Teachers Union Attempts To Get Out Early Vote

...with limited results

NEA teachers embark on the County Clerk's Office

By SFR

It may be a down year for voter turnout, but that's not stopping Patricia Gay-Webb from being excited about the upcoming election.

"I'm not thinking Halloween," the dual-language El Camino Real Academy teacher says. "I'm thinking election. It is critical for us educators because it has gotten so bad."

Gay-Webb, who is also the political action director for the National Education Association's Santa Fe Chapter, participated in the union's statewide effort to get out the early vote Wednesday afternoon. She and other union members alerted teachers in Santa Fe about the effort through flyers and social media before dropping by the Santa Fe County Clerk's Office to assist voters.

The idea is to get as many teachers out voting early as possible. At the County Clerk's office, the teachers were limited from speaking out about which candidates they were supporting. But NEA-New Mexico did make endorsements this year, and none of the politicians they gave the nod to are Republicans.

"It is very important that we elect candidates who are going to support [a bigger] budget for our schools and who are going to support all the issues that we educators are fighting about," she says.

NEA is also advocating against "high stakes" testing and the state's current teacher evaluation system.

"It's not really about things that are good for the kids," says Bernice Garcia-Baca, a counselor at Aspen Community Magnet School and past president of NEA-SF. "It's all about data and producing data, whether it's good or bad."

Still, not many voters were seen casting ballots on this partly cloudy afternoon.

"I really believe it's the economics because most people are off at second jobs," Garcia-Baca says. "And unfortunately the political process becomes secondary to many of us."

Early voting continues through at the Santa Fe County Clerk's office through Nov. 1. Other county sites for early voting include the Santa Fe County Fair Building, the Pojoaque County Satellite Office, the Eldorado Senior Center and the Old Edgewood Fire Station.

Santa Fe Reporter

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