UEA voices its long-standing opposition to expanding private school vouchers — and asks lawmakers to help ease teacher burnout.
Utah lawmakers are just days away from commencing the annual legislative session on Capitol Hill — and education is again slated to be a defining element of this year’s iteration.
But veteran school teacher Chelsie Acosta said legislators would be well served to also spend a day or two in a public school classroom.
“I would welcome any legislator to just come and spend a day in a (Salt Lake City) west side school and see the language issues, the trauma issues and the poverty issues,” said Acosta, a teacher at Glendale Middle School.
“Those are issues that are not being talked about enough.”
Acosta and fellow members of the Utah Education Association (UEA) gathered for a Monday afternoon press conference to announce its 2025 legislative priorities, share findings from its latest pre-legislative survey and discuss the challenges facing many of the state’s K-12 educators.
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The UEA is the state’s major teaching union, representing approximately 18,000 public educators. The union recently surveyed 1,400 teachers to garner their members’ highest concerns and priorities for the upcoming legislative session.
“The results are clear,” said UEA President Renée Pinkney. “Educators are calling on lawmakers to prioritize funding for long-term staffing solutions; reduce stress and burnout and provide behavioral health resources.”
UEA’s pre-legislative survey: Key findings
During the press conference, Pinkney stood with several fellow educators and highlighted key findings and priorities gleaned from the UEA’s pre-legislative survey:
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Oppose private religious vouchers. Nearly all respondents — 93% — oppose private religious vouchers which, according to Pinkney, “divert essential resources from public schools.”
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Smaller class sizes “to ensure that every student receives the attention they deserve.”
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Provide 3% on the Weighted Pupil Unit (WPU) above the required inflation adjustment and enrollment growth.
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Increased professional paid hours for licensed educators — and continued funding for Future Educators pilot programs to support student teaching experiences.
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Support for the Healthy School Meals initiative enabling more families to access no-cost meals.
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Establish a sustainable long-term revenue source for K-12 public education.
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Increased resources for school safety and student well-being — including counselors, social workers and school psychologists.
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“Together with lawmakers and fellow advocates, we can create policies that enhance student achievement, support public educators and provide the resources necessary for every child to thrive,” said Pinkney.
Making meaningful investments in Utah’s public schools, she added, will “ensure a brighter future for our students.”
UEA’s decades-old opposition to vouchers continues
When asked to elaborate more on the survey’s broad opposition to private religious school vouchers, Pinkney noted that the UEA has opposed vouchers for decades.
“We know that vouchers harm students,” she said. “Any time you are siphoning off funds from public education, you are harming students in public schools.”
There are variable costs that decrease when a student withdraws from public school and, say, attends a private school. But the fixed costs — including maintenance and utility fees — remain, said Pinkney.
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“It’s very disingenuous to say that you can have a voucher program simultaneously running at the same time that you’re funding public education, because we know that our students in public schools have needs that aren’t being met — and we are protectors of the promise of public education.”
Stress and burnout inside the teaching ranks
When asked Monday about the UEA’s calls for the Utah Legislature to prioritize reducing stress and burnout in the teaching ranks, several teachers participating in the press conference shared their experiences.
Colette Memmott, a teacher at West Jordan’s Sunset Ridge Middle School, spoke out about the stress caused by large class sizes.
“We have an abundance of extra things we have to do based on what kind of kids are in our class. It’s exhausting to grade all the work and to remediate the students that need to be remediated and to give extensions to students that need it.”
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Pinkney added that the hours many public teachers are working “are way beyond contract hours.”
Janet Sanders, a teacher at Herriman’s Mountain Ridge High School, said many of her fellow teachers are also burdened by increased student behavior issues in the classroom.
Additionally, said Sanders, many teachers feel they need to be overly careful about what they say during their classroom instruction.
“I think there’s a feeling among teachers that there’s an anti-public ed sentiment out there,” she said. “There’s a movement towards privatization. We just feel threatened — and we feel for our students because we know that they will not be well served.”
Source: Utah News