Teachers prep for new year of uncertainty, challenges

I go back to work as a public school teacher today, and I am gearing up for the many challenges that await my colleagues and I inside and outside the classroom.

The many changes, uncertainty, and the physical and financial demands can be daunting for many teachers, but they can be fixed if we address the systemic problems within our school system. If we do so, we can make the start of the school year less chaotic and less stressful for students and teachers alike.

At the beginning of the academic year, teachers face the looming possibility of having to spontaneously switch classrooms. Imagine having to pack up everything in your bedroom, store your bedroom for two months, then move your bedroom into a home across the street and redecorate in the span of a few days. This is the unfortunate — and annual — reality of classroom displacement.

On top of this, many teachers find out what course and grade level they will be teaching one week prior to the first day of school, giving them just a few days to prepare their curriculum for the year. These uncertainties create gratuitous stress for teachers and an unreliable learning environment for students.

In addition to being uprooted from classrooms and thrown into unfamiliar curricula, each year seems to bring new top-down initiatives from the district. The procedures, programs, and lessons that hours of professional development and common planning meetings centered around during the previous year are quickly forgotten for new software, behavioral plans, and methods for tracking data.

These additions are forced upon teachers who are expected to learn and implement them with little notice while also dealing with the pressures of acclimating to new colleagues. At some schools, teacher turnover is so high that many teachers don’t bother to learn each other’s names.

One aspect of teaching that is not overtly acknowledged, but is a fundamental part of the profession, is the physical toll that teaching takes on the body.

During the summer, teachers enjoy the ability to drink water and use the restroom regularly — a luxury that we cannot afford during the school year. In an American Federation of Teachers survey, 25 percent of teachers who responded indicated that one of the main stressors of the job was the inability to use the restroom. Personally, I am often so unsure of when I will have access to the restroom during the school day that I avoid consuming liquids.

In today’s classrooms, teachers are met with increasing threats of violence. According to a recent article published by the National Education Association, 10 percent of school teachers report being threatened, and 6 percent report being physically attacked by a student.

Said Broward Teachers

Union President Anna Fusco: “This [2018-2019] is literally one of the most violent years that I have encountered…” As of right now, there are no plans in place from Broward Schools (BCPS) to ensure the safety of teachers.

While teachers always feel financial pressure, this is heightened at the beginning of the year. A whopping 94 percent of teachers report paying out of pocket for the supplies that they require to do their jobs, spending on average $479 annually according to a federal Department of Education Survey. Despite this, in 2016, the school board voted to end a $2,600 supplement to high school teachers. Because the number of classes we teach determines our stipend, many of us hope to teach an extra period to make up for that pay cut.

Unfortunately, our course schedules are unavailable to us until long after we’ve invested our own money into our classrooms.

The school year is exciting but incredibly stressful. We can do better.

By placing limits on the number of times classroom relocation and curriculum changes can take place over the course of five years, BCPS could make the arrival of the school year less tumultuous.

Restorative justice and adequate mental health staff and programs could be implemented to address classroom violence.

BCPS could guarantee access to restrooms by increasing the time between classes at the secondary level, and increasing the opportunities for bathroom breaks at the primary level.

Moreover, Broward Schools needs to treat academic resources as what they are … priorities. That means increasing funding for supplies and limiting unhelpful policy upheavals.

More than anything, and I cannot urge this enough: BCPS needs to increase teacher salaries. That is the best way to limit turnover and reduce financial stress.

Teaching is my passion, and I am truly looking forward to working with my students in just a few short weeks. I hope that we can work towards addressing these challenges to make this school year, and each school year following, one of the best yet.