This article has been updated to include developments from the House Education Committee meeting the night of Feb. 17.
Republicans in the state legislature introduced a bill Monday that would penalize teachers who participate in organized sick-outs.
The legislation threatens to take away civil service protections, reemployment rights and benefits of public school employment for teachers who participate in them.
“When adults coordinate mass call-outs to shut down campuses, that is a strike in practice. It robs students of instructional time and throws working parents into chaos,” said Matt Gress, chairman of the state House Committee on Education.
The bill defines an organized work stoppage as a failure to report for duty; failure to perform assigned responsibilities; or an interference with the performance of responsibilities by at least two employees.
By that logic, Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia said “two educators who maybe are both sick are now going to be under investigation, which then could mean that the school district could lose money, which impacts the students' learning conditions.”
In a Tuesday afternoon press briefing, Garcia said the legislation is a First Amendment violation. She said representation from the union is important in moments like this.
“I'm a history teacher and I fundamentally believe in labor unions and a lot of the safety measures that we have around our state and our country were because workers said, ‘Hey, this is not safe. This is not okay,’” she said.
The bill is a response to a high number of teacher call-outs on the national shutdown day against immigration enforcement. Senate Education Chairwoman Hildy Angius said the 21 Tucson Unified schools that were closed that day due to a high expectancy of teacher callouts “showed how a coordinated call-in can shut down learning overnight.”
“Parents should not wake up to closed campuses because of organized protests,” Angius said.
The Tucson Unified School District gave families warning of potential closures the day before the Jan. 30 shutdown. Jim Byrne, president of the teacher union Tucson Education Association, told AZPM that the teacher callouts were not a coordinated effort and that each employee acted independently to take time off.
Pima County Superintendent Dustin Williams, a Democrat, said lawmakers seem to be retaliating against teachers who protested ICE.
“A piece of legislation that’s just going to penalize teachers is so far from what the real issues are right here in people’s homes,” he said. “It just really makes me feel like these legislators are completely out of touch as to what’s happening in the everyday life of a child.”
Williams said that, to his knowledge, the state Republican lawmakers did not approach any of the school officials in Pima County about the Jan. 30 closures.
“That would be my first question: ‘Hey did you talk to districts that were impacted? Did you see how it went?’” he said.
The legislation states that school districts that show an increase in remote learning because of an organized strike would lose a portion of their base support level funding. During a House Education Committee hearing on the night of Feb. 17, Rep. Gress countered Rep. Nancy Gutierrez's point that remote learning in Minnesota kept school communities safe during a period of heightened immigration enforcement.
"This argument that was made about it being safe to keep kids out of school was the same argument made during the COVID-19 pandemic. And we look back at that and see what a disaster and such a mistake all of the adults made at the time to keep schools shuttered," Gress said.
The bill, HB 2313, was introduced as a striker amendment, which is a tactic that replaces an existing bill’s language and purpose to speed up bill progress.
The committee voted 7-4 to move the bill forward.
"I actually think that day (Jan. 30 national shutdown) taught our students more than many days in a classroom because they saw what a First Amendment right is and they saw teachers who were willing to stand up for them," Gutierrez, a Democrat, said in explaining her nay vote.
Garcia said Arizona lawmakers should focus on how to increase teacher pay and retention.
“Since the beginning of this school year, we have lost over 1,000 teachers that were hard-working Arizona taxpayers, educators, parents, families who were exhausted by the low pay, the working conditions and lack of respect from their elected officers,” she said. “Instead of addressing any of those problems, this week Arizona lawmakers are advancing a set of bills that will hurt funding for our public schools and undermine the few protections that Arizona educators have left.”
