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Educators Celebrate California Day of the Teacher With Parents, Picnics &amp; Contract Protests

Stepping out of their classrooms to celebrate with parents, picnics and a few contract protests, educators will spend Wednesday’s 31st annual California Day of the Teacher honoring the profession with a variety of events across the state as they also remember the 150th anniversary of the California Teachers Association this week.

CTA’s theme for the day is “California teachers: Honoring our past. Guiding the future.” California’s Day of the Teacher stems from legislation co-sponsored by CTA and the Association of Mexican American Educators in 1982.  Our theme is reflected in a huge, three-week CTA television, radio, print and web ad campaign launched Monday in all California media markets. The TV and radio ads are posted here. Print ads in eight languages are appearing in more than 47 ethnic media newspapers.

President Dean E. Vogel says in one radio spot about CTA’s 150 years of advocacy:

Today, our values of fairness, public service and commitment to all of our children remain exactly the same. And that’s why the California Teachers Association paid for this message – celebrating 150 years advocating for all students, educators – and our public schools.

Eric Heins, vice president of the 325,000-member CTA, said this year’s Teacher Appreciation Week shows the positive impacts of teachers on society.

Public education – our schools, colleges and universities – all helped make California what it is today, and contributed to the state now having the ninth-largest economy in the world.

Heins will be in Imperial County Wednesday evening for a celebration of local teacher union activists. CTA Secretary-Treasurer Mikki Cichocki will be at a Bakersfield picnic celebration at Yokuts Park Wednesday with hundreds of Kern County educators.

Check out TODAY'S California Day of the Teacher events – and JOIN IN!