A Vague Threat

Just before the 2021 Holiday Break, the school district in which I teach sent a letter to our families, letting them them know about “a rumor of a vague threat” against our schools. Our district was not alone; many schools across the state had similar situations taking shape. I should be shook by the thought of someone deliberately terrorizing a group of school children and their teachers. Instead, I find myself numb as I mentally review the A.L.I.C.E. plan I have practiced for years with my students. Set the night lock, barricade the door, and listen for some indication of the intruder’s location. I think about the soup cans in the file cabinet’s bottom drawer that students may throw at a possible intruder and the long-range wasp spray in my desk drawer meant to spray into the intruder’s eyes from a distance.

Fortunately, the day of the “vague threat” came and went. At the end of that day before break, students hefted their overstuffed backpacks onto their shoulders, smiled widely at me, and shouted gleefully, “See you next year!” as they headed out for a two week break. I smiled back and exhaled. We’d made it! Now we’ve been on break for over a week, yet the phrasing “vague threat” from our school’s message will not let go of me. I think the wording has a hold on me for a reason. You see, teachers have been working under “a vague threat” for longer than some may fully understand.

Long before the uncertainty of the pandemic, teacher morale and, thus, the retention of a quality teaching staff was threatened by an evaluation system that requires hours of additional work to provide evidence of teacher effectiveness. The evaluation scores are used to rank teachers for lay-offs. As a participant in this system, ranked teacher evaluations have proven demoralizing, promoting a competitve work culture instead of the collaborative spirit so imperative for the work of a healthy school community. A school community needs to focus all of its attention on the well-being and growth of its students, not on the self-promotion of individual teachers. The vague threat of destroying public education lurks in this misguided use of an evaluation tool.

Looming dread also plagues the world of education as the state legislature threatens it will not fund our schools with the allocated taxes, paid by our residents, unless their children perform well on the mandated standardized testing. As a result of this threat, classroom teachers are encouraged (often required) to adapt instruction so that it “looks more like the test.” Resources are purchased from publishing companies to insure every teacher covers the priority standards and closely aligns to the test in the same, uniform way. This threat by legislature strips teachers of their autonomy, hindering the development of rich, creative learning experiences crafted by the true artists of instruction. The gifts and skills of a highly degreed teaching staff lie fallow.

Again, I feel the “vague threat” acutely when talking to a neighbor whose child goes to one of the elementary schools in the community where I teach. While having a neighborly chat about her son’s teacher for the school year, she tells me how she was not going to have her son in a particular teacher’s class because she’s heard that teacher is unkind. I nod, hoping the conversation will head in a different direction soon. But it does not as she adds, “I’d get that teacher fired if she was mean to my son.” I raise my eyebrows and let her hypothetical threat hang in the air. Later, I mull the vignette over and wonder about the loss of civilty.

So, the public may rightfully worry about the spread of COVID and the possibility of school violence as we head back to school in just a few days. So do I.

That said, the “vague threat” that looms over public education, in my opinion, encompasses more than a virus or school security.