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Once again, the Yorktown Congress of Teacher’s Union has decided to enter the political fray and endorse political candidates. This is a recent phenomenon in Yorktown that began a few years ago under the leadership of the current union president (who does not even live in Yorktown).
So why is this a problem? The teachers in the Yorktown Central School District are public employees whose salaries are paid by citizens from the entire political spectrum. We vote for the school budgets that pay for the continued positions of these teachers. Our teachers are paid to teach our children, not to espouse their political points of view, whether it is in the classroom or the local media.
How would you feel if your child came home and repeated the extremist political viewpoints of a teacher? How would you feel if your child repeated a teacher’s racist remarks or historical revisionism? How would you feel if your child was videotaped at school by a teacher and used for political purposes? All of these incidents have occurred and most parents would be outraged if this happened to their children.
The administration and board of education of the Yorktown Central School District have an obligation to assure that all public school children are subjected to an academic environment that is politically and religiously neutral. The political viewpoints of the Yorktown Congress of Teachers do not belong in this environment and the endorsement of political candidates is a serious conflict of interest.
The teachers of Yorktown should stick to what they do best, teaching our children and keep their political viewpoints to themselves.
Miriam D. Messing Curtin
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