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“Go ahead. Say when.”

Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Corcoran:

Are you men of your word? Because if you claim that you are, your empty promises and collective actions up to this point have demonstrated otherwise. Here are a few from the highlight reel:

7/22/20 Press Conference

This is the Year of the Teacher, right? It certainly doesn’t feel like it. In fact, the way we’re currently being treated, it’s more like Year of the First World Sweatshop Worker. For all the terrible analogous reasoning and examples that have claimed we are the same as Publix and Home Depot employees, the truth is that a sweatshop worker is the best analogy: cramped quarters; many bodies in the room; poor ventilation and sanitary conditions; lack of investment in both the physical buildings and the people who work within them; workers who have few if any choices about their employment conditions yet are forced to work to provide for their families, etc, etc, etc.

And whatever happened to all that “compassion and grace”? How do we reconcile these statements that you’ve previously made compared to your threat to fire educators during a massive teacher shortage, Commissioner Corcoran?

March = Compassion / August = Termination

It’s bad enough that both you and Governor DeSantis utter empty and meaningless promises, Commissioner Corcoran, but it is another thing entirely when you commit lies of omission on national television. The teacher shortage in the Sunshine State continues to grow by the day, and Florida ranks 43rd in public education investment and 47th in average teacher pay, despite your best propaganda efforts as seen below:

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Though you trumpet this fake raise as something that will impact all, the money will be a pittance to most and there will most certainly be nothing left behind for the veteran teachers both of you are so desperate to push out of our workforce. Florida is woefully underfunded to meet the safety and health challenges presented by the novel coronavirus, and whatever little leftover funding remains will be dedicated toward meeting those needs. But the blood from this stone ran dry long ago, and it’s only gotten much worse since…

While both of you clearly have issues with making promises you have no intention of keeping, I am a man of my word. As a former New Englander with a rebellious disposition and love for civil disobedience when dealing with injustice, I am writing this to tell you or anyone else that “I’m your huckleberry” when it comes to challenging your threat, which is just more hollow blathering and bluster.

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To that end, beginning Monday, August 31st, I will be calling in sick to work every day. I will be the dreaded “no-show” teacher you claim would be terminated. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be teaching, because I will keep myself and my family safe by continuing to do my job on my own time and on my own dime. My students and their success are worth it despite Hillsborough County Public Schools denying my accommodation request, for which both of you should be held accountable. Trust me, each and every day I will be sure to record a short video to post on Twitter to publicly declare my defiance against yet another one of your vapid threats.

So go ahead. Fire me. I will still continue to show up and help my seniors earn their IB diplomas. My students and colleagues are the reasons why I will stand up for all of us in Florida. Thousands of people have had their health accommodations denied and educators everywhere have once again had all of society’s woes heaped upon them, just as I predicted back in March. But neither of you clearly has any sense of shame, otherwise you would not be treating human beings who care for other people’s children this way. And until you do fire this veteran, highly effective two-time Teacher of the Year educator for taking a principled stand on behalf of others, I’ll keep showing up for my kids while constantly reminding you both of this classic line from Tombstone:

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Dear Polk County Voter:

Billy Townsend is the only choice in the District 1 school board race who is committed to Polk County AND a better education system for all children across the state of Florida. Whether you are the parent of a student attending Polk County Public Schools, or an educator working within them, Billy will be a tireless champion of a better, more humane education system for all stakeholders.

As a fellow NPA who does not typically endorse political candidates, I admire Billy’s willingness to challenge the status quo rather than cave to political pressure from Tallahassee. Billy’s ability to consistently put people over politics, especially in his own county and community, also make his leadership a breath of fresh air in the stale political atmosphere of the Sunshine State.

Although there are many excellent pieces about Billy’s ideas on his website, this brief excerpt from an older piece clearly states his vision for the student and teacher experience within a classroom, believing in:

“…the radical idea of unshackling public schools from their stupid, soul-killing, industrial-era metrics of fact-retention. It advocates putting the classroom experience first. That’s exactly what I’ve campaigned on for six months. It’s what I’ve written about for years.

As I’ve said endlessly, I support a “private school” model for traditional public schools. Free teachers from meaningless standards. Emphasize depth of knowledge, not fact retention. Evaluate students by what they create and how they perform publicly. Develop citizenship through meaningful experience. I’m not saying that private schools do all of these things. I’m saying they can. They have the freedom to do it.” – Billy Townsend

Ending the era of “Test-and-Punish” Tallahassee style education should be the goal of every local school board member throughout the state of Florida. Billy Townsend is diligently working toward that aim, but he needs Polk County to put him back on the dais for the next four years.

A vote for Billy Townsend on August 18th, 2020, ensures he can continue this critical work on behalf of the students and educators of Polk County and beyond.

Thank you!

If you’d like to donate to Billy’s campaign, you can do so HERE.

Billy has also appeared on the Teacher Voice podcast on three different occasions, most recently immediately after January 15th’s “Rally in Tally,” which is the last on this list:

Teacher Voice – Episode 4

Teacher Voice – Episode 13 (still one of my favorite interviews). Here’s a quote: “I want people’s lives to get better. I want to grow the teaching profession. I want kids to enjoy and learn what they’re doing. That’s not happening in this corrupt model and the people who are responsible for it are owed a reckoning.”

Teacher Voice – Episode 53 (“Rally in Tally”)

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We The People
The famous preamble from our most sacred civic document, the U.S. Constitution, famously begins with We the People establishes five objectives for our government, one of which is “promote the general Welfare.”

Rather than unnecessarily expose myself to risk by addressing the board again, I decided to pen this open letter to the HCPS board members and submit it as my public comment for the record of the special called school board meeting taking place on Thursday, August 6th. Not only is this letter a plea for the board to unanimously vote to do the right thing, it is also a lament about how politically polarized we’ve become as a nation, which is both deeply distressing and disheartening.

Prefer to listen to the open letter? Click play:

Honorable Hillsborough County School Board Members:

We live in trying times and today you must make an important decision that will affect us all, regardless of our individual needs, desires and, yes, even choices. As elected leaders, you have been granted the consent of “We the People” to carefully consider the common good, balancing that ideal with our cherished individual liberty. The tension that teeters on the fulcrum between these two concepts has always existed and should be in balance, but our polarized political ecology as of late has clearly tipped the scale so far over that our county, country, and culture all suffer from the corrosive nature of hyper-individualism. Now, more than ever before, we must seek to unite again. Today, let Hillsborough County put people over politics so that we may move forward together.

Our second most sacred American historical document, The Declaration of Independence, contains the famous line concerning certain inalienable rights, and “that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Notice the order in which those three fundamental rights are listed. Does liberty come before life? Absolutely not. Life must come before liberty because it is a prerequisite for autonomy itself. This simple idea underscores how perplexed I and many of my fellow Americans have been about these claims regarding the use of masks, social distancing, and why we must offer enlightened individuals a choice to send their children to schools in the midst of a public health crisis. But if preservation of life is the highest good, the ultimate aim of what a democratic government is to provide to its citizens, why must some continue to elevate the idol of free choice over the lives of our children, our educators and their families?

Please do not misconstrue what is being said. As Americans, our liberty is dear to us all. But I hope to offer a brief lesson in ethics through two philosophical giants, one of whom is a champion of individual liberty and the author of one of my favorite essays, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. Although this tract looms large in the minds of many disciples of freedom, Mill is also the philosopher who perfected an ethical approach known as Utilitarianism, which fundamentally argues in favor of “the greatest good for the greatest number of people.” The other thinker is Immanuel Kant, arguably the most famous moral philosopher of the entire Enlightenment period, the very same fertile grounds on which our cherished ideals took root before being transported here by our Founding Fathers.

J.S. Mill is unambiguous in his assertions that individual liberty is the paramount good and that in all matters of one’s own body and mind, “the individual is sovereign.” He is the classic liberal who puts freedom above all else, except, like Thomas Jefferson, when it comes to potentially harming or killing others. In the introduction to On Liberty he states, “that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Furthermore, in the concluding chapter regarding the limits of authority of society over the individual, he lucidly claims “there is no room for entertaining any such question when a person’s conduct affects the interests of no persons beside himself.” Clearly, the conduct of those who are politically pressing to open during a pandemic undoubtedly affects others by threatening the health and lives of our broader community, meaning a vote for liberty over life is a moral failure.

Make no mistake, those who continue to tout their individual liberty over the common good and public health are wrong, ethically speaking, especially in light of how our foundational American ideals and values were firmly established on these same philosophical principles.

Beyond the utilitarian argument of “the greatest good for the greatest number” and lone moral prohibition of harming others in the utilitarian way of reasoning, we should also consider another ethical approach, Kant’s deontology. Also known as “duty ethics,” to comprehend the complex Kantian perspective it is perhaps best to think of a coin; the obverse being our “rights” and the reverse of the same coin being our “duties,” both of which are inextricably linked. For instance, if we have a right to property, others have an ethical duty to not steal that property from us. If we have a right to truth and transparency from our government and its elected leaders, then it has a duty to not lie or deceive the people. And perhaps most critically above all else, if we have a right to life, others have a duty to not kill or otherwise deprive any individual of his or her life.

On both of these ethical points I rest my argument with regard to keeping our schools closed for at least the first nine weeks. I will go so far as to state that anything short of a unanimous vote in favor of keeping our schools closed in order to maximize the preservation of life—especially in light of overwhelming evidence and the urging of our local medical community, the only group who has the knowledge and expertise to guide us through this challenging time—is a dereliction of your duty as a constitutional officer of Florida. Your supreme concern should be the safety of our students, staff, and remaining citizens of Hillsborough County. Any vote that dissents against common sense and the common good sends a strong signal that you, as an individual board member, will continue to put politics over people. A vote of dissent will also be an abject moral failure on your part, and I will never let you live it down.

Now more than ever our county, country, and culture need UNITY. We are supposedly the United States of America, but the reality says we are the Divisive Political Tribes of America. As an NPA who is a fiercely, independently minded moderate, I only want what is currently best for everyone. Unfortunately, this also means shared sacrifice for all, as we must temporarily put aside our individualism and freedom of choice for the common good and public health. Life precedes liberty; by voting to preserve the former, you guarantee the latter for our futures.

Gratefully,

Ryan Haczynski

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