CINCINATTI, Oh. - Governor Matt Bevin is once again raising eyebrows over comments made on a conservative talk radio show.

While speaking on Cincinnati radio station 55 KRC, Bevin told host Brian Thomas, teachers are only interested in protesting when school is session.

“It’s interesting though that these people seem to most enjoy doing this, stopping work, when they get paid anyway but when they are not getting paid to stop work,” Bevin told Thomas. “It is remarkable nobody seems to be that interested, they don’t care quite as much.”

Bevin is referring to sick outs during the 2019 General Assembly session that saw more than 1,000 teachers pack the capitol in protest to several education related bills. The mass call-ins caused several school districts to close for several days. Jefferson County Public Schools saw the largest number of days missed due to teacher call-ins with students missing six days of class.

“This same bill came forward again this summer when nobody was in school and nobody showed up,” he said. “When it’s vacation time people are a little less worked up it seems.”

Bevin indicates teachers were protesting a bill reforming the troubled pension system for qausi-governmental agencies and regional universities, while many teachers were keeping a close watch on that legislation, there were also several other bills, including a school choice bill they were there for. The scope of the call for the special session in July was limited, so any changes to Teachers Retirement System could not be included in the final legislation.

The Kentucky Education Association is responding to the governor's comments slamming him for suggesting they were protesting the pension bill. 

"Based on his comments, we can only assume that Governor Bevin didn’t understand the pension legislation he and his staff wrote and dictated in detail to the General Assembly during the recent Special Session," KEA Communications Director David Patterson said in a statement. "Anyone who is familiar with that legislation knows that it was not the same bill educators protested a few months ago.  Educators protest to influence governmental action that affects public schools and public school students, not to get out of work that they love and believe in.  For the Governor to suggest otherwise is, unfortunately, typical."

The Jefferson County Teachers Association is also responding the comments made the governor saying he is "completely dead wrong" on two points. President Brent McKim said the issues teachers protested during the legislative session dealt with students and educators in K-12 public schools while the legislation during the special session "had nothing to do with either K-12 students or their  teachers." 

"Teachers had to make up the days when schools were closed during the legislative session, so they did not get paid to be in Frankfort those days," McKim went on to say in a statement. "It very troubling that Governor Bevin would not understand even these very simple facts about the situation.  And that’s particularly disturbing given that in his role as governor it’s his responsibility to understand these issues so that he can govern."

The Labor Cabinet ruled on Friday that more than 1,000 teachers broke labor law when they called-in sick to protest at the capitol, but did not fine them. Bevin says the warning issued by Labor Secretary David Dickerson was a “teachable” moment.

“These people could have each been fined up to $1,000 per day, and the state realized this was teaching opportunity, the cabinet secretary and the investigators decided ‘listen, we’ll show some grace in this instance,” Bevin said.  “We’ll use this as teachable moment and make it clear that this is a violation and if it were to happen again people could be held into account and it’s not going to tolerated again.”