North Lake Middle School Teacher visits U.S. Supreme Court

JOURNAL STAFF NLMS Health teacher Jeff Leer Jeff Leer, a health teacher at North Lake Middle School, has just returned from Washington D.C. where he attended a U.S. Supreme Court hearing that directly affects thousands of Washington teachers.

Leer, a member of Northwest Professional Educators, a nonunion professional educator’s organization offering many of the benefits of unions, joined other teachers from around the U.S. to advocate for individual teacher’s free speech rights not to fund politics they don’t support.

Wanting to make sure he got a seat in the court, Leer showed up at 5am to stand in line in the freezing cold.

“It was absolutely worth every goose bump,” said Leer. “The justices’ revealed an obvious concern for how this case affects real people like me. Their questions and comments made me feel as if they really understood how unfair the union’s practices are.”

The paycheck protection law that Leer traveled across the country to advocate, places the responsibility on the union to get “affirmative authorization” from nonunion teachers in order to use their dues for political reasons.

Leer felt that the justices were in favor of protecting the civil liberties of each individual teacher.

After the hearing ended, the teachers met with attorneys who offered their impressions of how the proceedings went. They also got to meet with Cathy McMorris, who serves on the House Education and Labor Committee and then toured the Capitol Building.

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