Via press release from KEA
LOUISVILLE—Delegates to the Kentucky Education Association’s (KEA) 153rd Delegate Assembly have unanimously elected Joel Wolford as the next president of the 40,000-plus member association, and Jessica Hiler as vice president. They will take office in June this year.
Wolford has been an educator for 27 years, most recently as a Librarian Media Specialist at Russell Springs Elementary. A member of KEA his entire teaching career, he has served as the association’s vice president since 2019. Wolford previously served on the KEA Board of Directors, as Middle Cumberland Education Association’s vice president, and as the Middle Cumberland Education Association’s president. He is a veteran of the US. Navy and former mayor of his hometown of Russell Springs.
Upon election, Wolford applauded KEA members for their advocacy and hard work twice electing a pro-public education governor and for defeating Amendment 2 during his tenure as vice president since 2019. “KEA members have worked tirelessly to defend public education, and we have proven that we are a potent and positive force for good in the commonwealth,” he said.
Wolford pledged to stand up for public education and public school educators by demanding the respect and dignity that should come with being an educator. He challenged every educator to do the same.
“I’m challenging every KEA member and every educator to stand up for public education by standing up:
- for that teacher who works across the hall from you;
- for the bus driver who during the winter months gets up at 4 a.m. to start the bus so it’s warm when the first students get on;
- for the custodian who looks at his bank statement on payday and wishes that his superintendent and school board members valued him as much as the kids in his buildings do;
- for the first-year teacher who is overwhelmed and wondering how she can stand thirty-plus years of the pressure cooker that standardized testing has turned our schools into;
- for the veteran teacher who has never lost her passion for teaching but is absolutely exhausted from the constant attacks on her profession and blame her for all society’s ills;
- for the teacher who hears administrators and politicians saying their next plan will be the one that changes everything for the better but knows that with all their degrees and self-proclaimed intelligence they have yet to figure out how to arrange for her to go to the bathroom when she needs to;
- and for the kindergarten assistant who guides new kindergartners through crowded halls and cafeterias to their destination without losing anyone but has to go to her second job after school and a third job on the weekend.”
Prior to her election as vice president, Hiler served on the KEA Board of Directors and as president of the Fayette County Education Association. As FCEA president, she helped develop the “Grow Your Own” program, which addressed teacher shortages, secured stipends for teachers who cover classes during their planning periods, achieved a historic raise for educators, and developed a 35-day paid parental leave policy for all Fayette County Public School employees.
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