Striving to improve working conditions and retain teachers in one of Tennessee’s lowest-income districts, the Lauderdale County Education Association (LCEA) has launched a successful campaign to engage in collaborative conferencing under the Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act (PECCA).

Led by President Rebecca Medford and Vice President Samuel Wiggin, and supported by a newly energized local association leadership team, the effort has galvanized local educators as they hope to make improvements on salary, benefits and other issues of concern to local educators.

Consistently ranked among the top three counties in Tennessee for poverty rates, the district faces significant challenges in teacher retention.

“We have very high educator turnover in our area,” Wiggin said.

Educators have tried to bring up concerns on their own with the district for the last few years with no tangible results, so coming to the table under the PECCA law seemed like a logical next step.

The tipping point came last year when the local association’s president left mid-year, prompting a reorganization of LCEA’s leadership. Wiggin, who participated in the 2025 Emerging Leader training during TEA’s Summer Leadership Academy, saw an opportunity to reignite local advocacy efforts.

“We made a decision that we were going to pursue PECCA in the fall,” Wiggin said. “We started laying the groundwork for us to get trained in our game plan in April and May of this year, so coming to the Emerging Leaders training in the summer was very helpful.”

The team began organizing at a grassroots level, setting up a booth at the local tomato festival in July to raise awareness and build support. By the start of the new school year, they had already collected more than double the number of signatures required to initiate the PECCA process.

“We were done collecting signatures for our petition before school started,” Wiggin said. “We kept on keeping our members informed.”

The district’s earlier decision to eliminate the long-standing tradition of allowing teachers to wear jeans two days a week, even when they paid for the privilege, was a small but symbolic blow that further fueled the momentum for PECCA.

“That seems like a small thing, but in combination with everything else, that was a motivation for a lot of teachers,” Wiggin said. “People just got fed up with being asked to do double what other districts around us were being asked to do, for less pay.”

Another major concern among educators was the district’s policy of paying teachers only once a month.

“We had always been told, ‘Well, that’s just the way we’ve done it, it’s the way we’re going to keep on doing it,’” Wiggin said.

The arrival of a new superintendent, Selina T. Sparkman, brought a glimmer of hope.

Having led the Bledsoe County school district to achieve a level-five designation, Sparkman has experience with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and was open to the collaborative conferencing process.

“She’s been pretty receptive,” Wiggin said. “Her last district had an MOU, and did not have a lot of turnover.”

Despite the challenges, including an injury that left Wiggin temporarily sidelined at the beginning of the school year, LCEA’s momentum never faltered. Wiggin was trying to break up a fight between students when was “shoved down real hard by another student.”

“They had to take me out by ambulance,” Wiggin said.

The injury required surgery and time off work, limiting Wiggin’s ability to represent the association.

Despite the setback, the association remained committed.

“TEA taught over the last few years how to advocate for myself, and how to advocate for our members,” Wiggin said. “If I hadn’t asked for the extra compensation, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it.”

LCEA’s efforts culminated in a presentation of the PECCA petition to the school board at the beginning of October.

“I think some of the school board members were a little bit taken aback by how many people signed,” Wiggin said.

Key to the association’s strategy was appointing captains at every school to ensure consistent communication and support for gathering signatures and the upcoming PECCA votes.

“We got people in every school that informally can go around and ask people to vote when it’s time,” Wiggin said.

LCEA President Medford, a fourth-grade ELA teacher at Ripley Elementary, played a key role in organizing elementary and primary schools, while Wiggin focused on middle and high schools.

“We went from having a dormant local to starting a PECCA voting process within the last year and a half,” Wiggin said. “That shows how motivated our teacher population is because people are like, something’s got to give.”

LCEA leaders also saw firsthand that local advocacy can be a powerful recruitment tool.

“I know sometimes people talk about member benefits or the importance of having insurance, but actually the biggest thing for educators is having an active local agency that’s going to school boards, going to bat for them on local issues,” Wiggin said.

As the PECCA process continues, LCEA remains focused on improving working conditions and teacher autonomy.

“While pay’s a part of it, the biggest thing is working conditions and just allowing our teachers to have more autonomy to teach,” Wiggin said. “You can get away with lower pay if you have better working conditions.”

For other local education associations considering PECCA, Wiggin said planning ahead is crucial.

“The planning for PECCA has got to come in April or May,” he said.

With nearly 50 percent of Lauderdale County’s teachers signing the petition, well above the required 15 percent, LCEA’s experience serves as a powerful example of grassroots organizing, resilience, and the impact of collective action – all with assistance and guidance from TEA.

“This is the only way we can make a difference,” Wiggin said. “To force a contract because, you know, a contract is the only way to really make improvements, have a voice and be able to change things.”