| Hi John, Before becoming Director of Operations at the Louisiana Abortion Fund and launching my run for Congress, I spent over a decade as a public school teacher. For most of those years, I lived paycheck to paycheck, trying to make ends meet on as little as $33,000 a year. A simple coffee felt like a luxury, and an unexpected flat tire could wipe out my bank account.
Like teachers across the country, we put up with being underpaid because we love our students. But in Louisiana, teachers are often pushed to the breaking point by the terrible conditions we face in our schools.
With no limits on classroom size, many teachers are crammed into spaces with over 35 students. In one school, I didn’t even have a proper classroom—just some desks in a hallway surrounded by PVC pipes and fabric walls. Another teacher’s makeshift “classroom” was right next to mine, so our students struggled to hear us over each other. And students from other classes constantly walked through, disrupting learning every day. |
