Superintendent Schaefer Mixing Politics and Education?

And now from our department of semi-substantiated rumor...originally posted at RealMadison.org!

Word on the street is that Madison Central School District teachers were treated to some unpaid political advocacy at work yesterday by their boss, Superintendent Vince Schaefer. Addressing the staff on their second day of pre-school workshops, Superintendent Schaefer noted that Russell Olson, GOP candidate for State Senate from District 8, would be bringing coffee and rolls to the staff in all three buildings next week.

Yum -- coffee and rolls! Who doesn't love that?

But now things get interesting: Superintendent Schaefer proceeded to tell the staff that we all need to put partisanship aside and really give Russell Olson some consideration. Superintendent Schaefer said Olson is a friend of education. To support that statement, Schaefer cited a vote by Olson in support of legislation that would have protected teacher tenure.

Now I'm all about free speech and the idea that public employees retain their right to speak out as citizens on matters of public concern. And heck, I would welcome Mr. Schaefer, Mrs. Knowlton, and all of the Madison Central staff and school board members to drop in here at RealMadison.org and exercise their First Amendment rights to their hearts' content.

But in the workplace, during work hours, can a supervisor make a political statement -- perhaps a political endorsement -- to his or her employees? Next week during teacher meetings at DSU, can our dean tell us we should consider voting for Gerry Lange for State House? Can I, a teaching assistant, stand up at that meeting and respond that Patty Stricherz also deserves our consideration, if not our vote?

Note that I'm a public employee, as well as a volunteer for Scott Parsley, Olson's opponent. I'm happy to tell folks to consider voting for Parsley... but I wouldn't think of doing it on the job, in class or at a formal staff meeting.

I've been reviewing the professional code of ethics for school administrators, and on first reading I don't see anything that clearly says Mr. Schaefer's comments to his staff were improper. The teachers' code of ethics does include these lines about what teachers shall not do:

Not exploit the local school district or governing body to promote political candidates or partisan political activities [South Dakota Administrative Rules 24:08:03:02, "Obligations to the Public," line 5, posted by the Office of Accreditation and Teacher Quality].

That language is curiously absent from the administrators' code of ethics.

But when the boss uses company time to encourage employees to... consider a certain political candidate... well, what do you think? Anyone see parallels to Wal-Mart sending its human resources managers out to stores to tell employees that voting for Obama would be bad for the company? How much on-the-job politicking do you find acceptable?