SC teachers awakened a ‘sleeping giant.’ Now they’re taking their voices to the polls
Outside the South Carolina State House, 10,000 school teachers and their supporters rallied for higher pay and better working conditions in May 2019 — a year before COVID-19 would ultimately close their classroom doors, derail a phased-in statewide pay raise and contribute to the death of a massive proposal aimed by lawmakers to fix public education.
Now, most of the state’s teacher workforce — made up of more than 52,000 educators — is back in school, some only virtual, some both.
Many have something to say ahead of Tuesday’s general election — when S.C. voters will head to the polls to elect the president, candidates for U.S. House and Senate, state legislative races and local elections — and beyond to 2022, when voters get to weigh in on the state’s top races, including the governor and state schools chief.
In a survey produced by The State, a politically diverse group of nearly 200 South Carolina teachers — from every region of the state — told us who they are voting for and why, what issues are motivating them to vote and whether 2020 has left them more or less engaged in the electoral process.
Like many groups, teachers are not a monolith voting bloc in South Carolina, instead driven by various issues and political persuasions to vote. But this year has snapped into focus for many S.C. educators why they must make their voices heard at the polls and, for many, in the political process.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a top issue for many, leading to highly charged feelings about how their country, state and school district leaders have handled the pandemic, according to the survey.
“It’s a total disaster! There’s not leadership,” one elementary teacher from Kershaw said in the survey. “The state’s disregard for teachers as professionals and allowing us to do what we are trained to do with the pay we deserve has caused me to look forward to retirement.”
But while the coronavirus has struck close to home, many S.C. teachers also are motivated by more national issues such as immigration, foreign policy and health care.
The survey, for which teachers identified themselves and the schools where they teach, informally offers insight into what’s driving many teachers to vote this year and what issues matter most to them.
As a national survey found, teachers cannot be reduced to one political leaning, and South Carolina teachers are no exception, based on the survey responses.
The survey group leaned Democratic, with nearly 160 saying they plan to support Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but about 24 said they planned to vote for President Donald Trump.
The survey also shows that some teachers are fed up with politics on both sides of the aisle, with 11 saying they preferred “someone else” when asked who they plan to vote for in the presidential race. Of those, five teachers answered the same for the U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham and his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison.
For the overwhelming majority of teachers surveyed — 196 to be exact — their votes were partisan at the top of the ticket, despite many saying that while they lean Democratic or Republican, they don’t always vote straight party ticket.
Breaking from that trend, however, were a handful of teachers who said they plan to cast votes for Trump and Harrison, or Biden and Graham, splitting the ticket at the top.
One Biden-Graham supporters said they want to keep the state’s senior senator in place because they identify as fiscally conservative.
And of those voting for Trump, only two said they planned to vote for Senate hopeful Harrison and two said “someone else” when asked about the statewide race.
“I vote for candidates whose views align with mine on issues I hold important,” said a Chesterfield middle school teacher, who said she plans to vote for Trump for president, but Harrison for Senate.
So, what has become of the so-called “sleeping giant” that awoke last year when teachers used their political muscle and marched at the Capitol to demand change?
Here’s a look at what they said:
‘Important for me to get informed and get involved’
Cadie Hall knew at age four she wanted to be a teacher.
By the time she was taking education courses in school, Hall felt the tug for special education.
“I got offered the job that I’m in now and I just knew that was it,” said Hall, now 23, and a teacher in the Upstate. “It was just kind of actually already lined up for me. It was definitely just a plan that was not mine.”
Driving Hall to vote this cycle is local politics, including the heated debate over whether teachers and students should return to in-person classes. Hall says she agrees with Republican Gov. Henry McMaster that classes must resume for children’s sake.
“I was really proud of Gov. McMaster this summer for saying that districts should offer some sort of five days, face-to-face instruction,” Hall said. “And I believe that he was looking out for the best interests of our children and making sure that they had a place to go every day.”
Hall says she’s a Republican and will vote in her second election ever this November.
At the top of the ticket, she will support President Donald Trump and, next, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. But Hall said she is focused on what happens on the state level, telling The State this election feels different: in 2020, she has found herself more engaged in the policies enacted by state lawmakers.
“I just feel like it’s really important for me to get informed and get involved in who’s running in my district, so that way we can make changes at the state level,” Hall said. “The national level isn’t as concerning to me as much as it is the state level because that impacts me directly with my job.”
‘We can’t just cry, complain and whine about it’
Kim Ford, a 14-year Richland One high school teacher, has voted in every election.
Now Ford is even more unwilling to sit on the sidelines, roiled by the lack of action on behalf of leaders to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak and unrest after a Black man, George Floyd, was killed this summer when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, sparking protests across the country.
“Three of my four children are sons, and I worry about them,” Ford said. “I worry if they’re going to make it home. ... And as a Black woman myself, I have faced that discrimination. I’m not against the police, but I should not be fearful of wherever my children go, if they get stopped by the police, that (it’s) not going to turn into a deadly encounter.”
This year, she will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison.
“I really hope that we get an administration that understands that we have a pandemic right now, and that pandemic is killing people,” Ford said. “It has crippled our economy, and we have to have leadership that isn’t going to play around with this and hope that it goes away like a miracle. We need to have real leadership on this issue.”
The leadership that Ford has been disappointed with is from the governor, she said, feeling he has played politics, instead of pushing smart policy.
Instead, Ford said she has been pleased with state schools chief Molly Spearman — “surprising to many teachers,” she added — who she said appeared to be following science and looking out for teachers and students.
“It’s hard being a teacher. It’s very hard being a teacher,” said Ford, who holds two master’s degrees and said she works two jobs. “Parents have gotten a good, good taste of what it’s like being a teacher ... and we’re going to have to, as teachers, we’re really going to have to step up. And we’re going to have to make our demands. We can’t just cry, complain and whine about it. We’re going to have to take action for ourselves in order to get what we deserve.”
‘Our voices aren’t heard at the state level’
Another teacher willing to raise their voice this year is Clay Hasty, a 20-year Upstate high school English teacher, who said he feels that the the foundations of democracy and the Constitution are at stake in this year’s election.
Hasty described himself in The State’s survey as politically active.
“This year’s election is the most important in our lifetime,” said Hasty, who says he once described himself as a swing voter, but now aligns with the Democratic Party and plans to vote for Biden and Harrison at the top of the ticket. “And it feels to me since the last election, it’s the party in complete lockstep with a cult of personality and it’s just very different now that I don’t feel like any Republican, at least none that I can think of in this election, stands outside of whatever Trump believes or whatever Trump says.”
Turned off by the current Republican Party and Trump’s appointment of U.S. schools Secretary Betsy DeVos, Hasty says public education is on the ballot for him, adding he is also looking for some “level of normalcy.”
With public education, “we never know if we’re going to have our funding,” he said. “We never know what the state of our salaries are going to be. Whereas I feel more confident that a Democratic candidate might go to bat for us.”
Hasty is one of many teachers currently teaching both in person and online.
He said that McMaster has toed a fine line on COVID-19, “without regard to science and the infection rates and what it would do for the safety of teachers.” But, Hasty added, he’s glad that despite McMaster’s push for in-person classes, districts are making their own decisions about when to reopen school buildings.
“You can’t separate the mental well-being of teachers, and more than ever I feel that my colleagues are disillusioned,” Hasty said. “I feel just a general low morale, and it’s mainly that our voices aren’t heard at the state level.”
‘Trying to do the best we can’
Wando High School civics teacher Bev Salvo didn’t attend the May 2019 teacher rally.
Rather than attend — a choice she had no problem with other teachers making, she said — Salvo said she would rather her voice be used at the ballot box or in her classroom when teaching her high school students about government and history.
“I like the fact that what I teach is so relevant to their lives,” said Salvo, a 29-year teacher.
Salvo is a lifelong Republican voter, though she added she does not vote straight party ticket. Her first presidential vote was for Republican Ronald Reagan, and she plans this November to support the incumbent and Graham on Election Day.
She’s unsettled with the rhetoric between all of the candidates, and she is ready to get the country going back in a direction that gets people back to work.
“Zoom is getting on my last nerve honestly,” Salvo said, adding that sometimes her students also have problems simply being able to log into the class, leaving them to miss it. “I’m thrilled to be back.”
Salvo said she has not had many concerns with being back in the classroom. There are transparent partitions everywhere, she notes, and masks are required to be worn at all times. In addition to those steps, Salvo said the cleaning staff regularly sanitize the rooms.
“We’re trying to do the best we can,” she said.
‘We’re not the villains’
South Carolina teachers faced push back after the May 2019 rally from critics, including from some lawmakers, who said that teachers, particularly those who left school for the day, were not looking out for their students but rather themselves.
Teachers say that rhetoric misunderstands why teachers protested in the first place.
That includes 33-year MaryRita Watson, a Dorchester District Two elementary teacher, who is passionate about teaching though isn’t in love with the politics that oftentimes come attached to the public sector job.
“Being able to help them reach their goals and facilitate their learning ” is what she loves about her job, said Watson, a teacher of 33 years. “It’s just, it’s always been a part of me, and that’s why I keep doing it.”
But the demands of teaching during a political battle for public school support, coupled with the fight to keep students, staff and teachers safe during COVID-19, is a heavy burden that had Watson stressed out and contemplating leaving the profession she loves.
“We need people in the Legislature that are willing to work, to not draw that party line when they vote,” said Watson, who is voting for Biden and Harrison on Nov. 3 and told The State’s survey she votes for education-friendly candidates, not party.
Watson said she is frustrated by the theory that teachers don’t turn out or use their voice.
“Some people will say how lazy we are. We don’t want to teach, we don’t want face-to-face. But it’s just not it at all,” she said. “We’re not the villains. We’re still the good people that we were before COVID started.”
‘Hard time supporting a political leader that bad mouths teachers’
Emily Todd said she misses her interactions with her eighth and ninth grade physical and earth science classes in Charleston.
But after working as a teacher for six years, Todd does not see herself going back into the classroom.
“Just because it was too wearing physically and mentally,” she said.
Todd left the classroom due to the climate in education, drained by paperwork and assignments that had, she said, nothing to do with her actual day-to-day instruction that wound up taking more time away from teaching, planning and engaging.
Todd now works at a technology company, no longer employed at a school but she does get to work with teachers.
“I’m not in the classroom this year, but I did a lot of research and I’ve talked to a lot of my friends that are still in the classroom, and I work with a lot of schools. It just felt like educators voices weren’t heard and their experiences were not thought about or respected,” Todd said.
Leaving the classroom was in part a decision about her family’s health and safety, she said.
“I personally have someone in my household who’s immune compromised. So, if I had to go back in the classroom this year, it would have been a really hard decision for me to have to limit that exposure to my own household.”
Born and raised in the Upstate — arguably South Carolina’s most conservative region — Todd said she wasn’t completely exposed to issues that affected her students. After bouncing from school districts lacking resources to those with an over abundance, Todd said she’s aware of the inequality of resources that comes attached to attending certain districts.
It’s why, Todd said, racial inequality, access to health care and safety are top issues driving her to vote this year.
She plans to vote for Biden and Harrison.
But teachers and how they’re treated also will drive her votes, she said.
“Teachers are some of the most creative and passionate individuals, and South Carolina doesn’t give a lot of opportunities for teachers to want to stay in their jobs,” Todd said. “They’re underpaid and overworked, and so anyone who stays in that profession does it because they love the students and they truly want to help our next generation of leaders.”
I have a real hard time supporting a political leader that bad-mouths teachers or doesn’t respect teachers.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "SC teachers awakened a ‘sleeping giant.’ Now they’re taking their voices to the polls."
