Schools in my part of Virginia open on Monday, August 29. Schools have already opened in other parts of the state. As we have all seen on the news, schools (students, teachers, administrators, and support personnel) have had to deal with a lot over the past several years,. This year promises to be closer to “normal,” but it won’t be pre-COVID normal.
Here are some issues the schools will be dealing with:
Shortages and changed standards for teachers
Salary hikes – 5% 2021, 5% 2022
Most school systems in Virginia will begin the year without the number of teachers they need. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think that some of the new factors include broad disdain for teachers expressed by political leaders and outright hostility from members of the community (including parents). Teachers have never been paid enough — and the unpaid demands on their time have always been outrageous — but this new dismissiveness of the expertise and experience teachers bring to the classroom is chasing teachers away.
Lagging test scores
Quite understandably, the closed and virtual schools of the COVID years led to a relaxed approach to standardized tests. Students, teachers, and parents were barely keeping it together, and the imposition of pre-COVID standardized tests would not have been fair to anyone.
It should not come as a surprise that recent standardized tests have shown reduced test scores. Students became accustomed to the slippery standards of the COVID years, and teachers couldn’t focus on “teaching to the test” when their schedules and teaching hours were subject to unexpected alteration.
Republicans in Virginia are using the lower test scores to push for increased funding for private schools and homeschoolers while decreasing funding for the public schools. That should work out just swell.
Lab school process moving forward – confusion about eligibility of private universities to sponsor lab schools
Let’s be clear: lab schools (and other efforts to take money away from public schools) are a continuation of a decades-long effort by the Republican Party to defund public education. This started with the SOL debate of the 1990s (under Virginia GOP Governor George Allen) and continue to this year’s debate about lab schools. The last time lab schools were tried (in 2010, under Virginia GOP Governor George McDonnell) they were announced with great fanfare and died a quiet death
Delayed publication of revised American History standards
Consulting with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute to address “serious errors and omissions”. This is a conservative think tank that supports charter schools. There will be community information sessions to gather more feedback. Sessions were supposed to start in August – will now occur in September and October
Five new members of Board of Education appointed by Youngkin say they need time to get up to speed on the 400-page document.
Narrator: They have already had several months to read this document.
Standards could go into effect in 2024
This reflects, at least in part, a concern that the content of the state’s History Standards of Learning somehow reflects Critical Race Theory or other ideas that challenge a white male perspective on American history and government. The 400-page Social Studies Standards of Learning document provides a detailed outline of what teachers are required to teach. Governor Younkin’s five new appointees to the state Board of Education are likely to bring a set of opinions influenced by Youngkin’s stated desire to improve history education in Virginia – by which he means to leave out things that make white children uncomfortable.
Greater attention to books available in classrooms and libraries
In one VA school district this fall, parents will receive an email notification every time their child checks out a book
Other states – more draconian
If you want to understand why teachers and librarians are leaving the profession, you can look at this. People (including parents) with no experience in education feel quite comfortable challenging the expertise of professionals who have dedicates years – and sometimes decades – to the field of education.
COVID
Most mandatory restrictions are gone
This is going to be the source of a lot of confusion this year. COVID has not gone away – and the germ factories that are the schools will provide regular super-spreader events. Not everyone will get sick, and not everyone who gets sick will get very sick. But some medically vulnerable teachers, students, and staff will get sick and die from COVID. This is 100% predictable.
Classroom safety – VA AG Jason Miyares supports more armed school resource officers
Gov. Glenn Youngkin “has funded several hundred additional school resource officers from around the state,” said Miyares. “And every locality’s going to face their own budget challenges, so local schools are going to have to see what their challenges are, and their funding priorities.”
I know a lot of teachers, and I don’t know ONE teacher who thinks “yes, that’s the ticket! We need more guns in school!” There’s a reason why prison guards who mingle with the inmates – “inside the wire” – don’t carry guns; it’s too easy for a bad guy to take the gun from them. Think, people.
Earlier this week, I provided a workshop for history teachers in Newport News (the school system where I taught for 15 years before I retired in 2012), and they are all excited about and wary of what the new school year will bring. They are veterans of the COVID years and of the attacks on public school teachers that we see happening all over the country. All they wanted to talk about was “their kids.” Teachers teach because they care more about kids than any other group in society.
We’ll miss them when they’re gone.
This makes me feel so deep down sad. I just read where Repubs want to privatize libraries. We all know they dig banning books. What have we become that the concept of the public good is so anathema to our thinking and living in our country?
I have never been so glad to be retired. I can only imagine the added stress teachers have faced in recent years.