Boston’s teachers have been negotiating with the Boston Public School for ten months and for nearly 30 sessions. We teachers are asking for the public’s help on issues we believe all of us can support.

The major issue is what we call Inclusion Done Right — ending the practice of having one teacher deliver two different types of services. In addition to teaching a class, the BPS wants teachers to also deliver special education or English language instruction. We teachers call this Inclusion Done Cheap. Making a single teacher do two distinctly separate jobs simultaneously is both unrealistic and grossly improper.

Here’s the tell tale: no other district in Massachusetts does this. Sure, a teacher may have multiple separate licenses (because they are well educated and super dedicated) but having multiple licenses does not mean being able to do multiple jobs at once.

Imagine you wanted to have some work done on your house. Suppose you hire a person who is a licensed electrician, a licensed plumber, and a licensed carpenter. Such a person would likely be in high demand and well compensated. Now suppose you asked this person to do all the jobs at once. Not one at a time, not as-needed; all at once.

Several weeks ago thousands of Boston Teachers Union educators wrote postcards to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Winston Kam, a teacher at the Frederick Middle School sums up the situation well. “I am not an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. I am not a special ed teacher. I am trained and studied for four years to teach STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to K-12 kids.”

Teachers are seeking an end to the practice of doing two jobs at once. It is important that we do so for two complementary reasons. The first is that we are underserving our students who need this help the most. The other is that the teachers subjected to this double-demand are being overworked and understandably overwhelmed.

In a June article for Fortune, Beth Greenfield wrote about the high levels of stress for the American teacher. Greenfield, citing the Rand 2024 State of the American Teacher survey, wrote that teachers “attribute a majority of their stress to managing student behavior, administrative work outside of teaching, and low salaries.”

According to the study, starting pay for teachers is 20% lower than in other professions with similar degree requirements. Furthermore, the average teacher work week is longer than other similar professions. Teachers average 53 hours a week after factoring in all the night and weekend work the job requires. So teachers put in a full year’s worth of work in only ten months. This is part of the reason we are tired, stressed, and leaving the profession in droves.

I suppose I was lucky as a parent. My son received both an excellent education and much needed supports in his BPS middle school. The Dennis Haley School in Roslindale does inclusion right. The classrooms have two teachers. With two teachers in a room, one teacher can deliver the general ed instruction while the other one delivers special education service minutes. My son thrived. Such a success story should not depend upon luck; all our schools should have adequate staff to deliver the quality education all students deserve.

Another way we can support both teachers and students is to have paraprofessionals. Paras, as we call them, are adults who do not typically have a teaching license but who do assist the classroom teacher by performing important educational tasks. (Some districts call such people teachers assistants, teacher aides, or paraeducators.)

Starting pay for such an important educational role is under $30,000 annually for some.  How can anyone afford rent, let alone a mortgage, in Boston on such wages?  The Boston Teachers Union is negotiating on behalf of the beleaguered paraprofessionals so that they may have, at the very least, a living wage.

Sometimes I hear disparaging remarks like “I can’t believe how greedy the unions are,” or words to that effect.  Mr. Seddon, a dear departed friend of mine once said “Unions are an expression of love.”  What better love is there than to fight for other teachers, other students, and other families? At the end of the day, the teachers’ working conditions are the students’ learning conditions.

Michael J. Maguire teaches Latin and Ancient Greek at Boston Latin Academy and serves on the Board of the Boston Teachers Union. The ideas expressed here are his own.