YOUR VOICE
Amid Uncertainty, One Thing Is Clear: Your Vote Matters
W BY JENNIFER MITCHELL ATPE Governmental Relations Director
14 ATPE NEWS
hat if your school closed for spring do we provide a safe learning environment break and never opened back up for students and accommodations for school again? What if you suddenly had to staff who are worried about their health? teach all your classes from home on a laptop? How do we modify our school calendars in a What if the STAAR test were simply cancelled? way that will make it easier for us to manA year ago, these what-ifs would have seemed age similar disruptions in the future, if neclike impossible scenarios. Now they are a essary? How do we help those students who shared experience for many ATPE members. have fallen further behind? The changes that happened practically overAs we start the school year under such still night because of COVID -19 have tested your strange and shifting circumstances, many mettle in ways you never imagined when you questions remain unanswered. Amid few cerfirst entered the education profession. Most tainties, we know the coronavirus pandemic of the changes have been difficult and unwel- has strained our economy and our public edcome—with cancellation of the STAAR test be- ucation system, and there will be an enduring ing one possible exception. need for added resources and creative soluEducators were tions to the novel dauntless in facing problems we are now AS LOCAL, STATE, the sudden disruption facing in our public of the 2019-20 school schools. Whether we AND FEDERAL year. You turned your like it or not, educaGOVERNMENTS kitchen tables into tion in the time of classrooms. You spent COVID -19 is a more SCRAMBLE TO FIND hours overhauling lesexpensive undertakSOLUTIONS TO son plans and develing. ATPE is gearing oping a new breed of up for a difficult 2021 PROBLEMS THAT WERE “homework” for your legislative session in UNIMAGINABLE ONLY students (and their which budget writers frazzled, teleworking must attempt to adA YEAR AGO, YOU ARE parents). You held dress these expanded SEEING THE POWER drive-by celebrations needs with markedly for graduating seniors. decreased revenue. OF YOUR ELECTED You accomplished The education budOFFICIALS. all these unforeseen get cuts of 2011 are tasks with a smile, still fresh on the often while dealing with your own behind-the- minds of many of you. It took years to fill that scenes challenges: caring for your stuck-at- hole, which is starting to look like a small inhome families, staying connected to isolated dentation compared to the crater in front of older relatives, and facing the trauma of a deadly us today. Fortunately, we’ve seen a modest new disease within your own household or circle shift in elected officials’ attitudes toward the of friends. education profession in the last few years, slowly turning away from the toxic rhetoric Uncertain Future and strong-arm tactics of groups that want to Navigating government orders that often defund our public education system, muzzle conflicted and changed on a weekly basis and teachers, and hand out taxpayer dollars with worrying about long-term impacts of the pan- no strings attached to unregulated private and demic made this a summer of disquiet. How home schools. Whether that trend continues
