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Arizona educators rejected the wage increase proposal of Gov. Doug Ducey. They voted favoring a statewide walkout to demand for more education funding. They will hold the walkout on April 26.

On Thursday night, the leaders of the Arizona Education Association (AEA) and Arizona Educators United (AEU) announced the result of the vote on the matter.

According to AEA President Joe Thomas, Arizona educators sent a strong message as 78% of 57,000 school employees supported a walkout.

Thomas said, “This is undeniably and clearly a mandate for action. Now that educators across Arizona have spoken, our journey moves forward.”

On the other hand, AEU organizer Noah Karvelis said the state’s public schools are crumbling. Students are sitting on broken desks in a room with leaky ceilings and studying books that are 25 years old. He emphasized that the situation in Arizona schools are “unacceptable” and they are in a “state of crisis.”

Additionally, Karvelis told Arizona educators that they will continue their walk-ins on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday then walkout on Thursday.

Furthermore, he said, “We can no longer allow the status quo in the state to go unchanged. We need to bring change that our educators and our students and families in this state needs.”

When reporters asked what do the Arizona educators want to end the walkout, Thomas said they want Gov. Ducey to respond to their demands. According to him, they hand-delivered two letters enumerating their demands, but they “heard nothing” from the governor. They want Gov. Ducey to sit down with them and find a real solution.

Arizona educators have five demands 

1. A 20 percent salary increase—to bring the median salary of elementary school teachers to $51,276 and high school teachers to $57,624. Currently, Arizona is considered the worst place in the United States for teachers.
2. Competitive pay for all Education Support Professionals
3. Permanent certified salary structure that includes annual raises
4. Restore education funding to the 2008 levels—$1 billion more in state funding for education
5. No new tax cuts until per-pupil finding reaches the national average

Gov. Ducey’s reaction to the walkout

In a tweet, Gov. Ducey said he is committed to getting a 20% raise for teachers by 2020. He added that nobody wants to see teachers strike because the kids are the ones who lose out.”

I am committed to getting teachers this raise and am working to get this passed at the Legislature. We need teachers teaching, and kids learning. (2/2)

— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) April 20, 2018