School District Thread

[Rachel]

GW Parents: I wanted to start a discussion about what is happening in your local area with your school district. I'm not looking for national stories, just the experiences you have. And how are things comparing to when you were young?

I'll post my own comments below.

 

[Rachel]

Gonna sit here and take an hour to type everything I can think of lol...shouldn't have started this right before bedtime...why did I do that to myself

Anyway, I'm going to put aside our school experience with Covid, which was awful for everyone on the planet, and talk about everything after:

Basically my sense is something really tipped with Covid and it hasn't recovered. I was entering the experience of being a school parent during Covid with preschool, so I don't know what it was like before as a parent. We don't have enough paras, subs, or bus drivers. I think we got rid of ALL crossing guards because I haven't seen any in awhile. Which sucks because more kids are being asked to walk than ever before (because of the bus driver shortage).

I always feel like I should be glad for the teachers we DO have. So many are retiring. Even the ones who teach for the love of the kids are burned out. I've heard most would not recommend this career path to their own children. Not to mention the background fear of being shot in the classroom--there was a local news story within this last week that a high schooler brought a gun to school and it was confiscated from his or her backpack.

My mom is actually retiring this year as a SPED para from another district. This was her DREAM job!! She LOVES the kids. And yet she can't wait to get out. I am so, so sad about how both of my parents' careers ended. Feel like I'm staring down the mirror for us all eventually in this landscape...

We had a big discussion this past year about what to do with the bus driver problem. Basically, there was NO way to make everyone happy, routes needed be cut, it was a matter of how. The ONE thing I really wanted was for them to NOT make the high schoolers get up even earlier...but that's exactly what happened, we are on a three-tier bell system...can't mess up sports...my husband and I also have to drive our preschooler every midday and back since the bus isn't available for preschool anymore.

(As an aside I am sad by how much extra gas and air pollution this causes by having a bajillion parents drive instead of buses. I remember one day it was a hot August afternoon and everyone was idling with their AC on...)

We got a surprise recently with the announcement that all elementary schools are having computer class cut. Apparently they were having trouble filling computer teacher positions. I had NO idea it was considered a part time job and they made substitution teacher-level wages. I also have no idea what qualification you need to be an elementary computer teacher, is it like being a sub, almost anyone with a pulse can do that? Instead, they are going to "integrate the computer into the classroom more"--at recent conferences, I asked my son's teacher about this, she had no idea what the plan was for this. I commented that it's not just about computer learning; the teachers also use the "specials" for their personal time to catch up on whatever, eat lunch I assume, do whatever they need while the kids are gone. Not sure yet what the new plan for that time will be.

My state (Kansas) also passed a new law that children can go into any district they want, provided they apply in advance, the parent is responsible for transportation, and there has to be room available. What will the knock-on effects for this be? My mom friend, the mother of my son's friend, is a teacher in an adjacent district. She says "available room" is actually up to 25 kids in the classroom, and that maximum is a LOT to handle, especially at the elementary level. And if a lot of IEP kids transfer? They want to help kids but they don't have the capacity, but by law they would HAVE to. Superficially, we also have an adjacent school district that is the "gold star" district--everyone wants to go there, and that causes property values to be at least 150,000 higher than here. I also wonder if this law will affect that at all.

And yeah, we are actually in a fairly good area, recent inflation and desirability has meant higher property values, of which there is a line item for the school district in the taxes. But yet we have these funding and hiring problems. Can't imagine what the experience is at the rural level. One of the school districts in our metro actually cut back to four days a week. lol! Have no idea how working parents deal with that. (Not to say 8-3:30 five days a week is backed by any science or research that this much time in school leads to better academic outcomes, but this whole thing is setup around a place to stay while parents work, which is another discussion).

On a positive note, we have actually beaten back most of the crazies for the school board elections. Collectively we seem to have become wiser and SHOW UP for local, non-presidential elections.

I can say more things but I'll stop here

Okay one more thing

Some people around here might know that we recently won the Super Bowl

Well (lol) our school district had quite a number of snow days, so they announced that they would be in school like usual during the Super Bowl parade

But wait, turns out the school bus drivers were going to be assisting with transportation to downtown and back

And many of the teachers called out, which they can't stop them from doing

So lol j/k we need to close because we don't have staff

Just goes to show it doesn't matter what admin says, it's what the staff says

 

[Quagmire]

Mine is messy, its a big district, and there has been bussing all over for decades and its been very controversial. My city is rather segregated economically and racially so it was a way to get kids from poorer neighborhoods to get to "better schools"

It is good in theory, but there is a bus rider shortage and kids get on the bus sometimes 2hrs before school starts. They re did start times to try to be able to use less busses but its been a cluster fuck

Also kids no longer get kicked out since funding is due to enrollment and so schools and bus drivers have less power over the bad kids

 

[Mark]

Mine is messy, its a big district, and there has been bussing all over for decades and its been very controversial. My city is rather segregated economically and racially so it was a way to get kids from poorer neighborhoods to get to "better schools"

It is good in theory, but there is a bus rider shortage and kids get on the bus sometimes 2hrs before school starts. They re did start times to try to be able to use less busses but its been a cluster fuck

Also kids no longer get kicked out since funding is due to enrollment and so schools and bus drivers have less power over the bad kids

Bussing is something that started with our parent’s generation, assuming you’re in the mid-30’s to early-40’s range. My dad was nearly killed for being from the wrong side of town back in the 70’s as a result of bussing, and within two weeks of a small group of my friends and I being bussed from west Baltimore to east Baltimore during our freshman year, the same nearly happened to us. Two ended up taking a trip to the hospital, one with a broken forearm from a baseball bat blow and the other with two dozen stitches from taking a bottle to the head. I’m convinced the only ones that benefit are the schools boards that get to balance out their average test scores and diversity quotas for federal funding guidelines, because every parent I’ve talked to has said the same damn thing… there are infinitely more cons to uprooting a child at middle or high school level from their friends and sense of familiarity they’ve developed over the course of nearly a decade than pros.

As far as @Rachel’s original question…

The common complaint I see with parents my age is over-communication of unnecessary bullshit. I’m sure you remember how it was when we were coming up, we were lucky to see a quarterly newsletter from the school. I receive between 2-3 emails a day from my daughter’s middle school that she hasn’t even attended in going on two years now. You mean to tell me that there’s that much to communicate via email on a daily basis, but you can’t figure out how weapons, cannabis, ecstasy, cigarettes, and vapes are making it into a middle school and being consumed in multiple locations throughout the school and throughout the day? That’s just asinine to me. Hearing my daughter tell me that she witnessed fights in the girl’s bathroom and describing stuff going on in the county that was only happening in the city when I was growing up is chilling to me. That cancerous growth that is the total apathy towards human life spread by miles in a matter of years.

My old high school? The same one the mayor of Baltimore attended at the same time? Nothing has changed there. It still made the news several times this school year for shootings in and outside of the school. A quick Google search of “Mervo shooting” will spare y’all a bunch of sad stories and just give you some headlines. The worst part? This is just what makes the news. A lot of violence in city schools goes unreported. “Stop snitching” isn’t just an adult thing… actual kids get the shit kicked out of them for speaking up.

Beyond violence and substances illegal for minors, the school system itself has been lacking for years. I remember being in middle school in the late 90’s reading social studies books that discussed Operation: Desert Storm as a current event (little did middle school me know that it would, in fact, become a current event again). Winter and summer? Brutal. We had radiator heat in our school, but the windows were drafty negating the radiator’s heat because it would get sucked right out of the window. You could see the steam along the entire outside of the building from all of the windows leaking heat. The summer was worse, though. The poor ventilation allowed the buildings to get so humid that the entire building would smell like mildew. In the early 90’s, all city schools began outfitting windows with cages and bars to prevent people from entering/exiting on the ground floor or fully opening the window. Coupled with the average age of those windows, a good portion of them didn’t open or were otherwise inoperable. Air conditioning was limited to new schools, and window units are STILL “too expensive” despite the state of Maryland itself currently being in a budget surplus. Overall, it’s a sad state of affairs for public education in Maryland if you live in certain areas. Others? Some of the best schools around.

I guess you could say I’m not happy with the school system, haven’t been happy with it, and have little hope for change unless there’s a complete overhaul to the board of education here.

 

[Fire Queen]

so, i'm not a parent (and don't plan to be for several years) but i hope i can offer a unique perspective as a classroom teacher

the bus driver shortage is so real and i think every district is getting hit hard by it. there are so many hoops to jump through to even become a driver, and you actually have to PAY MONEY to take the necessary classes/certifications and the pay/hours are nowhere near worth it. also, you're liable for a vehicle full of rowdy children/teenagers who generally don't respect you and almost definitely don't even know your name. i am also in a Title I (low-income) school in a community that is still suffering from the effects of the city redlining them to hell decades ago.

as for the school board, well, it's north carolina babey. i would LOVE to attend school board meetings and advocate for my students and my peers. (north carolina is not particularly well-known for being a good place to be a teacher lol.) however in the current political climate i just try to keep a low profile. i'm a fundamentalist republican's nightmare: a "cross-dresser" teaching american history and "indoctrinating" my students with "woke" beliefs and also CRT probably. if my school was whiter some parents probably already would have raised a stink about me. however less than 10% of our students are white so everyone's chill. i have been at my current school for four years and have had no issues.

but the burnout is an issue. and no one wants to be a teacher anymore. and i don't blame them. the process of getting your licensure is a nightmare that takes an absurd amount of time and money, all to be paid less than some of your students will make getting a plumbing or construction job immediately after graduation. the hours are long and the responsibilities list keeps getting longer and longer. but i could never see myself doing anything else. and the best place i can be right now is in the classroom.

if anything i'm glad these issues aren't unique to us but...it's not good that these fundamental issues are so widespread

 

[Mark]

so, i'm not a parent (and don't plan to be for several years) but i hope i can offer a unique perspective as a classroom teacher

the bus driver shortage is so real and i think every district is getting hit hard by it. there are so many hoops to jump through to even become a driver, and you actually have to PAY MONEY to take the necessary classes/certifications and the pay/hours are nowhere near worth it. also, you're liable for a vehicle full of rowdy children/teenagers who generally don't respect you and almost definitely don't even know your name. i am also in a Title I (low-income) school in a community that is still suffering from the effects of the city redlining them to hell decades ago.

as for the school board, well, it's north carolina babey. i would LOVE to attend school board meetings and advocate for my students and my peers. (north carolina is not particularly well-known for being a good place to be a teacher lol.) however in the current political climate i just try to keep a low profile. i'm a fundamentalist republican's nightmare: a "cross-dresser" teaching american history and "indoctrinating" my students with "woke" beliefs and also CRT probably. if my school was whiter some parents probably already would have raised a stink about me. however less than 10% of our students are white so everyone's chill. i have been at my current school for four years and have had no issues.

but the burnout is an issue. and no one wants to be a teacher anymore. and i don't blame them. the process of getting your licensure is a nightmare that takes an absurd amount of time and money, all to be paid less than some of your students will make getting a plumbing or construction job immediately after graduation. the hours are long and the responsibilities list keeps getting longer and longer. but i could never see myself doing anything else. and the best place i can be right now is in the classroom.

if anything i'm glad these issues aren't unique to us but...it's not good that these fundamental issues are so widespread

That’s another thing… they can’t really complain about you too much because there aren’t that many teachers willing to take home the paycheck most of y’all get for the amount of shit that teachers have to deal with, especially in school districts where funding isn’t anywhere close enough to be defined as “adequate”. The number of teachers like you who CARE about their students and their education is even lower, because at least in the lower-income areas here, they’re mostly hiring people green and fresh out of college, which will make most of them jaded pretty quickly. A young and jaded teacher isn’t exactly conducive to a learning environment for children, as I’m sure you’ve seen at some point in your career.

It always amazes me how no one bats an eye at an athlete making millions a year, but at the same time… we debate paying the people educating our youth a livable wage.