Just trying to help educate kids. Or not.
The Jefferson County Education Association and the Denver County Teachers Association are crying to the media because the state two largest school districts, Jefferson County and Denver County, aren’t letting the unions run roughshod over new teachers during new teacher orientations. And, by that, we mean bullying teachers through information gathering into joining a union that does very little for them.
Here is what a whiny union representative told Colorado Public Radio:
“This sort of shutting down of new teachers voices is really sad to me and the fact that we are not having the ability to communicate with them really prevents a lot of good work happening for our students,” said teacher Charlie Gaare. “What’s really sad is that 57 people have signed up for DCTA and last year at about this time we had about 300 people sign up.”
Shutting down of new teachers’ voices? Hardly. In fact, it could be argued that the teachers union pressuring new teachers into joining the union is a form of shutting down teachers voices. Is it sad that DCTA enrollment is down from 300 last year to 57 people? Again, Hardly. It is indicative of national trends because teachers unions take hundreds of dollars per year from middle class teachers and use it to hurl bombs at political opponents.
While the districts are working to get teachers acclimated to new schools and ready to teach as the school year starts, the union was using new teacher induction as a recruiting tool. Exactly how does this benefit kids in the classroom?
Also, Scott Kwasny, the spokesperson for the JCEA that is not Lynea Hansen, noted that the union was doing a service to the district by gathering teachers’ email addresses. The teachers are the district’s employees. The district probably gives teachers their email addresses through an IT department like any other organization. Also, don’t forget that teachers applied to work in the district and probably offered an email address to the district at that time. It seems implausible that the district does not have one or all email addresses for its teachers. The fact that the reporter bought this lame rationale is laughable.
Consider these antics part of the death throes of the teachers unions in Colorado. Union membership is at an all-time low and these people continue to struggle to maintain relevance.