APRIL 16, 2018
Osborne says ‘teacher unity’ best thing about rallies…job is not finished
“Well, we won, and we lost,” said Lawrence Co. Education Assn. president Scott Osborne after the override of Gov. Matt Bevin’s veto by the Ky. Legislature Friday.
“Our victories included:
* a bad budget that was far better than Governor Bevin’s destructive budget,
* the phase-in for KRS payments (which saves local governments and school districts),
* restoration of transportation cuts,
* restoration of FRYSC funding, etc.
* We also defeated any charter school funding or vouchers for private education.
Our worst losses were
* the passage of the sewage-pension bill
* the huge additional cuts to public universities in this state.
But we hope that the pension issue is settled in court, while the rest will have to be settled in the polling booth in May and November.
Two more major victories, though:
* teachers across Lawrence County and across the Commonwealth united for our students and our profession as we haven’t in years.
* And we succeeded in driving a wedge between this governor and the Kentucky legislature (except for a handful of his cronies whom we must vote out this year and next!).”
Osborne and other mostly LCHS teachers held a rally Friday in support of the legislature overriding vetoes by Ky. Gov. Matt Bevin which would have started the entire process over.
The school system opted to not cancel school but to send a delegation of teachers to Frankfort to help lobby for the override which turned out to be successful even though it barely squeaked by the Ky. Senate 20-18.
The decision left graduation and testing dates intact and did not disrupt school activities.
Supt. Dr. Rob Fletcher was asked for a comment concerning where Lawrence Co. stands for next year including number of teachers, bus drivers and other school personnel for this story but we have not received it at this time.
See original RALLY story CLICK HERE
