While education should not be partisan, it is most definitely political. From dictating what can, and cannot, be taught to developing laws that constrain pay raises for experienced teachers, politicians have inserted themselves into every aspect of public education in Florida.For the past few legislative sessions, members of FEA’s Republican Cadre have been working to build relationships with their legislators in the hopes of influencing legislation in a positive way.On this episode of Educating from the Heart, we sit down with three members of the cadre to discuss their challenges and successes and the importance of every educator joining in union to advocate for what is best for students.

Episode 17 Show Notes:

Guests

Show Resources

Transcript

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GuestsMary Rivera, Marion County Middle School ELA teacher Shiela Watson, Suwannee County PreK-MTSS Coordinator Patrick Strong, President Okaloosa Education Staff Professionals 

ResourcesFEA's 2022 Voter ToolkitLearn more about the 2022 legislative session by read FEA's 2022 End of Session ReportLook up your elected officials hereFEA's 2022 Legislative Agenda

Transcript Andrew Spar, FEA President: Hi, this is FEA president Andrew Spar. To stay on top of all the latest news and issues impacting our public schools, be sure to follow FEA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For more information on this podcast, visit  feaweb.org/podcastSharon Nesvig: You're listening to Educating from the Heart. Thank you for joining our lively conversations with teachers, support professionals, parents, and students, as they share issues that matter most in our public schools. Here are your hosts, Tina Dunbar and Luke Flynt.Tina Dunbar, Host: Welcome back! I’m Tina here with Luke. So good to be with you again.Luke Flynt, Host: Always great to be with you, Tina. We have made it through another legislative session. Again, this year education was a focus of the governor and of lawmakers and the partisan divide was quite evident, especially when it comes to issues dealing with race, gender, and sexual orientation.Tina: Yes. This session was a bit unusual, especially being a year in which many of these legislators, including the governor, are up for reelection. Normally, it's business as usual: legislators, rush in, quickly move through session and head straight to the campaign trail, but it was quite different this year.I'm telling you, Luke, Florida is caught up in this nationwide trend of public education attacks. And parents are being used as a tool to create a major divide between educators and the communities where they work and live. Even worse, the result could have a negative impact on students, teachers and the entire school community.It's why it's so important for all school employees to feel empowered, to speak up and advocate for themselves throughout the school year, talking about what's going on in their schools and what's happening with their students. It doesn't matter if you’re new to the job or you’re experienced, if you're a teacher, a custodian, or if you're a Democrat or Republican.Luke: Absolutely. It is so important that every educator speak up, but they should not do it alone. It is so helpful to have a strong group of supporters or an organization like the FEA and its local affiliates standing beside them. On this episode we'll talk with a group of Republican educators who chose to join their union and work with other like-minded colleagues to raise awareness and redirect education policy.Mary Rivera, Patrick Strong, and Sheila Watson are all educators and members of FEA's Republican cadre. The three of them are focused on influencing legislation as they advocate for a pro public school agenda, one that will benefit all children in Florida. We start the conversation with Mary Rivera talking about the inception of the Republican cadre at the FEA statewide meeting in 2018 where she worked to pass a new business item, or an NBI, to create the cadre.Mary Rivera: I was part of the committee that composed the NBI (new business item) in 2018. I think it's important for educators to be activists for public education because god knows that the public is not advocating for us. So, I thought it was an important venture to get Republican members specifically involved in the political process because we're so Republican heavy in Tallahassee, and who best to communicate with these Republican leaders than Republican members of their delegations?And so, we wrote the NBI specifically to get Republican educators in Tallahassee to speak to their local representatives on behalf of public education and on behalf of labor unions across the nation.Tina, Host: You've been a key member of the cadre for several years now and had multiple opportunities to talk with your legislators on education issues that are important to you and your colleagues. What has surprised you the most about your conversations?Mary Rivera: They have deaf ears to educators in general. And we thought it was important that members of their kind communicate with them the fact that Republicans are teachers. There are teachers who are Republicans; it's not just a Democratic population of the workforce in the state. It's a group of people who care about kids and who care about teaching and our society and that we have needs, we have desires. And we're part of them. We're part of that organization, the Republican party, and that we want to be represented equally, as well as the Democratic Delegation, and we're not being heard.So, through the Cadre our voice has been loud and clear and has really opened doors for us as an educated community, as well as a union. Our voice just gets more loud and more powerful. And our mission is being heard and shared throughout the state.Tina: I'm sure that you are aware of this perception that the union is the right arm of the Democratic party, and there's no place in any union for Republican members. Sheila, how would you respond to that?Sheila Watson: I think that's what, um, propelled me to make the step to represent on the cadre was just that idea that when we sat at the table and had those conversations, we are Republicans, however, we are a part of our union and do support the work that's being done there to advocate for us. And to see the look and the response that we got to that oftentimes was “no way that doesn't happen.”Well, yes it does. And, and we feel like this is the way that we can make our voice heard through conversations with like-minded individuals. And I think that's sitting at the table sometimes when they would hear those first few words of, “well, I'm a Republican union member.” Maybe they listened a little more carefully to what I had to say, because they automatically recognize that some of our standpoints and foundational issues were similar and that we looked at things with the like mindset.And so maybe we did have more in common than they thought. So, they were willing to listen to what we had to say without tuning it out automatically because we represented a different party than they belong to. We were able to bridge that gap in a way that I think was different than had we sat at the table automatically with a defense mechanism in place had we been from an opposing party.  Luke: So, I asked Patrick a similar question to what Sheila just answered, but with a slightly different spin on it. Sheila talked about how the cadre has engaged with Republican lawmakers and how that has opened up some avenues, but I'm wondering about the membership and in a place, especially like Okaloosa that we know is very red.And do members sometimes say, “oh, well, you know, I'm a Republican,” or I should say potential members, give a reason that they don't want to join, “Well, I'm a Republican and I don't want to be a part of this Democratic organization.” Do you hear that objection, and if so, how do you respond to it when you're trying to get someone to join with us to advocate for public education.Patrick Strong: So, you must have read my mind because as Sheila was talking, I was thinking that we have kind of an idea that unions are always, uh, Democrat, and, you know, in Okaloosa we have about as many Republicans as we do Democrats in our local union. And then there's the rest of the registered members are independent. So, I always try to express that when you approach somebody if they've heard that over and over and over that union support things that, you know, they might not support you usually get a very strong negative, initial response from them. What I've done in the past to just show them over a period of time that the majority of the things that we stand for we can agree on. And when it comes to students and how we treat them in the classroom and how we teach them and how we take care of the facilities that they use and how we feed them at lunch and how we get them to school on buses, that's all common interest for all of us. So, when we talk about those issues, we all want the same thing.Tina: Yes, there are many issues that we share in common, but there are also a few foundational issues that we have vast disagreement on. For example, privatization, when you talk with your members or even legislators about privatization, which some would say is being advanced to hurt the union, I mean, have you talked with your legislators about this or even vouchers? What does that conversation sound like?Sheila: Even in a party amongst ourselves that we can agree on some things and disagree on some other major things. And one of those things is that, you know, we brought to the table as far as, you know,