Event is way for community to support Tucson teachers

A new fundraiser offers Tucsonans an easy way to salute the local educators who make a daily difference to students.

Stand Up 4 Teachers will be at 5:30 p.m. April 6 at the Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa, 3800 E. Sunrise Drive.

The celebration of education champions is hosted by Tucson Values Teachers, a regional initiative created to retain, recruit and reward teachers. Jim Click Automotive and O’Rielly Chevrolet are presenting sponsors of the event.

“This is really a fun way for the community to turn out and help make ‘Tucson Values Teachers’ a true statement,” said Katie Rogerson, chief operating officer of the initiative.

The evening features the presentation of the 2017 Raytheon Leaders in Education Awards honoring Pima County teachers Jessica Howell, Lauren Marlatt and Steven Uyeda as well as Spirit of Education Awards honorees Cox Communications and the Thomas R. Brown Foundations.

Rogerson said the fundraiser is also a call to action for the community about the serious challenges facing local teachers.

“We have a serious teacher workforce crisis in the state of Arizona and we want to do all we can to attract and retain quality teachers for the region. The primary reason for the crisis is pay: Teacher pay is a huge part of why we have nearly one in four teachers leaving the profession after the first year and more than half gone by five years.

“Teachers cite lack of respect for the profession, long hours and low pay for the key reasons they leave,” Rogerson said.

Rogerson emphasized that Arizona teachers are paid less than teachers in nearly every other state and that wages for Tucson teachers don’t compare with those in similar metro areas such as El Paso, Albuquerque and Phoenix.

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Tucson Values Teachers works to offset the wage gap through various programs and services such as Tucson Supplies Teachers, which has provided more than $880,000 in school supplies to educators in public, charter and parochial schools in Pima County since its inception in 2009.

Tucson Values Teachers and more than 90 community partners also offer significant year-round discounts on goods and services including automotive, financial, health and wellness, home and furnishings, recreation, restaurants and retail. More than 10,000 local teachers have utilized the services.

The support with supplies and discounts has been extremely helpful to Howell, who teaches third grade at J. Robert Hendricks Elementary School in the Flowing Wells School District. Howell said there is an increasing need among the students at the Title I school and that the supplies makes a big difference for children’s projects .

She is also extremely gratified about the $5,000 cash prize — $2,500 for each recipient’s school and $2,500 for each recipient — that accompanies each Raytheon Leaders in Education Award. She hopes to put the funds for Hendricks toward technology.

TVT also offers support with real-world experience through the Teachers in Industry Program. The business-education partnership, which was developed in collaboration with the UA College of Education, offers professional development and/or a UA master’s degree program for full-time science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers. The professional development often translates into salary increases .

Marlatt, who teaches science and engineering/robotics to middle schoolers at Coronado K-8 in the Amphitheater Public School District, participated in the Teachers in Industry Program for the past three summers. She said her experience with the renewable energy department at Tucson Electric Power was invaluable.

“It was really good for me not because I am teaching my students about renewable energy, but more in terms of learning about what kids need to be able to do in jobs today: They need to know what collaboration looks like and what asking questions looks like so they can figure out how to solve problems in the workforce. They need to be able to use a sense of discovery to come up with ideas that people have never thought of before,” said Marlatt.

Rogerson hopes the community will rally behind the fundraiser, which seeks to raise $150,000.

“TVT is the only nonprofit — not just in Tucson, but in the state — that is focused solely on teachers. We do that because decades of research have shown that a high- quality teacher at the head of the classroom is the single most important factor for student success. Teachers matter more than class size, curriculum and standards,” Rogerson said.