By Richard Ruelas and Dustin Gardiner | The Republic
The Arizona House boiled over with emotion on Wednesday, but it wasn’t over how to adequately fund education or give pay raises to teachers.
Instead, about 24 hours before what would be the largest teacher walkout in the nation, the House debated the proper use of racial slurs.
The subject was an opinion column published on azcentral.com on Tuesday, penned by Rep. Maria Syms, R-Paradise Valley.
In it, she criticized Noah Karvelis, a music teacher and one of the leaders of Arizona Educators United, the grassroots group that organized the teacher walkout scheduled for Thursday.
Syms, in the column, called Karvelis a political operative who moved to Arizona to carry out a socialist movement.
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She also critiqued Karvelis’s teaching methods. That’s what led to nearly two hours of debate on Wednesday.
