As I was scrolling through X (Formerly known as Twitter) the other day, I ran across the below meme and as our teachers prepare for the coming school year, the timing could be better.
The poster did not provide any commentary, which leaves the interpretation to the viewer. Some will point to the fact that the school systems provide the basics, others will argue that the meme shows that cuts to public education result in employees trying to close a shortfall in funding.
While I disagree with the insinuation that the public schools do not provide anything for the classroom, but I would rather focus on how much teachers do for their students that is out of scheduled hours and often out of their own family’s budget.
First, however, it’s important to know that in many schools the Parent Teacher Student Organization or PTSO often will try to provide the schools and/or teachers with economic support to defray at least some of the costs not covered by the school system budget.
Even though the first days of preplanning are still weeks away and the first day students arrive slightly later than that, teachers across Fayette and Coweta counties are using some of these last days of summer to prepare for the coming year.
This morning, my wife who is entering her thirty-first year as a teacher went to her school to get her classroom ready for a new school year. Many other teachers are doing the same. As the meme suggests, decorations and bulletin boards take time and money. These efforts by our teachers to make their rooms inviting and comfortable spaces for our children are very much appreciated.
Teachers also use this down time to plan lessons and activities for the coming school year so that they can focus their attention on getting to know their new group of students. Other teachers will use some of their break to get more knowledge or training to better serve their students, sometimes at their own expense and often without pay.
Some will argue that teachers have plenty of time to do all of this with their “planning days” which are the days when teachers are back to school before students are. However, between meetings mandated by the central office and then those for their school, there is little to set up the classroom or to do planning without working outside of the regular school day.
Others will argue that the school budgets provide everything that is necessary, and the “extras” provided by teachers such as door decorations or other things intended to make a classroom less sterile, are nice but unneeded. I disagree.
As I think way back to my days in school, we had these things and often at least subsidized by the school. Today, personnel costs are coming close to eclipsing ninety percent of the budget and other costs have fallen off the budget.
My goal in raising this reality is not to argue for change but rather recognition of these very special people who serve our community’s children. Thank you, teachers and administrators, have a great school year.