Katie’s experience with these union tactics isn’t unique, unfortunately. “I want my kids to be exposed to a place where people act like adults and don’t shut people down because they have different opinions,” she continues. “Hardly any of them talk about the kids and how it would affect the children.” “It was, frankly, bullying that happened at the public information session,” Katie says. There was a “massive teacher union rally” at the event, and the union members took nearly all of the 50 allotted slots for members of the public who wanted to make comments. Katie was encouraged about the potential for public charter schools in West Virginia and the new learning opportunities available to them if their children faced struggles similar to those her husband encountered.īut Katie says she was “taken aback” last October when she attended an informational hearing on the lone charter school application. Katie’s husband, whom doctors diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, was picked on incessantly in school. Katie Switzer grew up attending traditional schools and intended to send her children to the same, but she was already aware of the possibility that assigned schools may not be a fit. In 2019, West Virginia lawmakers removed their state from the dwindling list of states that do not allow for the creation of public charter schools, leaving only five with this ignominious distinction. Not from fourth graders on the playground-but from education special interest groups pushing parents around.Įxamples abound in West Virginia, where families and community leaders will celebrate National School Choice Week this year by doing the same thing they have been attempting for months: trying to create a public charter school in one of the last states in the nation without one. If 2021 is to be different from 2020 for your child in school, then policymakers, parents, and educators must have a conversation about bullying.

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