BULLYING PROGRAMS

Shools have always had rules against bullying. What schools have not had rules against throwing rocks, hitting, calling names, or in any other way abusing others such as not taking your turn or throwing rocks etcetera? What are playground paras for if not to referee the playground and defend students who may be being treated unfairly? If you accept that schools have always had rules against bad behavior ,have taught kindness and good behavior,and have monitored bullyings and punished violators , you have to ask yourself why the Democrats here in Montana have worked so slavishly for years to get a bullying bill. They would not be deterred. This sounds like one thing to me, as much as they may deny it- it's about jobs. Maybe that's why the unions have been championing and testifying religiously for these bullying bills. Here's how I think they will try to make it work.

The unions have been adding jobs and unions in the schools like presents at Christmas for years. As the private unions have shrunk the unions have tried to recover this lost money through government unions.In the schools it's not just teachers that are unionized now, but administrators, paras and janitors too!! Special needs students often have full time paras assigned just to them. The number of paras have sky rocketed. More than ninety percent of money spent in the schools goes to salaries- in Helena it has been as high as ninety- six percent!! So when you hear people pleading for money for children- what they are really pleading for is more money for salaries. But let's talk about how this might all work with the new bullying programs.

Bills for social workers and mental health workers are not easy to pass in the legislature these days,  so the easier way to do this is to force it through regulation or litigation. You find a student to say he is bullied (every teacher knows it won't be hard to find a student who claims his problems are the fault of others) and then you SUE the school district!! We have seen this with the ACLU supporting themselves by trying to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance or Christmas Songs or even saying "Christmas Break" or "Easter Break". Just find ONE parent to complain and off you go to court, or the school buckles and obeys without even going to court. Ninety Nine percent of the parents and students wishes are ignored and the ONE PARENT gets what they want.

So I don't think it's a stretch at all to assume that the unions think they can get more paydays by forcing schools to hire more social workers and mental health workers by using litigation. A bullying bill gives them the law behind what they want to do. Perhaps they think the public will just pressure the legislature to provide money for all these new workers. Maybe the public will not buckle to more taxes and then the schools will have more mental health workers but lose teachers. I'm not against unions, but I am against greed. I am against looking for more money out of the schools all the time. Let's start putting our priority on students- really. School should not be about jobs and higher salaries.

Absolutely no one wants kids bullied, but bullying programs and legislation will not stop bullying anymore than food programs have ended hunger or housing programs have ended homelessness or welfare has ended poverty. It seems these problems get worse as govenment programs try to manage them. Keep it local, keep it reasonable, and keep the money seekers at bay. The money seekers are not do gooders, not really, and what is in their heart is not really our children first- not really.