South Bossier Teachers need your help!

We didn’t want the huge tax increase but we DO love our teachers! They need us now. Let’s show them the LOVE!

I wish I could share all the individual teacher stories I have heard while undertaking this project. Teachers that are single parents or whose finances are stretched thin; yet they come out of pocket to make sure their classrooms have what their students need. These teachers don't "expect" anything, they are just hopeful that Bossier residents really do want to help them. Let's put our money where our mouth is. PLEASE share the love for our SoBo teachers!

SoBo Teacher Wishlists

Please choose a school, choose a teacher, and pick up a thing or two off of their wish lists each month to help them through the school year. PLEASE help me show our teachers we really do love and appreciate them!

Feel free to email me (link at the bottom) with your experiences helping the teachers (or being helped!) and I will try to add a stories section.

"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets." ~ Matthew 7:12

THIS IS THE POST THAT TOUCHED MY HEART AND STARTED THIS PROJECT ---

May 4th there was an election for Bossier residents to vote to increase teacher pay. In the days and weeks leading up to the election there were many negative comments. It was so hurtful to see so many people against teachers getting a raise, but what I saw more than anything was that people weren’t as opposed to teachers getting the raise as they were wanting to go about it another way. They didn’t NOT support teachers, they simply didn’t want to pay more in taxes to give us the raise. As it stands, we will likely lose quite a bit this year. Yes, the state approved a STATE WIDE $1000 raise (not narrowing the pay gap-this was for the whole state, not just the parish). BUT, the parish has removed the possibility for $1800 in attendance stipends and likely the $1200 bonus we have received in December the past two years. Also, it looks like our insurance rates might go up (or so I’ve heard). I’ll most likely see less money this year than last.

All that said, many of my FB friends and neighbors made comments about supporting teachers, just not with a tax increase to create those raises. So I’m asking you now, please support your local teachers individually. Many of us have amazon wish lists, donorschoose projects, and needs for our rooms. I ask you, PLEASE reach out to a teacher near you and buy them something they’re asking for. I promise, they’ve already spent hundreds of dollars of their own money for next school year. I know I have! Just support one of us! A little bit of kindness goes a long way!
~ Haley Michell

Bossier Parish wants you to believe teachers got a pay raise from them, and you've already heard they got a raise from the state, so what's the problem? Well... the problem is the teachers really did NOT get a raise! The BPSB approved the REPLACEMENT of an annual ‘perfect attendance’ stipend with a bump in regular pay.

BossierNow reports, “The board also approved a traditional “back to school” payment and a so-called annual “13th check” in November.” Sounds good right?

BUT as a Bossier teacher explained to me “the annual bonus and 13th check are and always have been accounted for in our salaries. Whatever the website says is teacher salary, those are counted in it. So it isn’t actually a bonus. They just withhold that from the monthly salary and give it to us as a “bonus.” That isn’t a matter of the board approving that. So instead of giving a “raise” they took away the attendance stipend completely. Plus the $1,000 from the state usually includes an insurance increase, so we won’t see much of that either.

Bottom line: teachers are upset the truth hasn’t been told since the beginning. The media is twisting things. We look greedy. But realistically, we brought the kids’ scores up AGAIN. We are one of the lowest paid parishes in the region, with the highest test scores and worst insurance rates. It doesn’t add up. And it’s depressing. We just want the public to know and understand the truth... not the media’s twisted version of the truth making us sound greedy and wanting more. But this raise? It isn’t more. It’s technically still a pay cut.”

EDIT: Bossier Now updated the article to highlight the fact the teachers only got a $300 raise. But consider they made a $1200 perfect attendance stipend an actual part of salary while the perfect attendance stipend they did away with was worth $1800. ($200 a month x 9 months) END EDIT

AGAIN, I say our teachers NEED us NOW! Please pick a teacher, pick a school, buy one or two things (more would be awesome!) every MONTH to help these teachers get through the school year! They deserve it and they NEED it! Thank you for loving our teachers!

Please email me with your experiences after visiting this page. (Link is that tiny circle below!) Did you fulfill the last item on a teacher's wish list? Did helping a teacher change your day? Did receiving help move you to tears? What was your experience using this resource?

PLEASE limit list recommendations to ONLY SoBo schools or teachers who live in SoBo at this time. As much as I would love to include ALL teachers, this is a HUGE project with as many teachers as we have and I can't handle all the schools in Shreveport/Bossier (yet)!

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