Earlier this week we published an editorial calling out our local Teachers Union PAC who donated a large amount of money ($26,797.35) in support of two candidates for seats on the Newhall Elementary School Board.

Rachel Haddoak and Donna Robert received the donations. Haddoak is running against Newhall parent and attorney, Suverna Mistry. Robert is trying to unseat school board incumbent, Brian Walters.

Our editorial has been criticized as an attack against our teachers. Nothing can be further from the truth. We believe most of the teachers in the Santa Clarita Valley are stellar. They do an awesome job and have the added burden of assisting our students in catching up after two years of Covid-19 hell.

Our concern is with the Teachers Union. It was the California Teachers Union that pushed to keep our children away from the classroom. The combined donations by our local Teachers Union’s Pac of $26,797.35 to two candidates is unprecedented in an elementary school election and sets a dangerous precedent.

It’s been reported that the California Teachers Association has spent an astounding $2.8 million on local school board elections so far. What makes that figure even more staggering is the Association has a rule that local Teachers Unions must contribute a minimum match of 35% for each candidate. The CTA funded 287 school board candidates in 125 school districts.

The local Teachers Union Pac listed their phone number apparently off by one digit. They misrepresented their name as the SCV Elementary School Teachers PAC instead of the correct Santa Clarita Elementary School Teachers PAC and left the suite number out of their address.  The Pac representative told us it was an unintentional error by their accounting firm. We shared her response in our editorial. However, we raised concerns that having these mistakes on all three items seemed suspicious if they wanted the donation to be difficult to trace yet appear like the mistake was “unintentional” by being somewhat close to the correct information.

Rachel Haddoak took issue that we stated she only mentioned the teachers, not the students or their parents in our phone conversation. She said we were discussing the Teachers Union, not parents or students. Obviously, she would have responded positively if we asked her about parents or students as any sane candidate would. We were pointing out a problem with much of the Teachers Union dialogue throughout the country. For most of them, parents and students seem to be an afterthought. It’s our feeling students should be the primary focus.

Neither Rachel Haddoak nor Donna Robert have accepted our offer to be interviewed on air. We have been extremely non-bias with all the interviews we have conducted with opposing candidates for the Santa Clarita City Council and the few who showed up for our school and water board broadcasts. You may hear all these interviews on our KHTS YouTube channel and judge for yourself.

The bottom line is we support our teachers, yet it should be our students who take the number one priority. We believe Suverna Mistry and Brian Walters will be a far better choice to serve and to continue serving on the Newhall Elementary School District board.

We encourage you to vote this coming Tuesday. To see all our KHTS candidate endorsements, click here.

KHTS FM 98.1 and AM 1220 is Santa Clarita’s only local radio station. KHTS mixes in a combination of news, traffic, sports, and features along with your favorite adult contemporary hits. Santa Clarita news and features are delivered throughout the day over our airwaves, on our website and through a variety of social media platforms. Our KHTS national award-winning daily news briefs are now read daily by 34,000+ residents. A vibrant member of the Santa Clarita community, the KHTS broadcast signal reaches all of the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of the high desert communities located in the Antelope Valley. The station streams its talk shows over the web, reaching a potentially worldwide audience. Follow @KHTSRadio on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.