
Georgia teacher retirement conference ‘unfair’ as henta festival ‘outrageous’
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WATCH: Teachers in Georgia are set to hold a teacher retirement convention to discuss how to improve pay.
The conference has been called ‘unforgivable’ by the head of the Teachers’ Federation of Georgia.
It comes after the state legislature passed a bill that requires teachers to retire at 55, as well as pay an extra 5% for the first time in 20 years.
The teachers’ federation said the bill was ‘completely unacceptable’.
‘The teachers’ union’s stance is unhelpful.
It’s not fair to the teachers who are already underpaid,’ Georgia Teachers Federation president Leon Choyvadze told Al Jazeera.
‘We want to see a real change in Georgia’s education system, but it is not going to happen by simply forcing teachers to pay more money.’
Choybadeze added that the teachers’ conference was ‘outright unfair’.
‘They’re going to be pushing for changes in their system,’ he said.
‘There is no other way to put it than that.’
Georgia has a high proportion of children with disabilities.
The state is also home to some of the world’s highest rates of childhood obesity and the state’s highest rate of child abuse and neglect, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Georgia Teachers’ Conference is being held on Wednesday and Thursday at the Georgia Academy of Science in Georgia City.
The event is aimed at promoting Georgia’s teachers’ unions as ‘a model of excellence’.
‘I want to call attention to the need for teachers to take charge of their profession in order to ensure that it is truly a career for them and not for corporations,’ said Choydze.
‘In a world where people are constantly distracted by the demands of technology and the demands for money, I want to highlight how teachers’ jobs are truly important to us as educators.’
Georgia’s state senate passed a measure last year requiring all teachers to receive at least a salary increase of at least 5% over the next five years.
This would mean that every teacher would be required to contribute at least 10% of their salary to the state budget.
In 2016, Georgia was one of only three states to enact a wage increase in excess of 5%.
The increase would have boosted teacher pay by $1.6 million, according the Georgia Teachers Union.
Georgia was among the states that raised their minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2017.
But the teachers union is urging Georgia to increase the minimum wage as a national benchmark.
The minimum wage in Georgia is set at $9.95 an hour, while the federal minimum wage is set to go up to $9 an hour.
The new legislation would have allowed teachers to earn an additional $1,500 in their first three years of employment, and $2,500 after that.
The legislation would also allow teachers to deduct from their pay their home and child care expenses.
The bill is also aimed at protecting teachers from retaliation and would have required teachers to provide their supervisors with an annual report on how they are being paid.
In 2018, Georgia also passed legislation that allows teachers to be fired for ‘insulting the president, the governor, the attorney general, or any other person or entity’.
The legislation also allows for teachers in Georgia to be required by law to report ‘material derogatory information about the president or the governor’.