Coupled with a busy week and no small measure of personal sloth, my
LEO column deadline yesterday (finally met roughly one hour ago) prevented attendance at this morning's educational legislation forum with Representative Ed Clere at Destinations Booksellers. There'll be another one next week, but in the interim, if you attended and have a report, please regale us.
While it was lacking attendance, there was quite the lively debate between a man, who was identified to me as the union president, and Ed. There were a few others there, however no active teachers were present. I was informed later, and it was addressed towards the end of the forum, that the teacher union leadership sent an email to the teachers advising them to not attend. I'm not sure what that accomplished, but we're hoping that the union membership will decide to listen and have an open dialogue with Ed next Saturday. Everyone, of course, is welcome.
ReplyDeleteNot to attend so they wouldn't show up and boo him, right? You should invite them back, setup a protest area outside with audio of the forum, and sell them coffee. Win win.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I would blame them for booing Republican policies affecting education.
The union guy said they would boo him, I have no idea what the reason behind asking the membership to stay away from a forum with their elected representative would be. I asked my mom, a former teacher union president, if this is something she ever did. The answer was no, she always encouraged teachers to engage the representatives and she was quite surprised to hear that this was asked of the teachers.
ReplyDeleteThey can boo if they like, they can argue with him...but shouldn't they come hear what he has to say for themselves? Shouldn't open discussion be encouraged?