Idaho Education Association members from Kooskia to Kuna weathered snow and ice and wind to spend their Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday at the Idaho Statehouse for IEA Lobby Day. So, why were these folks navigating the marble halls of the Legislature rather than enjoying a cozy day at home? Read on to find out.
Amber Stoor, GEM, Aspiring Educator, Idaho State University student
I’ve been here all weekend for the GEM (IEA’s Growing Engaged Members) program. I took a class from (Idaho Education Association Region Director) Caitlin Pankau at ISU, and that’s how I started finding out a bit about the union. I saw a common thread in a lot of the great educators that I’ve been meeting throughout my journey and hearing about the association, so it seemed like a good place to make contacts and figure out what we can all do to make a difference.
Makayla Summers, Idaho Falls Education Association
The hot topic for me in education is getting the behavioral supports that we need. Not just for our kids that struggle behaviorally, but for all of our students to feel safe at school, and for all of our teachers to feel safe at school, too. … I get hit a lot on an almost weekly or daily basis. We’ve had to evacuate my classroom a few times just because there’s high trauma and high needs that I am not trained or equipped to deal with. We don’t have people in our school that are trained and equipped to deal with it, due to either lack of funding or lack of training opportunities or whatever it is. But we just need more people with that specialized ability to help all of our kids.
Jeffrey Watkins, West Ada Education Association
I am really excited to be at Lobby Day because there’s just so much on the docket for education this year. There has been every year, but this year in particular, with Governor Little signaling his willingness to adopt a voucher scheme, I think it’s really important that educators — especially public educators — show up and highlight the harms that it’ll bring to our students. Both from a fiscally conservative point of view, but also in our obligation to fulfill Idaho’s Constitution.
Nick Raines, Idaho Falls Education Association
Having a chance to actually have a face-to-face conversation with legislators — it’s a little bit different when it’s face-to-face than it is through an email or a phone call or something along those lines. You can actually get the chance to turn around and talk to these individuals and tell them some of the things we’re seeing: You may not be able to understand this completely because some of you are not in the field, but this is what we’re experiencing.
Emily Pearson, GEM, Aspiring Educator, University of Idaho student
I have had a close eye on some of the education legislation that’s been going on in Idaho, and this is a great opportunity to get my voice heard on that issue. I mean, I’ll be teaching soon enough, so I want to be able to shape those classrooms myself. So being able to have a seat at the table with legislators and with other educators is really important to me.
Jason Porter, Jefferson County Education Association
To hear the politicians speak about how politics work has surprised me — they work things out amongst themselves much more than I thought. … Before I got here, I thought I was definitely going to talk about enrollment (funding), because I see how badly it has hurt our schools to lose that funding. So I’ve definitely talked to them about that. But I’ve also talked about vouchers because that would kill our schools.
Caleb Wassels, GEM, Aspiring Educator, University of Idaho student
It’s been a great experience for me so far, and I’m just really excited to see how those issues get resolved in a very civil way, because you see a lot of people that are angry and they don’t do anything to change it. But this is where real change happens, and it’s exciting to be able to see that.
Josh Nielsen, Pocatello Education Association
We’re tackling problems. I guess I’d just like to see a little bit more money going to — well, the state used to provide gifted money for training, for field trips, that kind of stuff. The purse strings just seem a little tighter when it comes to a lot of those extracurricular things, so I could see us doing a little bit better job there.
Ben Stoddard, Jefferson County Education Association
Whenever people have a position, generally speaking — and this is something I talk about with my students — is whenever somebody holds an opposing position, they hold that for a reason. Being able to understand that reasoning and have a conversation in order to understand is an important aspect that we don’t really participate in as much as we should. … Honestly, a lot of the legislation that has come down has been fairly harmful towards education in Idaho. I feel like a lot of people distance themselves from (politics) because they want to avoid the drama, they want to avoid the conflict, they want to avoid the icky situations. And because of that, we tend to surrender a lot of influence and power because we’re not interacting with it.
Meggan Stansbury, Idaho Falls Education Association
(I’m talking about) mental health for the kids, having more counselors in the building, having more people who can help with behavioral support. We have a lot of kiddos in our school that just have really, really hard experiences and lots of trauma, and that trauma comes out at school in all sorts of different ways. And when you have a class of 25 different kids, and 10 of them are experiencing very traumatic things at the same time, it can get scary pretty quick. So bringing that awareness was important to me.
