LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler asked a local advocacy group in a Facebook post Tuesday to stop “ramping up rhetoric that has no basis in fact” as lawmakers prepare to finish up this year’s legislative session Thursday.
Winkler, who did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment, posted the message to the Facebook page of "Dear JCPS," an advocacy group focused on Jefferson County Public Schools.
JCPS teachers have staged six “sick outs” during this year’s legislative session, essentially calling out sick in order to shut down Kentucky’s largest school district to protest legislation at the Capitol. Those sick outs have been largely organized through the group JCPS Leads, and some have blamed inaccurate social media postings for fanning the flames of teachers’ ire.
Winkler implored Dear JCPS to “JUST STOP this mess on social media and try putting this abundance of energy into a local” JCPS school.
“Please STOP putting fear in folks who are already fearful enough!” Winkler said in the post. “Your so called ‘leading’ is doing nothing to help the kids or families in JCPS. I’m sick to death of people who don’t actually perform a job in a public school advocating for us to leave our jobs because YOU think it’s the right thing to do.”
Gay Adelmann, founder of Dear JCPS, told WDRB News in a phone interview Tuesday that she had not called for JCPS teachers to stage sick outs and that Winkler’s attack was unwarranted “but not unusual.”
“We seem to get a lot of people saying stop encouraging sick outs when our audience is much broader than just teachers, and I’m not really sure why people hear us encouraging sick outs when we’re simply telling anyone who has the availability to get to Frankfort on Thursday,” Adelmann said.
“I don’t think we’re doing anything other than sharing concerns that have been shared with us by her own members,” she added, noting that the group also shared an opinion piece from Rep. Lisa Willner, D-Louisville, that called in part for people to show up at the Capitol.
Willner, a former Jefferson County Board of Education member who is in her first legislative session, urged people to stay engaged in the legislative process by also calling lawmakers, scheduling face-to-face appointments with them and interacting with them on social media.
When asked if she is advocating for teachers to stage a seventh sick out Thursday, Adelmann said she isn’t.
“I never have,” she said. “We’ve always just simply elevated the voices of the rank-and-file members as well as the parents and taxpayers who have these concerns, and the movement’s going to do what the movement’s going to do regardless of what our organization or the union leadership try to force it to do.”
Dear JCPS has planned a 10 a.m. rally at the Capitol rotunda on Thursday, and Adelmann said her group is operating under the assumption that JCPS will be open on the session’s final day.
JCPS parents who want their kids to attend Thursday’s rally, she said, can fill out an educational enhancement opportunity form and try to have their child’s absence excused.
A group calling for parents to keep their kids from school Thursday, called JCPS Families Sickout, has also asked parents to make such requests. Dear JCPS shared the JCPS Families Sickout event on its Facebook page.
“These are things that assume school is going to be on,” Adelmann said. “We wouldn’t need to tell parents to use this form if school was going to be canceled, so it sounds like they’re reading a lot more into our posts than what’s actually there.”
Jefferson County Teachers Association President Brent McKim told WDRB News on Monday that he hoped teachers follow a delegate plan on Thursday in which each JCPS school can send three delegates to advocate in Frankfort.
Winkler, in a statement through KEA, also urged teachers to make similar plans for Thursday. A bipartisan group of local representatives and senators told teachers before lawmakers adjourned for the veto break March 14 that the remaining bills that prompted them to sick out will not pass this session, but that did not dissuade JCPS teachers from staging a sixth closure.
“There is no reason to shut down schools for this last legislative day,” Winkler said.
“We expect to have a significant number of members from across the state in Frankfort to make our presence known. The session usually goes well into the night. Citizens should feel free to come up after school hours and be a part of the democratic process. KEA will always advocate for the rights of school employees to use their collective voice, to assemble as a group, and to protect the vitality and continuous improvement of our public schools.”
Adelmann voiced her skepticism of the delegate proposal at JCPS, saying she has heard from schools where no teachers have been assigned to travel to Frankfort on Thursday.
“If this delegate plan is supposed to work, we need to make sure that they’ve got every single slot covered, and I’m not hearing evidence that that’s taken place either, especially in our schools that are struggling, that are already short teachers and subs,” Adelmann said. “Yet those are the populations whose voices are always left out of these dialogues.”
JCPS sent the names of teachers who requested sick leave on the six sick out days to the Kentucky Department of Education on Monday.
Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis has said he hopes to use the data to help districts draft policies to prevent work stoppages while allowing teachers to voice concerns in the Capitol. Lewis has also said he would not pursue disciplinary action against teachers who may have abused sick leave policies if there are no future sick outs.
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