the union,” they mean us: educators choosing to stand with our coworkers and make our schools and profession stronger for students.
So I have one request as we begin this year: Talk with someone in your building who does not belong to UEA yet. Maybe it is a first-year educator. Maybe it is a veteran colleague you have worked beside for years. Catch them at lunch or on the way to the parking lot. Tell them why you belong and ask them to join you. Organizing starts with a conversation between coworkers. Every educator who joins makes all of us stronger and gives us more power to build the public schools Utah students deserve.
Thank you for all you do for our students and public education.
Renée Pinkney
President, Utah Education Association
