Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar was in Kissimmee on Friday night, representing the largest statewide teachers’ union and professional association representing public school employees in Florida.
“I’m giving out books,” he said, as he was part of the fun of Boo on Broadway, giving out something a little different than candy.
Despite the Halloween fun, Spar said he could not mask the challenges Florida teachers are facing in the classroom.
An advocate for students since beginning his teaching career in 1994, he was a longtime leader of his teacher’s union in Volusia County until becoming part of the state-level educators’ leadership in 2018.
Spar’s visit Friday was part of a campaign he’s making across the state to talk to local teaching unions, often using the word “burden” regarding what classroom educators are experiencing and comparing notes on what he calls “All the craziness that’s undercutting our public schools.”
Spar said he’s finding the same challenges statewide, with far more of it coming in mandates from Tallahassee than from county districts and School Boards.
“It’s time to let public schools serve our communities and meet the needs of our students without the overregulation that we have been experiencing here in Florida,” he said. We want to remove some of the restrictions that have been put in place on teacher pay that interfere with our ability to negotiate fair pay for teachers. We need to reverse some of the rules that have taken away job protection for teachers, because both of those things we know have a direct correlation to the massive teacher and staff shortage we see right now in Florida.
“If we’re going to make sure that we have our classroom staff who are fully trained, professionally trained teachers, then we’ve got to make sure that we address some of those things that are keeping people out of the classroom. There’s so many restrictions now in the curriculum that it’s almost impossible for teachers to plan lessons the way they know the kids need them.”
The word “burden” came up a number of times during the conversation.
“We’ve got to stop burdening and criticizing and coming after the people who work in our public schools. Let those in the public schools do the jobs hired to do,” he said. “Our educators, our teachers and staff who work in our public schools, our professors at our colleges and universities want to make sure that every child is getting the education they deserve and need. Instead, we’re seeing voucher money draining dollars from our public schools, and the new expansion of charters. There needs to be some clarity around that because that’s actually going to cost taxpayers in multiple ways.”
Janet Moody, who heads up the local Osceola County Educators Association, echoed much of what Spar said about classroom management being, in some ways, “Out of control.”
“Part of it is because kids mimic what they see from adults,” she said. “When they see adults behaving badly and talking poorly about teachers, they think they can do that as well.”
The reminder from educators is that, through their hands, all other occupations pass.
“We can’t do it without public schools. Think about your childhood. Think about teachers who impacted you,” Spar said. “We all have teachers who had a profound impact on what helped shape us into the people we are today.
“It’s going to be hard for teachers to have that kind of impact on students. My own daughter, who’s in 11th grade, this was the first year in four years she had a full complement of teachers all year. How many of our kids are not having teachers in their classrooms right now?”
