Perhaps the most recent turn of events in a countywide fracking debate that involves ranchers, politicians and businessmen is that the teachers are taking sides.
Last month, a group formed the San Benito High School Teachers Against Fracking to endorse a “yes” vote on November’s Measure J, which would bar fracking, cyclic steaming and acidification throughout the county and all petroleum activities in the rural residential zones near the cities of Hollister and San Juan Bautista.
“This group really only just exists to lend support to the movement,” said Katherine Foster, a science teacher at the high school. “Mainly, we just wanted to be added to the list of people who are endorsing Measure J.”
Kristina Chavez Wyatt, a spokeswoman for the No on J group, said in an interview Tuesday that her group respected the teachers’ first amendment right to free speech, but wanted to make sure campaign-related activities were completed in staff members’ free time without using public resources such as the school campus, work email list serves or the hours of their paid work day.
Foster noted that all pro and con fracking politicking took place on “teacher duty free time” and on private email accounts, in a conversation with the Free Lance Wednesday.
The San Benito High School Teachers Against Fracking group formed in mid-September, after educators were asked to anonymously share whether they would like to belong to the group with a ballot vote, Foster said. There are about 126 teachers at the high school. Of the 112 who voted, 98 cast a ballot in favor of Measure J, she said.
Foster is also the president of the San Benito High School Teachers’ Association. The association didn’t want fracking to become a divisive issue for members, so those involved formed a separate group to support the campaign, she said.
“A lot of people felt that this (measure) does impact education and students and that teachers should be concerned about issues in the community that could affect their students, even if they’re not directly occurring in the classroom,” Foster said. “Teachers, for example, are against child abuse, which doesn’t occur in the classroom but does affect children from performing to their highest.”
For Chavez Wyatt, voting against Measure J means the opportunity to bring more local jobs in the energy industry to the county; taxes and extraction fees for the local government; and more independence from fuel-producing countries overseas. The most polarizing part of the measure is the term “fracking,” she said.
“This issue is divided on fracking. Fracking is not happening, planned or proposed here,” Wyatt said. “It’s deceptive. It’s disingenuous.”
