News

Actions

SLC teachers heading to Tallahassee for protest

Posted at 6:54 PM, Jan 11, 2016
and last updated 2016-01-11 18:54:26-05

The message from St. Lucie County teachers tonight - enough is enough.

"We're destroying an entire generation of kids with these laws- and no one is listening to us," says Maureen Sinnott, a teacher at Treasure Coast High School. "They have to listen to us."

Sinnott and dozens of her fellow educators from St Lucie County are taking that message to Tallahassee on Thursday.

The teachers plan on marching from the civic center to the capitol protesting what they say are the current problems within the education system.

"The amount of testing that we have to go through, and the pressure these students are under is absolutely ridiculous," says Math teacher Christine Cirocco.

Cirocco sees the toll it takes on her students - even noticing it in her own 5th grade daughter.

"Having anxiety over these important tests that if she doesn't pass...she's crying and upset," she says.

Sinnott says some of the issues being ignored go beyond the classroom.

"Poverty and fractured families and resources that are being taken away from them," she says. "Our kids are failing because they're not addressing the real issues. They're slapping Band-Aids on it."

52 educators are expected to make the trip from St. Lucie to Tallahassee.

In total, 3,000 educators from across the state are expected at this march on Thursday.