But leaving the state was never a “given” for Cadle. Maryland wasn’t her home, and teaching wasn’t migratory work. She decided to build her career where her friends and family were—in Clendenin, a small community  where her  mother also taught public school.

West Virginia’s cellar-dweller reputation for compensating teachers also wasn’t a “given” for Cadle. That’s why she was one of the first to say “count me in” when the call came from her AFT state affiliate for members who would rally at the state Capitol for better salaries in education.

Cadle wasn’t alone. West Virginia’s state capital filled with a sea of AFT blue on Jan. 10 as an estimated 1,200 teachers and classified school employees mobilized to get educator salaries in their state out of the national cellar. The demonstration at the Capitol in Charleston—spearheaded by AFT-West Virginia and the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association—took place minutes before Gov. Joe Manchin proposed a below-inflation 2.5 percent across-the-board pay boost for teachers and classified employees in his State of the State message. “Not good enough,” was the raucous response of AFT members and their allies, who packed the halls of the Capitol building. Their chants for real salary improvements would at times overshadow the proceedings inside the legislative chambers, and generate media attention across the state about the teacher salary crisis.

“It’s not about sitting at the dining room table or in the teachers’ lounge saying, ‘Look at the pay in Ohio,’ and ‘Look at the pay in Maryland,’ ’’ says Cadle, a third-year elementary school teacher. “If you’re going to be dissatisfied, do it in a way that makes a difference and makes people pay attention to you. That’s through this union.”

The show of determination and will wasn’t limited to K-12 employees. AFT member Elizabeth Savage, a professor of English at Fairmont State and an activist in AFT’s higher education division, also turned out to lend her voice.

“My primary goal was to show support and alliance [with K-12 educators] to show the legislators that we are a force in the state and need to be listened to,” says Savage. The professor also stresses that West Virginia’s low pay has taken a professional toll on her and other faculty who have instructed many young teachers at the college.

“I’m in higher education, but one of my primary missions is to train teachers,” she says. “Some of our smartest and most capable educators go to Maryland and Virginia.”

AFT-West Virginia president and AFT vice president Judy Hale said the demonstration would be a springboard for aggressive lobbying. “We intend to take the governor’s proposal as a starting point and use the next 60 days of the [legislative] session” to lobby for better compensation, she told reporters. “We need to be competitive with surrounding states to keep our highly qualified, content-certified teachers in West Virginia.”

AFT members at the Capitol demonstration also called attention to the ongoing erosion of healthcare benefits—an attack that cuts across constituencies. Public employees have seen their out-of-pocket health costs, such as copayments and deductibles, rise steeply in recent years, with additional attacks looming ahead. One idea under consideration, for example, is to end the family medical coverage option for retirees.

The move is tantamount to a broken promise for retirees like Jack Coyner, who was among the AFT members at the rally. For most of his 34 years as an educator, Coyner taught in Putnam County, just west of Charleston. The 65-year-old retired in 1997 and relies on his retiree medical benefits to help supplement coverage for his wife, who has severe diabetes. During all of his years teaching, “the line was pretty much the same,” Coyner remembers. “They said, ‘The state doesn’t have the money for a raise but the benefits are solid, and nobody can take them away from you.’ That’s exactly what they are proposing to do.”

The rally showed unity across the divisions, which was energizing and bodes well for the future, Coyner says. And there was no doubt that the message was getting through to the people in power.