Meridian Education Association

Meridian’s Day at the Legislature

Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by tricia.waltner in Legislative, News

17 MEA members lobbied their legislators February 16^th as part of IEA’s Grassroots Lobbying program.  The goal of the group was to learn from their conversations with legislators and share an educator’s perspective on the proposal to cut education funding by nearly 13%.

The MEA lobbyists were: Luke Franklin, Sue Darden, Shane Stevenson, Kathleen McCarter, Derek Bernier, Cindy Wilson, Shannon Decker, Caya Snethen, Janet Hargis, Duane Dixon, Debbie Lichter, Nate Ned, Tanya Perry, Robyn Coulter, Jerel Thomas and Shannon Nicholson.

“Idaho is in a precarious situation, it’s like a ball of semi-tangled yarn, you pull on the thread and you either tangle it more or you realize it MAY be on the way to being un-tangled.   If you realize that teachers pay taxes and support the state, too, you realize that the 70,000 that are unemployed are being taken care of by un-employment compensation, food stamps, and other state services.  To cut teacher salaries, jobs, etc. would put EVEN MORE in the unemployment lines and put a “strain” on Idaho’s “precarious” state.” Nate Ned, Pioneer Elementary.

“I was saddened by the direction our leaders are trying to take us.  Yes, times are hard, but one thing is always true.  “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”-Benjamin Franklin” Debbie Lichter, Ponderosa Elementary.

The group also attended an IEA hosted legislator luncheon at the James A. Shackelford (IEA) Building.

“I was happy to see that our state legislators are looking at many alternatives to help ease the cuts that education is projected to take.  I heard several interesting ideas on finding money in places where we do not usually think of looking,” Luke Franklin, Meridian Elementary.

The legislators joining the Meridian delegation for lunch were Senators Chuck Winder (R-Boise) and Russ Fulcher (R-Meridian) and Representatives Mike Moyle (R-Star), Joe Palmer (R-Meridian), Marv Hagedorn (R-Meridian), Rich Jarvis (R-Meridian) and Cliff Bayer (R-Boise).

“The grassroots lobbing experience is like nothing I’ve ever done before.  It was thrilling to see our state government in action. At the end of the day, Senator Andreason summed it up nicely (to paraphrase) when revenue is cut from one branch of the state budget, then the workload is also cut.  However, in education when you cut the revenue you cannot cut the students.  So education is different than any other aspect of state budgeting. I hope other legislators begin to appreciate that point of view.” Shannon Decker, Ponderosa Elementary.