This month

“Here you go, Dad. I set the time and date on your phone.”

“You gotta stay a step ahead of them. That’s why I pay attention to all those teacher blogs.”

It’s (Often) All in a Name

To show your students that you respect and value them, it’s very important to pronounce their names correctly. A young person’s name is so closely tied to their identity and heritage that you can easily alienate one by consistently mispronouncing and/or misspelling it.

To get some help on the importance of proper pronunciation and how it helps build a respectful, caring culture in your school, check out mynamemyidentity. org, where you’ll find resources including an educator toolkit, information on a back-to-school campaign, and even an online course. You can also take the My Name, My Identity pledge to commit to building respect and modeling caring behavior.

The My Name, My Identity Campaign was created by the Santa Clara County (CA) Office of Education in partnership with the National Association for Bilingual Education.l

Who Foots the Bill?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, this is how public school funding looks nationwide:

• 46.9 percent by localities

• 45.3 percent by states

• 7.8 percent by the federal government

In Virginia, the emphasis is shifted a bit more toward local money. We fund our schools:

• 51.1 percent by localities

• 42.3 percent by the state

• 6.6 percent by the federal governmentl

It’s Not Right

“After leaving a teaching job in a privileged private school to teach in an inner-city classroom, I was so struck by the difference in what was available to students, and how the lack of resources was impacting educational opportunities. I started researching, paying attention, and reflecting on the great inequity of schools just a few miles apart from each other. It became clear to me that if a child of eight is academically behind because of a lack of resources, no matter their intellect, they will always struggle to catch up to the children with the resources, even if

those children are not ahead of them intellectually.”l

— Richmond-based writer Judith Bice, author of Hey, White Girl, a novel set in Virginia’s state capital during a period of court-ordered school busing some 50 years ago.

We Can Handle the Truth

“Well, the truth is, learning sometimes has to be uncomfortable so that you are thinking and doing the work to analyze where we’ve been and how we move forward. I don’t think we can be afraid to share the truth in our classrooms.” l Former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr.

Five Reasons to Love School Libraries (and School Librarians)

Information-literate students are better prepared for college, career,

and life. Post-secondary institutions, employers, and civic life demand the ability to find, evaluate, use, and create information in multiple formats. School librarians teach information, digital, and media literacies, as well as digital citizenship.

Students value the school library as a

safe space. School librarians provide judgment-free learning spaces, curate resources that nurture student health and well-being, and promote reading for pleasure.

New technology introduced by school librarians elevates student learning and

enhance teaching methods. Students learn to safely and constructively navigate tools and resources that deepen inquiry, collaboration, and creation.

Students find resources appropriate to

their needs in a school library. School librarians curate diverse collections that provide mirrors, windows, and doors so that students better understand themselves and the world around them.

Students achieve more in schools with

libraries and librarians. Students with professionally staffed school libraries have higher reading, writing, and information literacy scores, as well as higher graduation rates. Studies show that Title I students and English language learners recognize even greater academic gains with a certified school librarian.l

Source: American Library Association

From Analyst to Advocate

How one educator found his voice and spoke up to help protect schools, students, and educators.

By Nate Lawrence

When I started teaching in the late 2000s, I prided myself on keeping my opinions to myself. My views were my own, and I thought it best to keep them out of the classroom and remain focused on content. Before entering the classroom I was an archaeologist, so my goal was always to teach my students to analyze the data and draw their own conclusions. But over the years, the content I teach and the views I hold have become more intertwined, like a Venn diagram where the circles become more and more overlapping. At times I felt like it put me in a difficult place, because as educators our default mode is often to stay quiet. “Don’t rock the boat.” “Keep your professional and private life separate.” So, I was wary about how the things I did outside of school might make my life inside it more difficult. For a while I always erred on the side of caution, and even today I keep a pretty thick wall between my home and school lives.

But what about if you get the opportunity to speak out on something that can positively affect your school? Sometimes rocking the boat can lead to a needed course correction.

I began to speak up about things I felt were important about five years ago, when earnest debate began between Staunton’s City Council and School Board about what should be done to improve our aging high school, then called Robert E. Lee. The ideas ranged from modest renovations to an entirely new school on a new site. The potential for a new building, in addition to a shorter commute, was one of the main reasons I took a position with Staunton City Schools. But, as I started attending City Council meetings, I worried that the need for a new school was being lost in the conversation.

I heard comments at those meetings like “I went there and I turned out fine” and “The building’s not that bad.” My daily experience, however, was poor ventilation, spotty air conditioning and heat, and tiny hallways. I thought the need for a new building was self-evident to anyone who had stepped into Robert E. Lee, but it became clear that a lot of speakers during these meetings never went beyond the auditorium or gym which, in their defense, were in decent shape. I rarely got members of the general public in my classroom, with its lack of hot water and leaking ceilings.

Someone needed to tell that story, so I decided to speak.

Getting up to the podium to speak during a public meeting is a nerve-wracking experience. It still gives me butterflies. The irony †††

VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | JUNE 2022 9 Illustration by iStock

that my day job is to get up and speak to groups of people isn’t lost on me. But there’s power in finding out you have something to say, and once you start, people will probably listen.

The time limit for comments was five minutes, so I had to pare down my usual rambling,

tangent-filled speaking style. I didn’t just want to read something word for word though, so I developed an outline and practiced getting through my message in the allotted time while also attempting to use my normal speech patterns. I found planning to be key. Some people can get up at meetings and speak off the cuff when they feel moved to, but that’s a little too “seat of your pants” for my taste. So, I spoke at one meeting, then I showed a PowerPoint at the next. Yes, most people only speak during public comments but check ahead of time with your local government, they can probably accommodate you if you’d like to present some form of media. After that I shared the presentation with anyone I could. I went to work sessions to hear debate and emailed my thoughts directly to Council members

when I had something to say I thought wouldn’t fit in the limited time frame available during Matters from the Public.

Did it move the needle? Honestly, I’ll never know, but in the fall of 2020 we opened the new Staunton High School, where I continue to teach and one day my children will attend. We didn’t get a new building on a new site. The aforementioned gym and auditorium, because they were in decent enough shape, were saved and the new school was built where the old one was. Today, the new school is something the whole town can truly be proud of.

In the summer of 2020, like most school divisions in Virginia, Staunton was deciding what to do about returning to school in the age of COVID. Virtual? Hybrid? How many days a week? How best to educate? Once again, we were changing everything and no one knew exactly how it would work out. But members of the Staunton Education Association worked to gather data and advocate for ourselves and our students. We sent surveys, wrote letters to the editor, met with board members, and when the year started we had a plan in place that most educators felt at least partially comfortable with.

One of the silver linings of COVID was that both as an individual teacher and as an association, we had opportunities to speak and an audience (superintendent, board, community) that was willing to listen. We spent half the year fully virtual teaching on Zoom and the spring in a hybrid model that included both in-person and virtual. Again, there were some successes and some areas that needed work, but by the end of the year we’d made it. As isolating as teaching has seemed at times over the past two years, I felt we were forging new ways to communicate and strengthening relationships, even if we weren’t always in the same room together.

And now, another school year unlike any other is almost (or already) in the books. Again. Never did I think I would live in such unprecedented times that they would become precedented. “Paradigm shift,” “the new normal,” “sea change”: every few weeks it was a series of extreme events that once again asked us to accept the fact that the world we went to sleep in the night before no longer exists.

One thing, though, that never seems to change is the lack of adequate school funding. In my 15 years working in the Virginia public school system, I’ve never seen a budget that I wouldn’t consider bare bones or the absolute minimum. This past January, it became clear that in addition to the uncertainty of the state budget, which remained unfinished as I wrote this, the funding Staunton City Schools would be requesting from the city would probably not match the level of funding the city was willing to give. With state level funding not yet determined, the best option to secure the funding students and educators needed in Staunton was to petition the city for the additional requested money. But this time, the voices calling for change wouldn’t just be educators, but families, students, and other community members, as well. Yard signs went up around town, City Council meetings were flooded with parents, educators, and students, and there was even a “bake sale” held one Saturday to raise awareness of the need for increased government funding, rather than forcing schools to fundraise.

It was the best show of community engagement I’ve seen since I’ve lived in Staunton, and it worked. The City Council and the School Board were able to come to a compromise that fully funded the district for fiscal year 2022-23. In addition, I was inspired by the number of community members that realized this wasn’t a “one-and-done” issue. This was clearing a hurdle, but there are several more (getting rid of the state level support cap comes to mind) to go. While that might seem

The author doesn’t hestitate to speak out for his students and colleagues.

You (Yes, You) Can Make a Difference!

Here are some steps you can take to help you become an effective advocate for public schools, your students, and your colleagues:

• Share information that you receive from the VEA and your local with fellow union members.

• Know the people who represent you. This includes not only your delegate and senator, but your school board and board of supervisors/city council members.

• Attend your local school board meetings and bring fellow union mem-

bers with you. Tell your story during public comment.

• Do your homework. You need to know what you’re talking about. How well have you researched your concern?

• You don’t have to go it

alone. You’ll probably discover that many of your issues are shared by fellow members.

Reach out to your local leaders, building reps, or UniServ Director about getting more involved in the union.

• Craft your own

message. Consider becoming a VEA online advocate. Share your personal stories and experiences.

You can learn more at vea.link/advocacy.

• Focus on solutions, not problems. Rather than identifying what’s not working, focus on how additional progress can be made.

• Communicate face-to-face if you can. It’s easier to write, and a one-way conversation is good, but a dialogue is better. Plan a meeting with an elected official (school board, city council, board of supervisors, House of Delegates,

Virginia Senate) and talk to them about your work and what you need.

• Get involved with the VEA’s Fund for Children and Public Education and

be sure to vote!l

Sources: VEA Government Relations; VEA-Retired member Susan N. Graham of Stafford County

VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | JUNE 2022 11 Photo page 10 by George Laase; photo this page by Olivia Geho

discouraging, I look at it as an opportunity to take the lessons we learned this year and carry them into the future.

So, while it might seem daunting, I encourage all VEA members to speak out on the issues that matter to you, be it through an email to an elected official, in person at a government meeting, or in another format that plays to your strengths. It might be just you at first, but you’ll probably pick up some supporters along the way. I know I did.

Some tips I’ve picked up over the years: • If you wait until you’re 100 percent comfortable using your voice, you never will. • Have faith in yourself. Students listen to you all day; others will too.

• Use email and social media in a personal capacity. We all have so many accounts these days.

Be conscious of which account you’re logged into when you make that post or send that email. With that said, pretty much any medium these days can be used for effective communication and change. • Advocacy is a marathon, not a sprint. Getting your issue over the finish line will probably take more than one email or attendance at one meeting. • Don’t reinvent the wheel. If no one in your community outside your local association is doing the work, blaze a trail, but chances are there’s an infrastructure you can already tap into. Team efforts always go further.l

Lawrence, Vice President of the Staunton Education Association, is an ecology and astronomy teacher at Staunton High School.

On Public Advocacy: Teacher Leaders Speak

“I just want to get in the room. That’s where the economic equity comes in, just speaking to school boards, city councils, state legislators, even federal legislators, talking about what kids need and making sure that funding in education is equitable.” — Rodney Robinson of Richmond, the 2019 National Teacher of the Year

“Sometimes, we have to leave the classroom to get the things we need for our kids. At the heart of every decision is what our students need. If decisions being made are negatively impacting our kids, we cannot sit idly by… Because ultimately, if students truly make up the foundation of our arguments about why we are outside the classroom advocating, no one can argue with us.” — Mandy Manning of Washington State, the 2018

National Teacher of the Year “Our critics love clichés, simplistic slogans and manipulated data. This is how they attack, and the good news is the utter banality of those attacks. Stories are different. There is no defense against a good story…I contend that we advocate best for our students and our profession when we are brave enough to tell our stories.” — Shanna Peeples of Texas, the 2015 National Teacher of the

Year

Vocabulary that Won’t Be on the Test…

Here are a few words that you may find useful and may want to make part of your professional lingo, courtesy of GCFL.net:

Handoubt: To wonder if the students even looked at the important papers you just passed out to them.

Hydropendent:

Student who requests permission to get a drink of water every 10 minutes.

Interconversations:

The office conversations you overhear when someone forgets to turn off the intercom after an announcement.

Bookstache: The facial hair added by students to every portrait in the American history textbook. Colate: Two students who arrive tardy to class at the same time.

Corroborative learning: When all the students in a class agree to stick to the same excuse for why their work is not done.

Digital disorganizers: Fascinating electronic organizers that distract students from paying attention to assignments, instructions, and due dates.

Erasivot: The divot that you get in your paper if you erase too hard. McDone: Students unable to participate in the afternoon’s learning activities because they consumed large amounts of fast food for lunch.

Meview: A class review of material in which the only one really reviewing is the teacher.

Multiple unintelligences: A variety of ways of not knowing something. Includes, but is not limited to: resistive unintelligence, disinterested unintelligence, distracted unintelligence, unconscious unintelligence, and absent unintelligence. Plausea: The queasy feeling a teacher gets while trying to figure out if a student’s excuse is believable or not. Powerpointless: A wonderfully executed, high-tech presentation completely devoid of meaningful content.

Repedementia: Repeatedly telling the same joke to the same class because you can’t remember which of your classes you’ve told it to. Seatables: The little pieces of school lunch that hide on the seats of school lunchroom chairs waiting to adhere to the next unsuspecting sitter.

Signotsure: The signature that comes back on a midterm report that looks more like the student’s than the parent’s. Strobed: The feeling you have after spending all day in a classroom with florescent lights that do that flicker thing. Teacherscreen: The student who stands in front of you to purposefully block your view of the rest of the class as he asks you a question. Telesubbies: Substitute teachers who only show videos. Torigami: Assignment papers folded and unfolded so many times that they are turned in as sixteen separate pieces. Vistamized: A student so fascinated with the view from the classroom window that he has completely lost touch with what’s going on inside the classroom. Wired classroom: Any classroom in which the teacher has had more than five cups of coffee and each student has had more than two cans of Mountain Dew.l