| SEARCH OnWEAC |
|---|
 |
Meet Bea Badger, teacher, mother, friend, mentor and WEAC/NEA member. Her students call her Ms. B. Bea is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin College of Education, where she was a history and education major. She earned her M.A in elementary education at UW-Eau Claire. She has been teaching for 16 years. Bea is proud to be one of the thousands of highly qualified teachers that led the Associated Press to report that Wisconsin’s teachers are the best prepared teachers in the nation. After all, great schools depend on great teachers and staff.
Bea is presently teaching 6th grade in Green County. She started getting involved with her local union, a WEAC/NEA affiliate, after realizing that her salary was failing to keep up with the cost of living and she read in the newspaper that some people were complaining that the teachers had it too good, particularly when it comes to their health and retirement benefits.
Bea, like her colleagues, knows that great schools depend on classrooms that work. And to make sure her classroom had the resources needed, she spent $383 of her own money last year. She bought extra credit work sheets for Sarah and Bill who excelled at everything, and paper and pencils for Anne and Dustin whose parents never seemed to remember to send enough supplies to school, and treats and rewards for the entire class. Even so, it seemed there was never enough. And the school board was still proposing that she fix it by digging deeper into her pocketbook.
As a single parent of two and having always expected that she would someday help her children attend the university – as her parents did for her – she became even more perplexed when the school board proposed that the deductible for certain health procedures and prescriptions be increased. Why would they do such a thing? She and her fellow teachers work hard. They earn their salary and their benefits. Did the school board really expect them to do more with less?
For the first time in her career, she found that she was asking herself if she had made the right career decision, and she did not like the feeling. Instead of giving in, she decided to fight for education and the profession she loves. Bea volunteered to be the first public relations chairperson for her local. She decided it was time to act. She went to the next meeting of the school board and discovered she was the only teacher there. After looking around, she saw a young reporter from the county newspaper and decided to sit next to her. Bea was amazed at the one-sided earful she got from the reporter. And she was even more surprised to learn that the reporter had never talked to a teacher before. How could she fix this? She needed more information. She needed help.
First she called her UniServ director, who provided guidance and assistance. Then she took the UniServ director’s advice and signed up to receive OnWEAC Direct, WEAC’s weekly electronic newsletter. She quickly discovered that her union was on top of the issues that concerned her and much, much more. Through OnWEAC (on the Web at www.weac.org), she learned that the state limitation on school revenues was causing class sizes to go up in many communities, not just hers. She found a wealth of information and access to WEAC resources to help her educate her community and fight for fair school funding and better compensation.
If you could look into Bea’s soul, you would see her passionate belief that every kid deserves a great school.
Thanks to her UniServ, WEAC, and its e-newsletters, she was getting involved. Good. After all, this is Wisconsin. Our state motto is “Forward.” Bea cannot think of a better direction.
Great schools benefit everyone. And because Bea is motivated by her heart as well as her mind, she will do her part because she truly believes that every kid deserves a great school.
Bea Badger is not affiliated with or approved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Updated November 4, 2004