Many communities compromise the success of schools. This does not have to happen. Here are a few ways that every community can work to elevate the success of their schools.
Adequate Staffing
Most schools are understaffed. Way back, when communities were filled with at-home moms, grandmothers, grandfathers, and women who didn't have children, there was lots and lots of support for children. Nowadays, most neighborhoods are empty during the work day because most people are working to support their lives, and that means there simply is not the support needed for children--children require lots and lots of positive support to grow with strength and care. Filling classrooms with twenty or more children everyday with one teacher is not adequate support. Children will thrive if we double or triple supports in schools everywhere. If we double or triple the numbers of well-paid, well-trained staff in schools, our children's lives will be greatly enriched. One of the greatest challenges in schools today is staffing--we simply do not have enough people to serve the needs and potential that children bring to school each day.
Adequate Learning Environments
Too many school buildings are outdated, inhabitable, and insufficient for modern day teaching. It's a crime that wealthy businesspeople go to work in luxurious offices daily while our nation's children are squished into inadequate learning facilities. This is a crime that does not have to happen. Schools everywhere need to be updated to become welcoming, modern, spacious indoor-outdoor learning facilities.
Update School Schedules and Programming
Many schools stay mired in old fashion teaching and learning because of lack of resources and time for worthy professional development and teaching efforts.
Elevate Work Conditions and Salaries
Too many school workers are underpaid and overworked. Teachers are often very tired because they work ten-twelve hour days six to seven days a week with considerable time-on-task with lots and lots of children. Many teachers also work second jobs to be able to afford child care, mortgage payments, transportation costs, and other life necessities. Further, many, many teachers buy their own supplies for classrooms because it is very difficult to purchase materials for schools via school processes for countless reasons. So to teach well, many teachers use their own money to buy needed supplies everyday. When teachers are underpaid and working in subpar working conditions, they become tired, cranky, and discouraged which does not translate into optimal teaching and learning.
Just this week, work conditions that impeded my ability to teach included the fact that one bathroom has become a place for new mothers to pump breast milk. This reduces the number of bathrooms which means you have to wait to go to the bathroom. First, new mothers, in my opinion, don't have enough paid time off and also should not have to pump in a bathrooom--women have been having babies forever, and we still don't make room for what's needed in school buildings for new mothers. That's a crime. Also because I am working on a number of new curriculum initiatives, I had to spend my entire day on Saturday working--there simply isn't time for that during the school day. Then, on our one working day this week, only one copy machine worked which meant that multiple teachers were stressed out because they needed the copy machine during valuable prep time. And, when children worked tirelessly on a creative climate change project, they could not access the printer to print their good work because one available printer that doesn't work well is simply not adequate for the rich, deep work students were doing. Then, when I learned that a colleague's 22-year old son is making more money than me on his first years of the job, that was discouraging too. Why would people continue to choose to teach when the money is simply not there. Teaching salaries and working/learning conditions have to rise because to educate our nation's children well is critical to the well being of our country--Americans have to recognize and support this.
Time for USA to Invest in Social Services including Education and Health Care
The United States is not investing in its most critical resource which is the people. Instead the Trumpian survival-of-the-fittest mentality is trickling down to all communities and resulting in a lack of support for the people, work, and activities that most create a strong, vibrant, and successful country. We need to do a better job creating a good country with adequate supports. We can do better--it's time.
