WAUSAUKEE, Wis. - To more fully appreciate the destructive influence Big Labor has on public schools, consider the case of former Wausaukee teacher Kurt Kostelecky. Kostelecky was convicted last summer for having sexual contact with a freshman female student during the 2008-09 school year, and is currently serving a 10-year prison term. (He claims the student came on to him, and he “couldn’t say no.”)
But that doesn’t mean Kostelecky’s former employer, the Wausaukee school district, can wash its hands of him. The convicted child molester was a member of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, which is still waging a legal fight on his behalf.
WEAC is suing the district over allegations it improperly reduced Kostelecky’s teaching load as retribution because he “challenged district policies” back in 2009,reports Fox11online.com.
An Internet search indicates that Kostelecky taught shop class for the district, and had his teaching load reduced from five-eighths of a full-time teaching position to three-eighths in 2009. The district was facing a budget deficit, and claims the reduction in hours was an effort to save money. The union says it was an effort to convince a trouble-making teacher to resign, the news outlet reports.
The fact that Kostelecky is now a convicted child molester, and was only a part-time teacher who should’ve thought twice about shooting his mouth off, hasn’t stopped the union from continuing its lawsuit, which has dragged on for three years and cost taxpayers at least $64,000.
Not only is the union wasting taxpayers’ money – probably enough to pay the salary and benefits of a beginning teacher – it’s also frittering away WEAC members’ dues dollars on a pointless lawsuit.
The Kostelecky case is a perfect example of how teacher unions cause dissension within a community and waste school dollars on issues that don’t benefit children in the least.
WEAC has been on quite a losing streak lately, as Kathleen Falk’s defeat in last week’s recall primary election demonstrates. By lawyering up on behalf of a convicted child molester, maybe the union just wants to prove that it’s still got it, that it’s still relevant.
Regardless, Wausaukee taxpayers can’t be too impressed with the union’s wasteful behavior, and we suspect rank-and-file WEAC members aren’t impressed, either.
