Welcome back to school & the dystopian reality of underfunding education
Trump’s hands-off vision for education is already alive and well in Alaska
Last week, when SkyNet I mean Starlink founder Elon Musk interviewed Donald Trump—whose egregious receipts run so long I couldn’t decide which to pick so I won’t—the presidential candidate felon announced, “I want to close up the Department of Education. Move education back to the states.”
I live in Alaska, where the governor (a yuge Trump fan) has flat-funded education for several years. Since teachers and students returned to school this week, let’s review how it’s going and imagine how we’d fare if we removed all federal oversight, as the governor and #45 desire.
For reference, I’m a part-time Spanish teacher and parent to two kids, one of whom has autism.
Day #0, Sunday:
The following video explains re-entry for teachers better than I ever could.
Day #1, Monday:
Check email. Still don’t know what my teaching schedule is.
Find out my daughter has no spec-ed teacher and will again be in a class of 31. My son didn’t get the teacher I requested and is in classes of 35-40. Gee, it’s almost like defunding education on the state level was bad!
Clean my house, the one thing I can control. Wake up in the middle of the night to heart arrhythmia. Consider going to the ER. But….. so….. tired…..
Day #2, Tuesday:
Wake up. Heart still beating funky, but I’m so tired I drink coffee anyway. Heart gets all skibbity again.
Take a shower. Another big clump of hair falls out.
Walk into my new school, which has moved to the building where I taught before the pandemic made me quit so I could care for my young children. Due to a $9 million budget shortfall, Juneau School District consolidated both middle and high schools over the summer. Montessori, where I teach, was not part of consolidation but also had to move due to the reshuffling.
My school in my old school building resembles a refugee camp of school furniture. I mosey past hundreds of orphan tables, bookshelves, desks, chairs, and sofas. The entire commons is full of office furniture, even though we’re only one day out from school starting. !!!!!!!!
Classrooms don’t look much better. Boxes everywhere. Nothing on the walls. I wonder how teachers will be ready for the first day of school.
Oh yeah, ON UNPAID TIME WITH THEIR OWN MONEY. In this country, somehow, this has become the expectation.
I walk by classrooms and overhear the following:
“Oh, those? Those are hydroponic growers. The plan is to grow weed in them so we can take the students to Paris. Or Vegas, which also has an Eiffel Tower.”
When you teach in the leaky, slow-drowning boat of the Juneau School district, you must have a dark, twisted sense of humor.
Day #3, Wednesday:
Tour my son’s new middle school, which used to be a high school. See all my old colleagues in new classrooms that are still piled full of boxes. Feel sad I no longer work with them because they’re wonderful people, but grateful that I don’t have to teach classes of 35-40 anymore.
Beg the assistant principal who used to be my assistant principal to transfer my kid into my preferred teacher’s class even though she already has 37 kids in her class. She says okay. Thank her profusely. Put “make cookies” on the list.
Go to my daughter’s school and meet with her new teacher. Run down the list of all the ways my daughter is amazing but high-needs due to her autism. Too bad her favorite class, the Gifted and Talented program, got axed. Hopefully they’ll find a spec-ed ed teacher soon.
Her teacher, who is also wonderful, tells me that even though elementary absorbed sixth grade due to consolidation, they’ve hired no new teachers. Now every class in elementary is 31 plus. A nearby elementary is still short four classroom teachers.
Get my kids’ school stuff and breakfasts and lunches ready for tomorrow. Pray that my son won’t be too overwhelmed in a huge middle school that will now house as many students as the old high school.
Dear God, thank you for teachers for working miracles. Thank you for ALL the helpers. Thank you for soap, the dishwasher, washing machine, and my mom, who brought me flowers because I was stressed.
Gratitude practice makes me feel better. I'm not sure why, but somehow, listing what I’m grateful for makes me feel like I’m taking back some control.
Day #4, Thursday:
Not the worst start to a first day of school. Didn’t even spill coffee on my pants before first day teaching this time! Even got to snap a few pics of my kids, who clearly could not be more thrilled to return to school.
Walk my daughter into school. SO MANY PARENTS WALKING THEIR KIDS INTO SCHOOL! So many parents, both happy and terrified, praying that the first day of rest of their kids’ year will go well. I choke back the tears.
Walk to the car, eyes leaking. Remember that tears are the soul’s way of cleansing itself.
Drive to my son’s school. Thirty minutes to kill; we walk the puppy in the sunshine.
Say, “Have a great day!” to my son, who hates crowds, as he disappears into the crowd. Pray some more.
Comfort puppy who is now whining like a little b!tch, because that’s literally what she is. She and me both. Whining, emotional little b!tches. We go home and eat our feelings. Pretty good day so far.
Realize my stomach is sore from holding still while the world around me dissolves into chaos.
My mom sends me the lyrics to a Khalil Gibran song that her brilliant, autistic cousin recited to her by memory a couple of weeks ago:
Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
Pick up daughter from school. Popsicle is smeared all over her mouth. She gives me a thumbs up.
Pick up my son. Says his day “sucked.” Too many kids in his classes, and no friends due to so many new students. He says that one wing has 400 students alone. One of his friends wants to switch to Montessori. Another wants to be homeschooled. Another wants to move to Finland.
Reportedly, high school was even worse. One of my friend’s kids was in a class of 50. Teachers are setting up 5-6 stools in the back of the rooms because there are not enough desks. The hallways are shoulder-to-shoulder. Almost every kid is late to class. The fire marshal had to come in to assess the class sizes. There was not enough parking, so students parked along the street, then got ticketed for parking in the bike lane.
Teachers keep working miracles. Students keep learning resilience. Parents picking up the pieces. What will the house of tomorrow hold?
Day #5, Friday:
Drop off kids at schools, and the puppy at my mom’s because it’s too warm to leave her in the car. I return to my school for the first day with students; orphan furniture has been moved to the gym. Nothing on the walls of the classrooms. My colleague bemoans that he’ll have to come in during the weekend to unpack and set up. Gratefully, I’m too part-time to get my own room. I’ve moved classrooms 5 times, and never once have I been compensated for all the extra time it took to pack, unpack, and decorate.
I meet my students; we chat and crack jokes. They are full of life, wanting to please and learn, just like puppies.
I leave school, fetch the puppy, give her a bath after she rolls in dead fish on the beach, and pick up my daughter at school. Puppy is a celebrity—all the kids want to pet her. They joke that they want her “paw-tograph.”
Pick up my son. He’s excited to learn the trumpet and xylophone. He says he’s the only seventh grader in ninth-grade algebra.
I look up the Khalil Gibran poem and read the rest:
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite And he bends you with his might That his arrows may go swift and far Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness For even as he loves the arrow that flies So he loves also the bow that is stable
Who knows what the house of tomorrow will hold, but today, we are glad.
Thank you, Living Arrows. Thank you, Stable Bows.
Thank you, tomorrows.
Thank YOU for reading.
Xo, Summer
Summer Koester: Your boy and girl are blessed with a wise, insightful and, most of all, caring, loving mom. That comes out very clearly, not least from the Khalil Gibran poem.
Education— Destroy, which seems to be the prevailing way in the GOP — destroy, destroy. In this case, destroy education. That way all are receptive to the GOP.
One of the things I love about your writing: you manage to be critical and poignant at once, and also funny. I sincerely hope Alaskans will demand more for kids and teachers...I am feeling hopeful that we are shifting (in the federal election) towards believing we can afford to be humane towards American citizens. We shall see. Sending love and good thoughts to you. Thank you as always for your important work.