ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – The teachers union in the Francis Howell school district certainly has the school board fooled.

How else is there to explain the following story?

Bryan Spencer, a math teacher for more than two decades in the school district, was recently elected to the state legislature as a Republican. So he did what many school employees do when they want to pursue an outside endeavor for a period of time – he asked the school board for two years of unpaid leave, to keep his future options open.

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The school board declined the request by a 5-2 vote, according to a story from stltoday.com.

Spencer and the local Republican Party chairman are protesting, noting that the board routinely approves unpaid leaves of absence for two employees to work full-time for the teachers union every year.

The teachers union, of course, is closely allied with the Democratic Party.

School board President Marty Hodits said the two situations are different, because the union officials “spend their full time on education,” while Spencer, as a state representative, “will not be advocating” for the schools.

Where on Earth did Hoditz ever get the idea that teachers union officials spend any time worrying about education or advocating on behalf of public schools?

Perhaps the union in the Francis Howell district is a different type of creature, but just about every local teachers union we’ve ever encountered (and there are many) spend most of their time plotting to get more money and more expensive benefits from the school district, regardless of the district’s financial condition.

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They suck millions of dollars from school districts by larding up their collective bargaining agreements with items like automatic annual pay increases for all teachers regardless of performance, an absurd number of paid sick and personal days, longevity bonuses, stipends for having a few extra kids in a classroom, extra pay for monitoring student lunchrooms, and free or low-cost health insurance and pensions.

They also devote a lot of time whining about the unfairness of increased teacher accountability, and fighting for policies like “last in, first out” which provide job security for older teachers, not necessarily the best teachers.

And if a teacher is accused of a serious wrongdoing (even against a student), you can count on the union to pressure the school board into giving the accused employee a large severance check and a letter of recommendation to go away.

Teachers unions work for the benefit of teachers, and they make no distinction between good and bad teachers. How does that qualify as advocating for the school district or its students?

It would be interesting to see a list of endorsements from recent Francis Howell school board elections. It wouldn’t be surprising to find that Hoditz and the four other board members who denied Spencer leave were handpicked candidates of the local teachers union.

How else is there to explain such an absurd tale as this?