Tori Koerbler is a full-time teacher and a mom, but on weekends she picks up shifts working at a kielbasa shop to make ends meet.

The third-grade teacher at Panther Valley Elementary is one of several teachers in the district who choose to work a second job to supplement their income.

She and three other Panther Valley teachers got to share their story with Gov. Tom Wolf at the Capitol on Tuesday as he presented his 2019 budget address.

The governor invited the educators as examples of the teachers he is hoping to help by raising the minimum income for full-time public school teachers to $45,000. And in the process, they gave Panther Valley a voice in Harrisburg.

Koerbler, Brittany Hill, Christi Truskey and Tara Yuricheck got to watch the governor give his address from the floor of the “Hall of the House,” and then ate lunch at the governor’s residence with other VIPs.

They agreed that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“The whole experience was a “10” across the board.” Koerbler said.

She has photos with the governor and the whole group. “It was pretty neat and we have lots of memories from yesterday,” Koerbler said.

Panther Valley is an impoverished school district, and many of its teachers make below the new proposed minimum salary. The governor and the state teachers’ union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, wanted to bring some of those teachers to Harrisburg to make the case for the increased minimum salary.

They met at PSEA headquarters Wednesday morning before heading to the Capitol, where they met with reporters and posed for photos and videos which will be used in PSEA advertisements supporting the governor’s plan.

Hill, a sixth-grade science teacher, admitted that she does not regularly tune in to the governor’s budget address, but the experience was so much more than what could be depicted on TV.

“They really pack as many people in there. It’s amazing the amount of people that are in that room, even as big as it is,” she said.

Despite the hectic scene, Wolf greeted each of the teachers and took a picture before the speech. While there were other teachers who were forced to work second jobs to make ends meet, only Panther Valley sent four teachers.

Hill said they asked him about the budget and thanked him for proposing an increase in teachers’ salaries.

“We were kind of just letting him know how thankful we were for even proposing that. Teachers deserve to have a certain minimum salary depending on where they are. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching at Panther Valley or at Northwestern Lehigh, or anywhere in the Lehigh Valley area,” she said.

After four years in the district, Koerbler still makes about 25 percent less than an entry-level teacher at schools in other districts.

She said she was happy to share her experience because raising the minimum salary for teachers would allow her to spend more time with her children.

“Families have changed, just the dynamics of how families work. The needs of students in the classroom, there’s more and more responsibilities put on teachers. The one thing that remains the same is the salary. And that blows my mind,” Koerbler said.

Hill said she’s seen several teachers from Panther Valley leave the district because they are offered a higher-paying position in another district.

When they returned to the district, their students were excited to hear about the experience. Hill showed her students some pictures and shared the rest with the sixth-grade social studies teacher.

Koerbler said her students first thought she had met the president, but still had all kinds of questions once they learned about the governor.

“They had so many questions ‘did you get to see him,’ ‘did his mansion have a pool,’ ‘was he nice’” she said.

Yuricheck, a fifth-grade social studies teacher, said she is planning a lesson based on her experience.

Panther Valley School District Superintendent Dennis Kergick said it was very impressive that the teachers had the opportunity to travel to Harrisburg and represent their district.

“I was happy that they had the opportunity to attend and discuss some budgetary concerns — especially for a small, impoverished school district,” he said.