To Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson,
I have often heard you pontificate on how much you value and appreciate teachers. Your recent decision to deny bonuses to Salt Lake City teachers contradicts your feel-good statements and letters of appreciation. Your attempt to withhold bonuses from already laughably under-salaried professionals is the wrong way to go. It punishes teachers for decisions outside of their control.
School boards are locally elected and held accountable to the people they serve. The Salt Lake City School Board undertook a painstaking, collaborative process to determine the best way forward for their needs. It is nonsensical to preach local control while actively working to undermine it.
When comparing the Legislature to a local school board, my faith will go to the local school board every time. They live in and serve their own communities and are much more qualified to speak on the needs of their students than you or the Legislature are.
In the same Tribune article which you quote in your most recent public statement, we find this statistic which you do not acknowledge: “In the Salt Lake District, remote learning has drastically reduced COVID-19 spread in elementary, middle and high schools compared to other districts that meet in person, according to Salt Lake County Health Department data. There have been 197 total cases, including adults, in Salt Lake schools.”
The school board calculated the risks and made a trade-off. Your political gambit is that this is a black-and-white situation; in reality, there are other complicating factors that you are not acknowledging. The school board was faced with a lose-lose situation. After consulting with their community, they made a choice, and the Legislature shouldn’t be interfering with that.
Our students are struggling — that’s not in question. You have tools available to help them; punishing teachers shouldn’t be one of them.
Austin Simcox, Provo
