To the editor:

State Sen. Roger Pine has done a great disservice to Lawrence elementary and secondary school teachers. On Feb. 26, he voted for an amendment to SB 492, which addressed teaching licensure after a DUI. The irrelevant amendment, offered on the Senate floor without any hearing, removes an important protection from Kansas teachers’ efforts to meet students’ needs.

At present, teachers can choose instructional materials based on educational merit. The amendment states that, if teachers are sued by someone who finds some materials obscene, the materials’ educational merit provides no defense. Teachers are protected only if materials are on a list pre-approved by the local school board.

No school board can keep an up-to-date list of approved materials. Pine voted to expose high school civics teachers to a lawsuit for assigning a contemporary newspaper story, to expose grade school teachers who encourage reading by stocking the classroom with unapproved books, to expose music teachers for playing an aria from a Mozart or Verdi opera – all depending only upon the views of the most morally restrictive person in Lawrence. Who would want to teach when any effort to respond to student needs and current issues could lead to legal disaster?

Pine voted for a bill that reeks of fear and mistrust. We elect our school board; we should trust them to hire a superintendent who brings appropriate standards to the school district. Lawrence should not have a state senator who is hostile to local education.

T. John Rosen,

Lawrence