When school started this year, bus drivers in one of our local unions in Louisiana, the Caddo Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel, collected data on the temperatures in their buses. They found cases where the thermometer hit more than 110 degrees.  The union took this information to the school board in an effort to get some relief, for both the drivers and the children.

The district’s response to the union raising the issue was to ban the conducting of surveys or studies on school grounds without the permission of the administration.  Under this rule, the only facts allowed will be school board approved facts.  Don’t ask about student discipline, the condition of the physical plant, whether the textbooks are OK. Unless, of course, the school board wants you to know the answer.  Note to Caddo School board: First rule when you’re in a hole is to stop digging.  Or maybe it’s “don’t shoot the messenger.”

The Caddo Federation is running a campaign to call attention to this problem and to get it fixed. Their website is ungagoureducators.org.  Click on the picture of the billboard above to see a local news story from KTBS-3 about this fight that includes a sound bite from Caddo president Jackie Lansdale.  I’m a bit late to this, but Louisiana bloggers Jimmy Couvillion and Greg Aymond are covering it. I wouldn’t have called the ban “Gestapo-like” but Aymond makes a good point that this doesn’t jibe with at least the spirit of the state’s whistleblower laws.