The last time I posted, Chicago teachers had just approved a strike if deemed necessary to get a fair contract for teachers and students. This morning, I started this post from the picket line where teachers have been since Thursday taking a stand for equity in Chicago Public Schools.
For those who are wondering what is at stake or believe that teachers are just being “greedy,” let me share a day in my life….
I teach at a school on the southeast side of the city. We are a small neighborhood school with an enrollment of slightly more than 300 students in grades PK-8. Almost 100% of my students receive free or reduced lunch. I have students who live in foster care along with students who are being raised by somebody other than a biological parent for various reasons. As the case manager for my school, I am in charge of the entire special education department, which serves approximately 45 students across all grade levels. We have been short a special education teacher since the start of the school year, along with being down two classroom assistant positions. Sometimes we have substitutes for those positions, other times we don’t. Regardless of the staffing, I am still responsible for ensuring that my students receive the services listed in their Individual Education Plans (IEPs). There has been a shortage of special education teachers in CPS for quite some time, but there is nothing in the contract outlining a plan for how to address that. There is an even greater shortage of classroom assistants because the starting wage is too low for people to survive off of, even though a bachelor’s degree is required for the position. I spend my days trying to provide services to as many students as I can while at the same time juggling all the responsibilities of case management: scheduling all IEP meetings (plus attending them), writing IEPs, meeting with other special education teachers, collaborating with general education teachers, and more.
Meanwhile, my coworkers in the general education classrooms are putting forth their best efforts to teach their students, often without the support of the classroom assistants they should have. Furthermore, they are teaching groups of thirty plus students at a time. Be honest – how is a teacher supposed to provide quality, rigorous instruction to thirty-one 3rd graders, thirty-four 4th graders, or thirty-one 7th graders at a time….with no assistance? Because those are the real numbers for those groups of students at my school.
Furthermore, let’s hope that none of our 300-plus students have a nursing emergency, unless it happens on the one day a week the nurse is scheduled at my school. I have one student on my caseload with epilepsy and another student who has a shunt from her brain to her abdomen area. Both of them have a lengthy list of precautions and advisories that need to be followed. We have students with asthma and others with allergies. There recently was a school in my network where a student died from an asthma attack. Every day, teachers are being asked to wear the hat of a medical professional on top of their many other responsibilities.
As if that wasn’t enough of a load to carry, the majority of schools on the south side do not have a full-time social worker. My students are confronted by a whole world of problems that many of us know nothing about: gangs, gun violence, drug and alcohol abuse, absentee parents, abuse… the trauma that my students suffer is heart-breaking. Yet, our school (along with most of the schools on the south side) only has a social worker on site one day a week. To add insult to injury, because of overcrowded caseloads, the social worker only has time to see the students with IEPs who have social work listed as a service.
The day before the strike, I was sitting with one of my 6th grade students. He had asked what a strike was, so I explained the concept and also what exactly teachers were asking for. He didn’t know what a social worker was, so when I explained that it was someone who the kids would be able to talk to about their problems, his words really hit me. He said that he thought that would be a good thing because “there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens in our neighborhoods, Ms. Frey, and it’s hard for us to come in here and focus on learning.” Out of the mouths of babes….
That is what I am fighting for. Please support us in our fight to get our students the services they need to be successful. If we are truly committed to decreasing violence in this city, then we must be committed to providing the services our kids need in order to get the education they deserve.
Words from the Long Run 