It’s the Apple That’s Rotten, Not the Barrel!

A bill that passed in the Missouri legislature was recently signed into law by Governor Jay Nixon. It has grabbed nationwide attention for educators in the state of Missouri, and not necessarily the kind of attention we hope for.  I tend to stay pretty up to date on many legislative issues that affect education, and was aware of this bill, but became much more involved last week as I was interviewed by both our local media (KQTV2) and by Foxnews.com for stories.  If you ever want to quickly become an expert in something, agree to go on camera, it makes you cram like you would before a very important test.  Before going on any more, let me lay some ground work for those of you unfamiliar with the subject here.

Court Icons by digitalart

The bill (Senate Bill 54) is also called the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act and additionally creates a task force for the prevention of sexual abuse of children.  Amy Hestir (now 40) was abused by a teacher when she was 12. In summary, the bill requires schools to share information about district employees who are terminated or allowed to resign due to sexual misconduct involving a student.  This part of the bill is not very controversial, in fact, I applaud it.  My heart aches for the pain that must have caused her in life. Nobody can justify those actions. I’m sorry that she suffered through this. Schools (and other employers, for that matter) have become afraid of saying anything about a former employee for fear of a suit from the released employee, many following a policy of only confirming dates of employment.  This bill allows us to share that information, and in my opinion, do what is right for children.  I detest the thought of any educator (or adult for that matter) engaging in that type of behavior with a student/child.

The controversy that has been created lies in a section of the bill, Section 162.069, that states the following:

“By January 1, 2012, every school district must develop a written policy concerning teacher-student communication and employee-student communications. Each policy must include appropriate oral and nonverbal personal communication, which may be combined with sexual harassment policies, and appropriate use of electronic media as described in the act, including social networking sites. Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student. Former student is defined as any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated.

By January 1, 2012, each school district must include in its teacher and employee training a component that provides information on identifying signs of sexual abuse in children and of potentially abusive relationships between children and adults, with an emphasis on mandatory reporting. Training must also include an emphasis on the obligation of mandated reporters to report suspected abuse by other mandatory reporters.”

In essence, to combat inappropriate behavior, Senator Cunningham has chosen to attack the media used, not the behavior. In a time when many teachers are working to connect with students in forums that they are comfortable learning with (and to prepare them for the technologically-driven 21st century), teachers are being mandated to cease using any forums that might possibly create an instance where there would be exclusive communication. I am relatively new to some different forms of social media, and the two that are most commonly discussed related to this are Facebook and Twitter. Facebook communication only happens if you choose to “accept” a “friend request”. I have long had a personal policy that I don’t “friend” students (and spend a good deal of time in my office encouraging students that are fighting on Facebook to NOT be friends there, but that’s a different story for a different time). My “friend list” on Facebook generally consists of people I grew up with, went to college with, and a few former students that have been out of school for years (some as many as 18 years). Twitter is generally an open forum in 140 character bites. Direct (or private) messaging is only available if you are being “followed” and you are “following” that account back. I don’t generaly follow student accounts, so again, this shouldn’t be an issue for me. That is not the case for many educators that are using electronic media in very legitimate ways.

Our student government recently started a Twitter account. They follow me to keep up with items that I tweet about (scores of games, upcoming events, etc.) and I followed them back to stay up on what they are sending out as representatives of our school. They had a question the other day and sent me a DM (Direct Message). Under this new law, I would be in violation. Many educators use sites like Blackboard and eCompanion, which allow for online

Social Network by renjith krishnan

discussions about class. Students can turn in papers digitally in these platforms and also receive feedback. Anyone that has taken a college class in the last 5 years will tell you that the days of turning assignments in as a hard copy don’t exist any more. Our students need to be familar with this type of interaction and platform to be prepared for continuing their education. Just as a teacher wouldn’t discuss and evaluate a student’s hard copy paper openly in class, a teacher wouldn’t post in an open forum the revisions needed on Blackboard or eCompanion.  There is real value in being able to have a conversation that is between the student and teacher. This law forces districts to create policy that will forbid that.

One of the problems I have with this legislation is that there is an underlying tone to it that assumes that teachers are predators, just waiting to strike if they can find a way to privately communicate with a student. I thought maybe my own personal bias was just reading that in on my own, until I read the following response to an email that a young man sent to Senator Cunningham’s office:

Excerpt from email reply sent to Cameron Carlson by Senator Jane Cunningham’s legislative aide, Sandra Allen, on August 3rd (was posted to the Facebook Page Students, Parents, and Teachers Against MO Senate Bill #54, Sec. 162.069):
 
“First things first – I need you to educate yourself to the magnitude of the sexual abuse of students by educators. It is of epidemic proportions both locally (Missouri) and nationally. Just a quick Google search brings up pages. Unfortunately, this heinous crime has gone grossly underreported because the school districts didn’t want to deal with it – now they have to or they will be held liable and culpable for the future abuses perpetrated by someone they just pass to the next district. Senator Cunningham recognized the need for these types of laws to protect innocent children from being taken advantage of by someone in authority.
 
Second, what I am hearing you say is that the 1st amendment gives educators, who by the way would be the only adults allowed, the right to any all unmonitored private conversations with minor children? If so, I find that extremely unnerving and a lot like the adult child pornography proponents.
No adult – teacher, doctor, police, judge, Senator, Legislative Assistant, mechanic, etc., etc., etc. has the constitutional right to private conversations with children under 18 without a legal guardian and/or parent present or that has not given written permission.
 
I also find it strange that it is the male educators who are the loudest critics – interesting don’t you think? The female educators recognize the need for these types of laws. The ones who have contacted Senator Cunningham have wanted to make sure they stay within the confines of the new law.
 
Sincerely,
Sandy”

I had to read this response more than once. Did this person really imply that educators are similar to proponents of child pornography? Did she really claim that male educators are the only ones bothered by this law? Finally, does she really think that this law will prevent private conversations between teachers and students? Numerous private conversations happen daily between teachers and students, they are integral to the relationship-building we work so hard to develop. While she claims that teachers are asking for some exclusive right that others don’t have, this law actually makes teachers the ONLY group that would not be able to have this type of communication with students. Parents in your building could privately interact with students electronically, but teachers would not have that same ability. Should youth pastors be prevented from this type of communication with children, after all, there have been cases of abuse in this situation? (Note- I am NOT advocating pastors be grouped in here, only making a point). Should legislators be prevented from responding to a private email from a student? It makes one ask where do we draw the line?

I don’t think this is the end of this issue, I think it will continue to be cussed and discussed, and that’s a good thing. Healthy debate can bring solutions to complex issues. Seeking out the view points of those who disagree with you can be a good thing. My hope is that from this we realize that it’s not the means of communicating that is the problem, it’s the message. Inappropriate conversations or comments are inappropriate in any forum, whether it be by email, a private message, a tweet, a text, a phone call, a note, or a smoke signal. And we should focus on that, the inappropriate behavior. In discussing this with educator and author Todd Whitaker the other day (one of the smartest people I know-and in a Twitter DM no less), he said, “Idiots already know what they do is wrong . . . tough to legislate appropriate behavior with creeps”. Immoral people are in all walks of life, sadly, even in our field. We can’t legislate morality either, as much as we might want to. That being said, we can’t just make the assumption that ALL educators are immoral, to do so is damaging to our profession, and in the long run, to our children. The target should be on the rotten apple, not the barrel holding it.

Scary Green Apple by Tina Collins

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week- now let’s make others appreciate you!!

Let me start this post by thanking each of you in the field of teaching for your service.  I really do appreciate that, it involves more sacrifice than most people realize or appreciate.  Teachers give up countless hours with their own families to spend it with the children of others and to improve the lives of children that are not theirs.  It  truly is a career of service to improve people’s lives and our society.  God bless you for your work.

A Schoolboy and His Teacher by Paul Gooddy

A Schoolboy and His Teacher by Paul Gooddy

Now that I’ve related my respect and admiration for you, I will probably say some things that may, at a minimum, make some educators uncomfortable, and may even make some angry.  A part of me hopes that this will stir that much emotion in you.  I hope it will inspire you to recreate a scene from the movie “Network” where someone went to the window and shouted out, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” 

(scene from “Network”)

I bring you one simple truth:  your profession is under attack.  It started with people who I really believe were well-intentioned, even if misguided.  Those people thought that a Utopia could exist where all (not most, not many, not almost everyone, but 100%) students would achieve at a set proficiency level if we just mandated it.  Schools would improve because the law said they had to.  In theory, it sounded great- what educator wouldn’t say ALL kids can achieve?  In reality, we know that it’s just not realistic to expect 100% of students to achieve at the same level at a pre-determined time.  I’ve often likened it to saying  by the end of the year  all students in a PE class will run a 6 minute mile.  We won’t take into account any physical disabilities they many have, nor will we take into account what their fitness level is at the beginning of the year.  If you happen to be a school that the government gives additional money to because your students are in an area where most students are poor and maybe they haven’t had prior training in running or haven’t been provided with quality shoes to run in, well, the government will solve that by taking the money back from those schools if they don’t reach the 100% level.  Sounds a little crazy if you are not an educator, but if you are, you know that it IS NCLB in a very concise package.  This was a difficult thing for educators to take, but it was really just the beginning.  That was coming from the federal level, so to a teacher in their classroom in Missouri, it seemed far away, plus, it wouldn’t really affect them for years to come.

 

A little economics lesson

Finances by Salvatore Vuono

Finances by Salvatore Vuono

Then something else happened:  the economy tanked.  The bubble burst.  Greedy people looking to make more money loaned money to people that they knew couldn’t afford to pay it back.  People borrowed money they knew they couldn’t afford to pay back.  The economy was a delicate house of cards that collapsed with the mortgage crisis.  Rather than this just affecting a segment industry, its effects were felt in ALL industries.  Companies began laying off, people had less money, people spent less money, companies made less money, companies laid people off.  The cycle continued over and over.  As more people were unemployed and had less money to spend, social programs were burdened more.  Less money being spent meant less money in the coffers of state treasuries.  State governments are not like the federal government, they cannot pass this debt on to the children of your grandchildren.  They are forced to have balanced budgets.  If they don’t have it, they can’t spend it.  Things that were the responsibility of the state governments were now underfunded, even as the expenses for those programs continued to grow.  Education falls into this category.  Legislators had to choose where to allocate the limited funds they had due to reduced tax revenues.  Most legislators recognized that education was an important function of the state government and attempted to keep funding at adequate levels.  Every now and then a bill would be filed that tried to reallocate some of that money under the label of scholarships (seemed the least offensive) and more blatantly, tax credits and vouchers  to private entities, namely private schools.  The pie got smaller and smaller and the expenses continued to grow for public schools.  This led us to where we are today.

This isn’t just about money

As educators, we understand that finances are tight.  They are tight statewide and they are tight on a local level.  Many educators have had their salaries frozen in many districts, even as they continued to spend more of their own money to get more training and advanced degrees.  Most teachers understand that legislators can’t give us money that doesn’t exist. 

School Bus by Arvind Balaraman

School Bus by Arvind Balaraman

What is disconcerting for me (and should be for all educators) is that this has gone beyond money, and there is a pervasive attitude of derision aimed at educators.  Not only are bills being filed at a rate like no other time to divert funds into charter schools, vouchers, and tax credits, but bills are now being filed that take direct aim on the very people in the classroom, all under the umbrella of “reform”.  For the life of me, I can’t understand where these thoughts and beliefs are rooted.  In this session alone in Missouri, bills have been filed in both the House and Senate to remove teacher tenure, create a tiered system of paying teachers (with no credit given for advanced degrees or professional development), to remove any protection for teachers that have seniority during layoffs, and to remove due process for teachers that are removed at the end of their contract. 

I’ve joked to colleagues that public education is the only group that  is now politically correct to take shots at.  The media, through films like “Waiting For Superman” and the like, have created this perception that classrooms are full of lazy educators, doing the bare minimum and just biding their time until they retire, doing as little as possible with teacher unions protecting them.   There is a belief by many legislators that we protect poor teachers with things like tenure and due process.  I’ve had legislators tell me that a contract should only be binding on the teacher and not the district.  Not one has been able to show me how removal of tenure and the creation of a tiered system that creates competition among teachers (not collaboration) will improve the education our children are receiving.  The attacks on teachers have gone as far as hiding items in bills that have nothing to do with education.  A bill about tax amnesty was working it’s way through the process last week, and it was discovered that there was a provision that would revoke the teaching certificate of a teacher who was more than 90 days behind on their taxes.  Why this profession was singled out, I have no idea.  Why not hair dressers, doctors, nail technicians, or any other profession that requires state certification-?  Mind you, I don’t think they should be singled out either.  Luckily, a Senator that realizes the value of educators was able to remove that provision from the bill.  This is an example of the animosity and passive-aggressive behavior directed at teachers in our capitol.

The Charter School myth

Charter schools have been hailed as the savior to all education problems.  Many believe that charter schools are something new, some even thinking that President Obama created the concept.  Truth is, charters have been around for many years.  Charter schools have scored higher than some schools on assessments.  Charter schools have scored lower than some schools on assessments.  Some charter schools have even scored similarly to other schools on assessments.  The truth is, there is no statistical evidence that charters do better or worse than traditional schools. 

Old School by Carlos Porto

Old School by Carlos Porto

 I will be the first to agree that in the state of Missouri, we have long-term problems in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas in both drop out and graduation rates.  Lots of money and programs have been directed at those two districts to remedy the problems.  I wish I had an answer, I don’t.  It is a legitimate problem.  Expanding charter schools throughout the state won’t fix that problem.  St. Louis and Kansas City have been allowed to have charters for years.  Ironically, just as legislators are trying to expand charters, two long-time charter schools in Kansas City, Tolbert Academy and Don Bosco, are going to close at the end of this year due to low enrollment.  Every tax dollar that is reallocated to a charter is one less dollar that is available to ALL public schools in Missouri.  Again, legislators like to paint themselves as the knight on the white horse saving our education system because it’s so broken.  THAT is the true myth: it’s not broken.  The media points to international test scores as an indication that American education is in a crisis.  The truth is, other countries want to emulate our system.  In his book, “Catching Up Or Leading the Way”, Yong Zhao points out that almost all of the intellectual capitol (patents, copyrights, etc.) in the world is created in the United States.  We encourage a creativity that encourages ALL talents to grow, not just test taking.  There are tremendous things going on in classrooms all over our state, but stories about that aren’t “sexy” and no legislator makes a name for themselves by saying, “I will go to Jeffrerson City and keep the status quo”.

A matter of choice for my tax dollars?

For those that ask the question, “If I choose to send my child to a private school, why shouldn’t I get some of my tax money back since the local school doesn’t have to educate my child?” 

Decisions Decisions by Andy Newson

Decisions Decisions by Andy Newson

I suggest an analogy for you:  if I don’t care for the local police force, I may choose to hire my own private security firm to guard my home and property.  Would it be reasonable for me to demand some of my tax money back to subsidize what I am paying the security firm since I am not using the services of the police department?  Most of us would believe that the hiring of a private firm is your own choice, and your tax dollars go to protect all of us, for the good of all.  Then I ask, if you choose to not utilize the educational services provided by your taxes, and you send your child to a private school,  is that not similar?  I have no issues with private education; I know great things are going on in those schools, as well.  Again, the choice to send your child to a private school is just that:  a choice.  I just don’t feel that it can be done on the dime of taxpayers and take limited funds away from already strapped budgets.

So what do we do now?

I will wrap up with a final thought:  this is a critical time in our profession, maybe more critical than any other time in our history.  Recently, Missouri rolled out new standards as part of our School Improvement Process.  In short, the process happened without much input from educators.  Educators were not pleased with this process.  In a collaborative effort not often seen, ALL education groups (MSTA, MNEA, MASSP, MASA, MAESP, and others) banded together to have their collective voices heard. 

Teamwork-FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Teamwork-FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This needs to happen now.  We need to demand the respect back that our profession so richly deserves.  This is not comfortable behavior for most in education.  We want to enrich lives, not be in confrontation, but the need for grass roots action is desperately needed now.  You need to contact your legislators, be involved constituents, have your voices heard.  If you are a member of MSTA, you need to join the Rapid Response team by sending an email to rapidresponse@msta.org.  If you are a member of other organizations, check with them to see what you can do through them.  If you don’t belong to any, contact your legislators.  They need to hear your message.  They need to be reminded that they represent US!!  This really is a call to action- all educational groups need to be able to put any differences aside and band together during this dark period in education legislation.

Businessman by graur razvan ionut

Businessman by graur razvan ionut

  Short of standing at a podium and pounding on it, I’m not sure I can be more passionate about this.  I guess I have finally gotten to this point about my profession:  “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!”  I hope that you will become mad as well.

March Madness- in education and beyond

I have an obsession, I won’t lie.  I LOVE this time of year.  This was an entirely unproductive weekend, and it is entirely the fault of the NCAA basketball tournament.  And for the record, I enjoyed the 4 network format that let me watch even more of the games as they fit my interests and needs.  My wife (good sport that she is, watched a lot of the games with me) even commented during the first half of a game Saturday night, “It’s not even enjoyable to watch the first half, I’ve gotten to see so many good endings”.  In four short days, we got to the point that we wanted the immediate feel-good moment, the last-second buzzer beater.  We didn’t want to watch the hard work that went into getting your team in a position to make that last second shot possible.  This thought led me to think of the similarities in education.
Basketball Shot by Bob Sanders

Basketball Shot by Bob Sanders

We’ve become a society of instant gratification.  Microwave meals, streaming video, voice search on our Iphones.  For those of you old enough to remember dial up, how insane would you go waiting for a page to load now like it did in the old days of AOL dial up?  My friend Sean and I were uncomfortable the other day waiting 3 or 4 seconds for the page to load because the wireless in that part of the building wasn’t as strong.  Unfortunately, society wants that same thing in education.  People want to see the instant results.  What’s the best way to immediately see results?  Often they use test scores, something quick and concrete that they can draw conclusions from.  This is the basis for NCLB and many other “reform” initiatives that continue to pop up in discussion and legislation.  They take a “last-second” snapshot of a student or teacher’s year and use that as the basis for success or failure.  That mindset misses a big  part of the overall picture.

The University of Pittsburgh men’s basketball team suffered a defeat to a lower-ranked Butler team this weekend.  Pitt had a 28-5 record this year and was the regular season champ of the Big East conference, a conference judged by many as the toughest conference in the nation.  And by many, their season will be judged a failure.  A failure because they did not win on a given day in March.  The outstanding season, the hard work that started in the fall, the hours of time in practice, all of that will fall by the wayside as they are judged by that popular hashtag “#fail”.  How similar is this to a teacher or student who spends hours of work, possibly having numerous successes throughout the year, but get judged as “not meeting standard” on the basis of a given day in March- or April, or May, depending on when the MAP, EOC or (insert your own acronym here) falls.

50 Books by Zeborah

50 Books by Zeborah

I know that lots of educators are scrambling to “catch up” and try to get information in because of lost days due to snow, etc.  Let’s hope that we can find a way to judge not just the final shot, but the overall body of work for them.  I’d hate to see them judged as a failure because we only want to see the results of the buzzer-beater and not watch the rest of the game.  THAT would be March Madness.

Harmful legislation-please follow

Before I started my blog, I wrote a memo summarizing some issues with a bill that is currently working it’s way through the process in the state of Missouri.  I would like to share that memo here, and point out that substitutions have been filed since my memo, but the bill still deserves our attention and tracking.  The memo (albeit a little lengthy) is as follows:

A memo regarding HB628 (Dieckhaus)

 

I recently spent an evening in Jefferson City as the MSTA Legislative Committee hosted a reception for legislators.  During that time, I had the opportunity to spend nearly an hour talking with Rep. Scott Dieckhaus, the chairman of the House Education Committee.  From that conversation, I think it’s important that you have some information related to this bill and some information I learned that night from the bill’s author.

 

I’m not sure I can be more sincere with this following statement: This is a critical time for educators in the state of Missouri.  I’m not sure why, and I’m troubled by it, but there is a growing sentiment among legislators that public education is full of incompetent and underperforming teachers.  I disagree.  The same people that have this belief also have the belief that they have the solutions to fixing this problem in education, all under the huge umbrella they call “reform”.  It really is time for Missouri educators to be vigilant.

 

HB628 would eliminate tenure for teachers in the state of Missouri.  It would also render all salary schedules in school districts obsolete as it would create a 4-tiered system of teacher salaries based upon what tier each teacher falls into.  Tier 1 (the top tier) would contain the top 17% of teachers in a district.  Tier 4 would contain the bottom 33% of teachers in a district.  Teachers would be placed on tiers based upon an annual (EVERY YEAR) comprehensive performance-based evaluation (one half) and upon student test scores (one half). The test scores would be based upon a pre- and post-test (yet to be created).

 

I put a pencil and paper to this to see what type of financial impact this would have on salaries.  If a school district set their base salary at $30000, this is what it would look like:

            Tier 1              Bottom 33% of teachers      $30,000

            Tier 2              Teachers 33%-66%              Approx. $33,000

            Tier 3              Teachers 66%-83%              Approx. $42,000

            Tier 4              Top 17% of teachers                        Approx. $65,000

While being a Tier 4 teacher may initially look attractive, there are some facts that should be pointed out:

            -66% of teachers would make $33,000 or less- a pay cut for most teachers,

            even in districts that pay a $30,000 base (many have a lower base).

            -A teacher that moved from Tier 4 to Tier 3 in one year would have a $23,000

            (35%) cut in pay- how would a teacher ever budget?

            -No matter how good your scores or evaluations, ONLY 17% can be in the top

            tier, creating an environment of competition among teachers, in stark

            contrast to the collaborative environment that is good for kids.

            -No details were provided for how test scores would be determined for those non-

            tested subject teachers (including librarians, counselors, etc.).

 

When I spoke with Rep. Dieckhaus, I hadn’t had the time to do the math to see the above referenced numbers.  I did ask him about his feeling that tenure needed to be removed.  He told me that administrators told him it took 2 full years to remove a bad teacher.  I informed him that was untrue.  (By the way, the School Administrators’ Coalition is opposed to this bill).  Tenure doesn’t protect bad teachers, bad administrators do.  If an administrator wants to put the work in to remove a bad teacher, it can be done.  A process exists.  He intimated to me that if he owned a business and a salesman underperformed, he could remove them immediately.   He feels that it should be the same with teachers.  I agreed that under Missouri’s employment laws, employment may be terminated by either party at any time.  I pointed out that the difference with a certified teacher is that they sign a contract, a commitment by both parties for a stated period of time.  He felt the contract was not really necessary.  Another person then asked if a teacher’s spouse had a job transfer on March 1, should a teacher be able to leave without any repercussions.  He didn’t believe they should be able to.  Quite a double standard.

 

I also suggested that the decision of how to pay teachers should be left up to local school boards to make the best decisions with their resources.  Rep. Dieckhaus suggested that Jefferson City could do a better job of that.  Not sure that I had heard him right, I asked if he really felt Jefferson City knew better how to set local salaries than a local school board.  He replied that local school boards are often filled with members who have agendas and are often incompetent.  I suggested that his statement was in direct contrast to our representative form of government, belying his party’s usual stance of less government being preferable.  He reiterated his belief that Jefferson City knew better how to set salaries for districts.  By the way, Rep. Dieckhaus was a teacher for 4 years before becoming a legislator.  He also cannot be dismissed a loose cannon running around in Jefferson City with singular thoughts that can’t affect us, he is in a leadership position as the CHAIR of the EDUCATION COMMITTEE.

 

This has been somewhat lengthy, but I feel it is important for all of you to know what I witnessed first-hand and to also give you the basic facts behind this bill and the thinking associated with it.  I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom, but I’m scared for Missouri educators.  We have long been a group that has only dipped our toe in the political pool that is Jefferson City.  I’m afraid continued reluctance to become involved could be detrimental.  In my committee meeting, we didn’t discuss ANY of our legislative priorities, we know that there will be no offense from us this session, this is strictly a session of defense, where we try to dig our heels in and hang on to what we have at this point. This is going to take a grass roots effort from our members, from educating new legislators about what tenure REALLY is to educating the general public about how detrimental a bill like this could be to education in Missouri, long term.  We need you to join the Rapid Response team and act when asked.  We need legislators to understand that a teacher’s working conditions can be more accurately described as a child’s learning conditions.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  I hope you will help us defeat this bill and similar bills. Remember, the School Administrators’ Coalition is also opposed to this bill.  We are all on the same side with this issue.  Please help us be proactive.

 

Respectfully,

 

 

Robert Sigrist

Chair, MSTA Legislative Committee