Dori: Our kids are last priority for teachers union
Jul 17, 2018, 12:08 PM
Seattle teachers maintain their threat to strike in October 2015, one day before class is scheduled to begin. (Jillian Raftery/KIRO Radio)
(Jillian Raftery/KIRO Radio)
If you ever needed an example of what’s wrong with our public schools, a local story provides all of the evidence you need. In an incredible Seattle Times story this past weekend, we see the lengths the teachers union will go to keep horrible people around your kids.
Every year, like clockwork, we always have various school districts going on strike. They always say, “It’s for the children,” as if the unions care about the kids at all. It is clear that they do not. This story happens to concern the Seattle Education Association, but I’m telling you, this could be any union in the state. As we’ve talked about on the show before the teachers’ union will defend teachers who have committed sexual misconduct.
Albert Virachismith, 41, has worked as an instructional assistant at John Muir Elementary School in the Mount Baker neighborhood. Let me tell you a little bit about this guy. He missed work 21 times; routinely showed up several hours late; made loud outbursts in class; once put a student with special needs into a headlock; and in June 2017, he came to class reeking of alcohol which finally prompted the district to fire him. At least they tried to. The good old union, the Seattle Education Association, filed a grievance challenging his termination.
This is a guy who had been given a last chance settlement agreement. He failed two urine tests after he entered an agreement to go to alcohol counseling. And as part of the union rescuing his job, they said, “He’s going to sub at seven schools, just not at John Muir” — you know, where he had that unfortunate habit of coming to school drunk.
Then, as he was subbing last year at these other schools, the district found out that Virachismith allegedly sexually assaulted a 9-year-old five to six times the previous school year. Now he’s been sitting in jail since February in lieu of $500,000 bail. But this is someone who should have never been in the school to begin with. And only after the assault allegations did the school district move to fire him.
He got the lowest possible grade in every category in his 2016-17 employee review. He came to school drunk. So in other words, the teachers union was willing to put a drunk in a school and expose kids all around Seattle to a guy who had gotten the lowest rating because that’s what the union does. It is a shocking story.
I want you to remember this when people are gleeful about the Supreme Court’s Janus Ruling that allows public employees to opt out of the union. I don’t know how public employees in the schools who truly care about our kids can be such blind union supporters. I know, personally, of other horrible people in the public schools who just get shuffled to different schools instead of being fired because the union negotiates that. I know kids who have been traumatized by that.
I would love to hear from teachers in the area about how you can justify and support your union that protects a guy like this and keeps him in the schools. I’m serious — text me at 98973.
The unions care about the kids — that is one of the biggest jokes imaginable.
