Part I: going back to school

For weeks, retailers have been advertising back to school sales. Doesn’t matter the target— classroom supplies or clothing, they’ve been pushing hard.

Hitting hard in a different way, you will find human resource personnel in public school systems doing everything they can to fill every teacher vacancy.

Then there are old clunkers like me. I retired from the public schools nineteen years ago. Around this time of year, people who know I worked in the schools ask me— do I miss being in a school building? My answer is always a swift—‘no.’

My ‘no’ is grounded in— the world has changed. I doubt I could survive in a public school today. I read the troubling headlines.

Between now, and the beginning of September, public schools in Virginia and across America will come back to life. What the public might not know is that schools have been breathing all summer.

Staff members are readying the building and grounds for a new year. New students are being registered. Teachers are enrolled in classes to renew their certification or to learn a new instructional strategy. Coaches are getting ready for preseason practices for fall sports. Principals are planning and gently nudging everyone to be ready for the first day.

When that first day arrives, nerves will be on edge. Restless sleep hassles kindergarten parents and first year teachers. Superintendents are a part of the sleep deprived too. Internally, they whisper a prayer for a quiet first day with no negative news sound bytes for the local news at six.

During that first week, everyday a kindergarten student will disrupt a classroom because this student has an unstructured home life.

At lunch time, somewhere in the chaos of a middle school cafeteria, an introverted, unconfident sixth grader cringes in uneasiness.

In a large high school, an eighteen year old student who should be a senior, but only has earned enough credits to be a sophomore silently plots how to get kicked out of school.

And by the end of September, there will be a handful of teachers who are ready to submit their resignation letters. In the trenches, the stress, tension, and pressure are too much.

The stress, tension, and pressure are present at home too.
The single parent of the kindergarten student dreads every text message, email, or phone call from her student’s teacher.

For the parents of the introverted middle school student, they feel the uncomfortable stress too. As parents, they are hesitant to approach the school’s counselor for support. They worry that requesting assistance might create more stress for their student.

The grandparent of the unsuccessful high school student knows this troubled road. From past failed experiences, the grandparent doesn’t trust the school system to provide the proper intervention for her grandson.

These examples are only a sampling of the challenges faced by students, parents, and public school educators. Multiply that across Virginia and America, and one can quickly grasp—this is tough, unending work.

Survival in the classroom for students and teachers has become more difficult. An undertow of political and public pressure is always restless and present in our schools. From all of the data we collect, I wonder how much we really understand as to why schools have become more challenging.

Where do those challenges come from? How are they birthed? What conditions in the neighborhood and the school’s environment add to the unstable volatility?

Researchers can confirm many reasons for the challenges faced by our public schools. But for me, one of the most overlooked is the erosion of our families.

A September 2023 report on The Modern American Family from the Pew Research Center looks at key trends in marriage and family life.

Early in the report it is clear to see that American families have changed with this significant shift: “In 1970, 67% of Americans ages 25-49 were living with their spouse and one or more children younger than 18. Over the past five decades, that share has dropped to 37%.”

According to Pew researchers, this shift has created an “increase in other types of family living arrangements, like unmarried adults raising children.”

The Pew report notes numerous factors that have impacted the family structure: marrying later in life, interracial/interethnic marriages, same-sex married couples, fertility patterns, and more women are having children without being married.”

Another Pew research study from April 2018 takes a deeper look at The Changing Profile of Unmarried Women. Lots of information is captured here, but one of my take aways was this: “about one-fourth of solo parents are poor.”

Broken down further, by parent type here are the percentages living in poverty: “solo 27%, cohabiting 16%, and married 8%.” One more layer reveals that “17% of fathers and 30% of mothers” are living in poverty.

What these reports find is there is “no longer one predominant family form.”

This shift has impacted schools. From something as simple as registering students when they enter school to rethinking instructional strategies for students who have experienced trauma from the instability that can occur from these family changes.

Despite these challenges, schools, primarily teachers have the responsibility of trying to educate students who enter a school building everyday with the burden of family baggage hovering over them.

That baggage might come from these family issues: unemployment, homelessness, lack of mental and physical health care, incarceration, dysfunction, emotional trauma, and food insecurity. How many of our school shootings or severe disruptions of the school environment can be attributed to the burdens of that baggage?

And despite this baggage, for some of those students, their hours spent inside the school building are the most stable in their lives. Teachers who witness this brief stability will often silently think—if I could only take this student home with me.

Woven into the instability of our families is also the uncertainty of our politics. I can’t believe that America’s Department of Education has been dismantled. Despite our faults and imperfections, our public schools helped to build the foundation of America.

From my perspective, many of our politicians have no real understanding of what a day is like in a classroom in a public school for a student, parent, or teacher. That lack of knowledge and understanding is reflected in self-centered legislation and executive orders.

At the start of a new school year, I hope that every student, parent, and teacher will find the support they need for success.

And for you politicians out there who say you want to improve our public schools, you might want to start by focusing on the erosion of America’s families.

If you truly want to make test scores rise in localities where they have never risen, reduce discipline problems, raise morale inside a school building and their community, and rebuild respect for teachers, then figuring out how to stop the deepening erosion of our families is urgent.

Back in April 1970, NASA faced an urgent situation. That is when Apollo 13 Commander, Jim Lovell, told mission controllers in Houston those famous words: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Lovell, who recently passed away, told NASA leaders the problem was the explosion of an oxygen tank inside the service module. With that explosion, the mission leaders and their team had to figure out how to get Lovell and his fellow astronauts back to earth safely.

From Jim Lovell’s perspective, this near disaster was avoided because of leadership: “What it showed was what you could do with good leadership in an organization, how good leadership fosters teamwork, and how teamwork and initiative, when you faced a problem – to use the initiative or imagination to try to solve the problem because everything doesn’t flow freely in life, and things change.”(NPR)

Quite honestly, America, we’ve had a problem with the erosion of our families for a long time.

Why is it we can explore the out limits of space, build oil wells in oceans, span bridges across canyons and waterways, construct skyscrapers, and yet we continue to struggle to solve our human infrastructure demands.

When might our teamwork, imagination, and initiative be used to solve our vicious generational cycles related to poverty, homelessness, healthcare, unemployment, nutrition, and the erosion of our families?

Not working to solve these on-going challenges, only guarantees more disconcerting days in our schools.

In the fall of 1975, I started my first teaching job in public education. I do not recall what motivated me to become a teacher. But, I would not trade anything for my thirty one years.

With the start of this new school year, I went back and re-read a section of Pat Conroy’s book A Lowcountry Heart.

During the summer of 1961, Pat Conroy had a summer job at his high school. Mr. Conroy completed landscaping tasks on campus per the direction of his principal, Bill Duffy.

Mr. Conroy wrote: “That summer, I decided to try to turn myself into a man exactly like Bill Duffy. He made me want to become a teacher, convinced me that there was no higher calling on earth, and none with richer rewards, and none more valuable in the making of a society I would be proud to be a part of.” (Conroy p. 171)

I agree there is no higher calling on earth than being a teacher, and the work teachers do in the making of our society is still valuable.

We must be supportive of them in their work.

We owe it to our teachers to figure out how to stop the erosion of our families.

This is important, and we can’t delay in finding a solution.