DURHAM COUNTY, NC — The Durham Educators’ Association says public schools in the county are in crisis. Members say they are underpaid, schools are understaffed and current conditions are stressful.

Dozens of school workers, parents and pupils gathered outside Durham School Board on Thursday to draw attention to the challenges they face.

“We are really worried that many of our colleagues are leaving the profession and leaving the schools that we care about and love,” said Andi Mariategui, EC resource teacher at Club Boulevard Elementary School.

Mariategui has been teaching at Club Boulevard for two years and worries about the way things are going in Durham state schools.

“We have staff shortages, pretty serious staff shortages. It’s really difficult to get substitutes at the moment,” said Mariategui. “We realize this is part of a much bigger fight to give our schools the funding they need.”

Mariategui says the Durham Association of Educators offers four main solutions.

First, they want the school board to provide an immediate retention bonus to all staff. Second, members want one more planning day per month for the rest of the year. Third, they want the board to provide a threshold for safe staffing levels and transition schools to remote learning if too many staff are absent. Finally, they want the replacement hiring process to be prioritized and streamlined.

“We are calling on the school board to help stop the bleeding of teachers from our schools so we can keep the amazing staff we have and have fully staffed schools that can provide the nurturing and caring environment we want. for our students”, Mariategui mentioned.

Symone Kiddo is a school social worker at Club Boulevard and also wants to see a change.

“Overall, I think the district has hundreds of vacancies, but we get an email every morning from the type of places we cover, and we usually have maybe two or three people a day. , but there were days when we had 10 or 11,” Kiddo said.

“It ends up being this really crude game of human Jenga that our admins have to play every morning when we don’t have enough people. They try to pull different people from different places to cover different tasks. It just means that children aren’t getting the kind of attention they need and the kind of education they really need,” Kiddo said.

She says many teachers and public schools face unfair criticism through no fault of their own.

“I think it’s a big drain on the mental health of a lot of our staff, just this feeling that we’re not doing our job or that we’re not doing the best we can for our children or that we’re being selfish when we enter these buildings every day with the main priority of loving our children,” Kiddo said.

She says the board has made changes in the past and believes members need to listen to educators before things get worse.

“Hopefully they’ve been able to hear the comments, and are able to see the number of people who come to our rally and really make a decision that keeps people in the buildings,” Kiddo said.

The Durham Association of Educators launched a petition with these four solutions earlier this month and says it has 1,600 signatures.