Hats off to teachers

Public school teachers and school administrators are popular public punching bags. Folks hold teachers accountable when graduates aren’t prepared for college or work. We grumble at their union salaries, over their long summer vacations and generally ignore their contributions to community and country at every turn.

But the last couple of weeks have presented teachers and administrators to us in unusual roles.

First, a local high school graduate working as a substitute teacher for the Mat-Su Borough School District was extradited to face sex crimes charges in Idaho. In the aftermath of that arrest and the subsequent news story, Superintendent Deena Paramo has announced changes in the rules the district will use for hiring people to work in our public schools as substitute teachers.

We applaud these changes — including a new requirement that says a person has to be out of high school at least three years to work as a substitute teacher, others that will centralize the hiring process, strengthening the reference-checking process and implement mandatory training in the 2013-14 school year for all substitute teachers.

We also are pleased to see these changes came swiftly on the heels of the Dec. 6 arrest of Tyler Fishback, a 2012 graduate of Wasilla High School who was working as a substitute teacher for the district at the time of his arrest.

It’s heartening that the district made these changes to its hiring practices after it reviewed its own processes and identified ways for self-improvement.

Second, may we never forget the events of Dec. 14 when 20 children, ages 6 and 7, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

This tragic day shows teachers in a new light for us — as first responders. Previously when we tipped our news hats to first responders we meant emergency responders such as firefighters, police and ambulance crews. That Friday etched a new profession on this list of public servants we see willingly put themselves in harm’s way in service to their community.

Too often, teachers do not get the same respect we so freely give our other public servants. Teachers, a tip of our hat to you here is long overdue. You spend many hours a day for weeks, months and years teaching our children, nurturing them and encouraging them to dream.

Here, too, we sing praise for the district’s swift response in clarifying for parents and the public visitor access policies and lockdown procedures in the event of emergencies. The district posted the information first to its website and then allowed the Frontiersman to reprint the information for our readers, too.

Whether it’s our public tax dollars that fund access to public education for all children or the time we devote as volunteers in our children’s classrooms, know that every penny, every second, invested in a child comes back to us 100-fold.