Schools
Fairlawn Teacher Leading 121,000 Educators in Ohio's Biggest Union
Becky Higgins, a first grade teacher, is the president-elect of the Ohio Education Association teachers union for the next three years.
After nearly 20 years of teaching in a classroom, Becky Higgins of Copley-Fairlawn’s Herberich Primary School is off to Columbus fighting for right-to-work legislation as the newest president-elect of Ohio's largest teachers' union.
The union is more than 120,000 people strong and represents more than 600 Ohio school districts.
The Akron Beacon Journal reports that Higgins will be in the center of "dynamic changes" in education as the state is putting out more content standards and demands on additional teacher training with Gov. John Kasich's two-year budget that was recently passed.
“Up until five or six years ago, no one would be having the conversations they are having or saying the things about teachers or public education that they say now. It’s like we’re fair game. They can attack us,” Higgins, 58, said in the ABJ story. “It’s just disheartening, because most of the teachers that I know, they are such dedicated educators and they spend so much time and money in their lives educating the children in their classroom. So, it’s very disheartening because we know how much we give.”
For more information, read the entire Akron Beacon Journal story on Ohio.com.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.