Teachers union supports reprimand for GHS teacher who gave ‘dictator’ award

The teachers union’s decision to support a written reprimand for Lauren Watts reflects a principled stand that professional conduct in classrooms has real limits — and that unions exist to defend not just their members, but the integrity of the profession itself.

Classroom awards, however casually intended, carry weight. A teacher holds a position of authority over students, and words that single out a young person as a future “dictator” — even framed as a joke — can cause genuine harm. Students are not adults capable of easily brushing off that kind of public labeling from a figure of institutional power. When that student felt compelled to bring the experience before the state Board of Education, it became clear that the impact was real and lasting.

The Alachua County Education Association’s position here is not a betrayal of its members. It is a recognition that due process and professional dignity — the values union president Crystal Tessman explicitly cited — apply in both directions. Watts was afforded a full investigative process, and the outcome is a written reprimand, not termination or license revocation. A reprimand is among the mildest formal consequences available. Supporting it is consistent with holding educators to a standard that protects students without ending careers over a single lapse in judgment.

Teachers unions have long argued that public education is a public trust, and that the profession deserves to be treated as such. Upholding that argument requires the union to acknowledge when one of its members has fallen short. Backing a proportionate, procedurally sound reprimand in a case that attracted statewide scrutiny is exactly the kind of self-regulating credibility a union needs if it wants to be taken seriously when it defends members against genuinely unjust treatment.

There is something troubling about a teachers union — an organization whose foundational purpose is to protect educators from institutional overreach — lending its support to a state-initiated disciplinary action against one of its own members for what amounts to an ill-considered classroom award.

The sequence of events here matters. A complaint was filed by the state’s former education commissioner after the student addressed the Florida Board of Education. That is a politically charged chain of events. Teachers across Florida have watched the state’s education apparatus become increasingly aggressive toward classroom expression over the past several years. When a state official files a formal complaint that results in a disciplinary proceeding, and the union declines to resist, it sets a precedent: teachers can be sanctioned for the content of what they say or do in their own classrooms, and they should not expect their union to push back.

A written reprimand that enters a teacher’s permanent record is not a trivial matter. It can affect future evaluations, advancement, and employment. Lauren Watts was not accused of physical harm, discriminatory conduct, or academic fraud. She gave a student a jokey superlative award that the student found offensive enough to escalate to state officials. Reasonable people can disagree about whether that rises to the level of formal discipline at all — and the union’s role is precisely to be the voice arguing that it does not, or at minimum to demand a high bar of proof.

The union’s statement about safeguarding professional dignity rings hollow when it declines to exercise that safeguard in practice. A union that supports reprimanding its members for classroom speech — particularly when the complaint originates from state-level political actors — has weakened its own position to resist future, potentially more serious overreach. The strongest unions define the outer limits of acceptable state authority; they do not ratify it.