Colorado had only been a state for 59 years when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the first major workers’ rights bill, the National Labor Relations Act, into law.

That year, 1935, the NLRA bill changed millions of workers’ lives. For the first time since the industrial revolution began, the everyday worker had set, legal rights; had bargaining power; and had a sense of dignity in their workplace.

But this bill, revolutionary as it was, only enshrined the rights of private sector workers.

In the 90 years since, most public sector workers – educators, nurses, firefighters, and EMTs who now make up almost 20% of Colorado’s workforce – have gone without these same workplace protections.

I’m excited to be a small part of an historic bill, the Public Employees’ Workplace Protection bill, that will finally extend these rights to all public workers in our state when it’s signed into law by Governor Polis.

As a social studies teacher in rural Mountain Valley School in Saguache, Colorado, I jumped at the chance to testify in favor of the Public Employees’ Workplace Protection bill last month. I think it’s important to show my students that voices from “The Valley” do matter, and that communicating with our elected officials can make a difference.

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[To give you an idea of what Saguache, Colorado is like, I’ll give you some context: The K-12 school that I work at has about 140 total students enrolled, and our county has three times as many cattle as we do people.]

I’m one of about 22,623 educators and support staff who live and work in one of Colorado’s rural counties. In order to participate in these hearings at the Capitol, I traveled the 360 miles round-trip to Denver and back. I testified In front of Colorado’s House and Senate bodies to share my story. ??I told them how a majority of the educators and support staff in my school district belong to our union. However, when several of us spoke up at a school board meeting for our student’s learning conditions – which are also our working conditions – we were met with derogatory comments from school board members. This created a chilling environment where my colleagues began to express concern for their jobs. A climate of fear set in, where educators and support staff felt that speaking up about their working conditions or other issues could result in them losing their jobs. It reached a point where I was hearing from more and more colleagues that they were having to take their personal leave to deal with the stress and anxiety from the fear of losing their job.

In this situation, educators and support staff aren’t the only ones who suffer. Our students do as well. Educator well-being is student well-being, after all. It’s impossible to have one without the other, and it’s essential to our students’ performance in school that our educators can do what they’re trained to do without fear. When teachers like myself are secure in our jobs, we are better teachers. When we feel comfortable raising concerns about conditions, turnover decreases, and our schools and students can thrive. Every year that our students have a new teacher, is a year that our students experience instability and disruption that can negatively impact their learning.

When the Public Employees’ Workplace Protection bill is signed into law by Gov. Polis it will rectify many of these indignities for our educators. It will ensure that we begin to stem our educator shortage, by restoring dignity and respect to our profession. Even better, this bill will ensure that all public workers can feel secure in their workplaces and have some of the same protections that private sector workers have had for nearly a century. This anti-discrimination bill will ensure that we can speak freely without the fear of retaliation. And finally, it will solidify Colorado’s legacy as a great place for all workers, no matter your profession.

Personally, I can’t wait to share with my students that I had a small part in making Colorado history.

Kevin Walek? teaches in the Mountain Valley School District?in Saguache.