Congratulations to Beth Ekre, who was named North Dakota Teacher of the Year. She's a sixth-grade teacher at Carl Ben Eielson Middle School in Fargo. Teachers such as Ekre have an enormous impact on their students. As important as curriculum, class size and technology might be in education, it's the teacher who really makes the difference as to whether students succeed or not. Thank you, Beth Ekre.

The Teacher of the Year honors were announced at a North Dakota Education Association instructional conference in Fargo on Oct. 23. After it was announced that Ekre was the state's winner, she gave an acceptance speech. A social or reception sponsored by NDEA to honor the winners followed, but Ekre was turned away at the door because she was not an NDEA member.

What were they thinking? What possibly could be accomplished by "snubbing" Ekre?

It was, after all, a social.

Is this the result of years of adversarial contract negotiations between teacher groups and school boards in the state?

Any one who had attended negotiation meetings over the years could attest to the acrimonious nature of the talks. Fortunately, in the Bismarck-Mandan area, these contract talks have in recent years taken a turn for the better, through efforts by school boards and teacher associations. This gentler, kinder effort is the high road.

NDEA officials should have welcomed Ekre to their social, member or not. And they should have celebrated her success in their profession. The unwillingness to do so should worry anyone interested in education in North Dakota. Their action lacked civility and good manners. No good point was made.

Jon Martinson, director of the North Dakota School Boards Association, wrote that he was "highly offended by the hurtful and vindictive treatment" of Ekre in a letter to state Sen. Layton Freborg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee. Martinson lobbied Freborg to create legislation to "remove the NDEA from playing any role whatsoever in North Dakota's Teacher of the Year program."

While the Tribune agrees Ekre was treated shabbily, somehow legislatively punishing the NDEA for bad behavior goes too far. That's not what lawmaking ought to be about. There are other ways to make a good point.

Most North Dakotans want to live in a civil and democratic society with each person treated with respect and ideas given their day in the court of reasonable debate. That may be a bit naive. Things often aren't that way. Still, we are disappointed with actions like those by the NDEA officials. We thought better of them. It certainly wasn't a good lesson for the state's students, or teachers who might be considering membership.