Days before a tentative agreement was reached between Yelm Education Association (YEA) and Yelm Community Schools (YCS), Yelm High School football athletes, joined by parents and program supporters, showed their support for YEA and Yelm teachers as a new collective bargaining agreement was worked toward.
Athletes and parents took to First Street North on Thursday, Aug. 29, and Friday, Aug. 30, holding signs and voicing support for YEA in the warm, early afternoon of both days. Yelm football’s senior team captains Jameson Patin, Shane Creegan, Nathan Ford and Chris Hauss each felt it was important for the team to rally and show support for their teachers.
Creegan, a returning starter at center for the Tornados, said he and his teammates wanted to advocate for and support Yelm teachers so “they can get what they deserved.”
“It’s really important to advocate for the teachers because they can be really unappreciated in the world,” Creegan said. “I feel like they’re the unsung heroes of everything that happens around here because without good teachers and positive influences in students’ lives, you wouldn’t have a town full of great people.”
Patin said it’s great to see that teachers are “finally doing something to stand up for themselves.”
“It’s so important to have good educators. The better teachers you have, the better grades you’ll get. The best teachers that I’ve had in my life have actually made an impact on my life and helped me learn the most. If those teachers leave Yelm, it wouldn’t be good,” Patin said. “It feels good to see the team out here because my mom is a teacher. It feels good knowing that all these dudes, who sometimes get a bad rep because people assume football players aren’t the best people, but Yelm has a great group of people on the team. It makes me smile to see this.”
Ford said the team was outside the district office to support teachers because “they’re getting outed for what they should be getting.”
“Our teachers are the people who provide us education, life lessons and see us on a daily basis,” Ford said. “Having a good educator as a student and as a student-athlete means a lot because they … teach us how to find what we want to do in our future and how we’ll behave as grown-ups one day.”
Hauss hoped that, by team members sharing their voices to support Yelm teachers, they would “bring light” to the situation and make it more visible.
“We wanted to show that there’s support within the school district,” Hauss said. “It’s not just about football. We’re student-athletes, and being a student comes first. You gotta be protective of the teachers.”
With an agreement between YCS and the education association settled upon, the Tornados’ first contest of the season against Mount Tahoma will take place on Thursday, Sept. 5.
