What is the political impact of forming a union at PALCS?

Only seventeen of fifty states have state wide cyber schools. Pennsylvania leads the nation in both the growth and success of this movement. Many of our early employees had a mission mentality about our school. When we came to work every day we felt that we had more than a job. We were on the front lines in the American Revolution of education. Until about three years ago there was a legislative crisis that threatened our very existence every year. As we hired more employees they did not share in the uncertainty of those early years. The lobbying efforts by the PSEA were a big part of that uncertainty. In recent years we have been able to recruit the best and brightest teachers graduating from school. The collision course of intermediate unit, district, and collegiate cyber schools is adding uncertainty to our employment. Local control in education is already a sacred cow in Pennsylvania. Will the PSEA side with state wide charter schools, or will they negotiate with the status quo where most of their rank and file are members?

Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School has many friends in the state political community. State senators Jeff Piccola and Andy Dinniman both serve as the majority and minority chairs of the education committee. Dr. Hanak and our board members have worked many hours to foster this relationship. If we develop a formal relationship with the PSEA will this change our relationship with lawmakers? It will to the extent that we will now be giving money to advocates lacking a conservative agenda. When we have a union a percentage of our entire payroll will be diverted to politically liberal activities. This would put us on a collision course with the majority or teacher, parent, and student stakeholders in our school.

This introduces a competing agenda that distracts from the education of students. Will our stakeholders be less enthusiastic about our existence when they find out that a percentage of our payroll is paying for advocacy favoring abortion, anti-globalization campaigns and race, gender and human rights issues?