by: Ji Ho (Geo) Yang, PHD Candidate at the University of Washington
Seattle Public Schools is grappling with budget deficits like many other districts across the country. These budgeting issues are connected to inflation and the end of COVID-19 federal funding, as well as contending with the Trump administration and its aim of dismantling public education. For some districts, poor management from within is a key issue. In SPS, this culminated in a messy process of trying to close schools, which did not happen. The decision to continue without a major rehaul of resourcing, such as school closure, does mean that resources will be even more stretched across schools in SPS. Stretching limited resources has implications for educational equity, meaning schools will have fewer resources to support and meet student needs. While it may appear that all students will be affected uniformly by limited resources in schools, those with greater economic and social means will be better able to weather and succeed under resource scarcity. This essentially worsens the state of educational equity. The burden of resource scarcity will be shouldered primarily by those furthest away from educational equity and justice.
As I am wading through my dissertation, I noticed how issues that came up in recruiting participants for my research are so reflective of resourcing issues that SPS is experiencing and will continue to deal with. As local stakeholders in SPS, teachers in my study have been on the frontline, managing limited resources to best serve and meet the needs of their students. Teachers striving to transform their school community by caring for students (in the case of my study, predominantly Black students and families) often put their livelihood via health, emotions, personal resources, etc., on the line. Shared here are some narratives that came up during my research’s recruitment and onboarding process.
As with most professions, teachers’ pay has not responsively matched the cost of living over time, let alone inflation issues today (this isn’t even considering the growing list of teacher responsibilities under limiting resourcing). Like other professions, many teachers have to use their income to pay off immense student loans that allow them to enter the teaching profession in the first place. Some teachers are managing secondary jobs to help support their income, personal responsibilities, and living. This speaks to how teachers are positioned economically in society and how they are evermore vulnerable to economic swings such as inflation. However, resourcing is far more complicated and deep than just pay and money. The equity issues of school resources also connect to the history and place of a school community and the well-being of the local stakeholders that make up our schools.
Many teachers are taking additional responsibilities to support their schools in dealing with resource scarcity and limitations. For example, one school site in my study is dealing with a teacher shortage, where they are having trouble filling vacant positions. These positions were previously occupied by teachers who have taught there for multiple generations. This school is unique in that it is embedded in the local community, where generations of families in the community have attended the school, including staff’s families. Much of the staff at this school have worked there for multiple generations, which means they have so much relational and institutional knowledge about the school, community, and local stakeholders. This is extremely hard to replace, let alone the effect of these teachers leaving. Without these vacant positions filled, the school had to employ substitute teachers in the meantime. Having substitute teachers fill those positions in a long-term fashion not only disrupts the learning and classroom environment for the students in those classes but also the learning and environment of the larger school. Much of this is due to the lack of a strong classroom environment, which is difficult for a substitute teacher to establish and maintain. Without a cohesive classroom environment that includes academic and social expectations, accountability amongst students, and socio-emotional values, students in classes without a full-time teacher are often operating in a wild west environment.
In order to support their colleagues and the students of their school more broadly, teachers have taken responsibility for teaching those vacant classrooms at the expense of their own capacities. These teachers are taking on additional workload by planning lessons for classes and grades for other classes besides their own, assessing and grading a whole extra set of classes, and managing student needs across their own classes and the vacant classes. For these teachers, it is in their sense of educational justice that students should be served in schools regardless of teacher positions, which includes supporting students in those vacant classrooms directly as well as supporting other students by helping to cultivate positive and productive learning environments in those vacated classrooms. However, this sacrifice has tremendous effects on teachers. Not only are teachers’ capacity at its brink, but these teachers taking the responsibility to support their school and students are having their wellbeing and health negatively affected.
Because of the conditions in schools and the tremendous demand on teachers, many have drawn clear boundaries regarding their working and personal lives. These boundaries include how much they work on weeknights and weekends, working in afterschool programming, and participating in my research. Even before interviewing teachers and analyzing anything, so much has been said and put on the table just from the recruitment process for my study. Resource needs are so unique across schools, even if they are very similar, such as their demographics and neighborhoods. For one school, workload and adequate resourcing (so teachers do not have to resource their classroom from their pockets) were important, while another school had resourcing issues related to filling in positions that represent relational and institutional knowledge (thus expertise). These are key issues present in Black urban schools, where additional funding sources such as robust PTA fundraising are unavailable and the importance of relational and institutional knowledge formed over multiple generations is more critical. Like in SPS, where resourcing was ultimately mismanaged and not overhauled, the burden will be disproportionately shouldered by school communities and local stakeholders furthest from educational equity and justice.
About: this blog series will tie learnings and findings from my dissertation research to issues and topics in education that are affecting SE Seattle, Seattle, and the educational landscape more broadly in the U.S. For me, this is important both for grounding and making my research relevant to what is happening today in our children’s lives and to contend with what is happening to our educational system in a second Trump administration.
Also, this blog series will chronicle my dissertation research, including the analysis process of my data and findings. These blogs will serve as memos and reflections of my research, and will help me check my positionality in researching Black urban schools, teachers’ experiences, and issues of school resources and race. “Checking my positionality” means engaging in self-reflection in order to make sure I acknowledge and respond to my power, privilege, and other aspects of my identity. My research explores how resourcing needs and resource management reflect racialization within schools. How do the ways resources are identified, used, and valued reflect how school practices and structures develop racial meanings and impact? Check out SESEC’s blog post from May 2024 titled “Teachers and Race: The Cultural Schemas Behind Resource Management”, which provides an overview of what my dissertation research is about.