MSEA President Cheryl Bost: “Join me to be on the right side of history…”

It is such an honor to begin my term as your MSEA president. During my first month, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting five local affiliates and 12 schools across our state. These visits reaffirm what I’ve always known and seen in every school that I’ve worked in: we have terrifically dedicated and enthusiastic educators in our schools doing incredible things for our students.

Each conversation I had during my visits included the excitement of welcoming students to a new school year mixed with frustration over the barriers that impact the work we do work with them. Educators across this state are working miracles when faced with large class sizes and caseloads, inequities in technology, institutional racism, and curriculum and testing demands — and we do it all with stagnant salaries that make it hard for many to stay in the profession we love.

We can and must do better. This will take a new labor movement in Maryland. My mission as your president is to build a strong, collective, unified educator force that will raise our voices in the decision-making that affects our students and our profession. This requires educators to speak up with confidence and highlight the needs of our schools, educators, and students. We need to do this at the building level, the district level, and state level. And we need to step up to vote for pro-public education candidates up and down the ballot.

A new labor movement to bring our voices to the forefront of public education can’t happen with my voice alone. We can only build power and open the doors to academic success for all public school students when we raise our voices as one. Join me to be on the right side of history and make sure that the excitement we feel is always greater than the barriers we face. In union there is strength.