By Dan Greenberg, Sylvania Education Association

There were many firsts at the recent OEA Representative Assembly:

• The first time a Representative Assembly was held at the Ohio State Fairgrounds
• The first time the assembly hall smelled a little like horses and other farm animals
• The first time that the RA concluded with a Commission on Student Success, to allow OEA members to discuss their ideas about the key components of high-quality public education

For me, the most important firsts came during the Legislative Committee’s Report, when two legislative items about “opt out” were proposed by delegates from the floor of the RA. Brittany Alexander and Mary Kennedy, two education advocates from Hilliard Schools, articulately explained why it is critical for OEA to take a stand on this issue, and delegates responded. The most spirited parts of the discussion were not about whether or not OEA should take a stand, but what was the clearest, most appropriate way to word the items.

This is a tricky subject.

Many teachers and parents support the “opt out” movement as a way to deal with the over-testing of students and the inappropriate use of test scores to rate teachers. However, it is difficult for the OEA to take a stand, advocating opt out, knowing that there are negative consequences for teachers and schools when students opt out. True, there are some safe harbor provisions in law right now, but those expire, and we can’t be sure what will happen when they do.

With the possibility of negative consequences in mind, delegates to previous representative assemblies have been reluctant to take a stance on opt out. There was a New Business Item passed last year, which directed OEA to lobby the state legislature to require the ODE to notify parents of their rights to refuse the tests, and the fact that the tests are not required for graduation. This was a good step, but New Business Items expire after a year, and the scope was somewhat limited.

This year, delegates took a different path. They proposed amendments to our Legislative Policies. Legislative policy does not expire after a year. The policies are also written in a manner that spells out what OEA supports and opposes.

The two items that were adopted regarding “opt out” were:

“OEA opposes sanctions and/or penalties against students, education professionals, schools and districts when parents exercise their rights to opt their children out of standardized testing.”

And …

“OEA supports protecting the rights of parents who choose to opt their children out of standardized testing and supports informing parents of the potential consequences under current law.”

As a parent, a teacher and an OEA member, I am happy to see these items adopted. Even though the state changes test names and the schedule for giving tests, the tests still are an unwelcome component of our classrooms. I have no doubt that parents across the state will opt their children out of tests this spring, and it’s imperative that OEA support these parents.   Taking a stance reinforces the fact that OEA is an organization that does not exist merely to negotiate teacher contracts. It’s an organization working to strengthen schools and advocate for children.

I am hopeful that, guided by these new Legislative Policies, OEA’s efforts to work with legislators will produce laws that support the rights of parents to opt their children out of standardized tests.

I am hopeful, as well, that these Legislative Policy “firsts,” will not be the last time OEA and Representative Assembly delegates take actions to combat the high stakes testing epidemic that plagues our schools.

By Julie Rine, Minerva Local Education Association

As the holiday break nears, I find myself wishing that everything was as easy to give a teacher as a plate filled with homemade cookies wrapped in Saran Wrap or a World’s Best Teacher mug filled with candy canes. Those gifts are always appreciated and any gesture of gratitude is welcomed. Having said that, if I had a direct line to the North Pole, here is the list I would give Santa for what every teacher deserves this year.

1. A never-ending supply of hand sanitizer, pencils, crayons, glue sticks, paper, tissues, and books: basically any material needed in our classrooms that always runs low and that we usually replenish using our own money.
2. Technology that helps rather than hinders, a server that never goes down, a fast internet connection that works all the time, and tech aides that are always available and happy to help.
3. Colleagues who collaborate with you, who share their best plans and laugh at the flops, who keep a positive attitude, who will cover your class while you dash to the bathroom, and who know when your level of frustration crosses over the line between needing a hug and needing a beer.
4. Administration who are supportive of all aspects of your teaching, who never hold meetings when an email would suffice, who respect your efforts and your time and your talents, and who understand the very basic fact that treating employees with value and respect will make for a positive workplace and a productive staff.
5. A school board who never looks at teachers as the enemy, who is responsible with the district’s finances and who gets creative during negotiations to do everything in its power to meet the needs of the staff both financially and otherwise.
6. Legislators who consider teachers professionals, who trust our judgment and our skills and our motives, who believe that we know what is best when it comes to educational practice. A government that will quit changing policies and practices every other year and making us jump through hoops that take away time from our students, and politicians who are driven by improving the lives of our students rather than by making more money for themselves.
7. Parents who communicate with us just the right amount, who don’t hover over their kids and question our every move, but who work with us as partners in helping their children develop and learn lessons, even if some are learned the hard way.
8. No more high-stakes testing for kids or teachers, no more changing required tests every year, no more days out of the classroom to learn what’s on the tests or how to administer the tests, and no more kids crying, sleeping, sighing, or otherwise shutting down during tests that do little to measure their true knowledge or growth.
9. Students who have plenty to eat and who come to school every day, who have a stable home life with at least one adult who encourages and praises them but holds them accountable for their actions, who have a thirst for knowledge, who see the importance of our lessons, who follow directions the first time, who believe in themselves, who put forth a full effort, and who treat us and each other with respect.
10. Family and friends who are quiet when you need to work at home and who drag you away from the pile of papers and plans when you need to stop working and start living.
11. A medical kit in your classroom that becomes dusty from non-use, a run-hide-fight plan that becomes obsolete, a day when we don’t have to think about what could be used as weapons in our classroom and where we could hide children, because a classroom should have learning tools, not weapons, and children who flourish rather than cower.
12. A society filled with people who believe we should be richly supported and compensated for the very important work we do, and who never, EVER say “It must be nice to have summers off.”
13. A full day (okay, a week, since this is a fantasy list, after all) without hearing any of the following right in the middle of a lesson: “Can I go to the bathroom?”, “Can I get a drink?”, “Is this going to be on the test?”, “I was absent yesterday, did I miss anything?”, “What page are we on?”, “Can I borrow a pencil?”, “How do we do this again?”, or “How many points is this worth?”
14. Shoes that are stylish yet comfortable, room temperatures to accommodate your hot flashes and cold spells, 75% off sales when you need school clothes, weekly full-body massages, money in the budget to attend professional conferences that renew your passion and reinvigorate your practice, sick days when your lesson plans are already sub-compatible, snow days when you most need a day off, routine when you need comfort and change when you need refreshed.
15. And because none of the above is likely to happen, most of all I wish for patience, energy, and love, in unparalleled amounts and in constant supply. Without these, this job is nearly impossible to do well, and most of us would sacrifice all the actual gifts we will receive this season if we could make the lives of our students such that their dreams become a reality.

Enjoy your break. You’ve earned it.

By Julie Rine, Minerva Local Education Association

Last week was a hard week. A really, really hard week. I caught kids cheating on a vocabulary quiz. Interim reports were due and many of my juniors have Fs in my class. An assignment was due that roughly 20% of my students did not turn in. Another class turned in essays with so many mistakes in areas we had gone over in-depth, I thought they might be doing it on purpose as a joke. All twenty of the pencils I make available for kids to borrow (bright pink with “Justin Bieber is my BAE” imprinted on them, to discourage “accidentally” taking one out of my room) went missing. All twenty, gone. Overnight.

I felt disrespected and as if nothing I said or did or planned or prayed made one bit of difference to any of my students.

I told myself that I needed to care less. That this is just a job, and I can’t allow the minor setbacks to affect me so deeply. I am not John Keating from Dead Poets Society, much as I would like to be; I am a real-world teacher of real kids, and what happens in my classroom is not what happens on a Hollywood-classroom movie set.

I found myself thinking about advice I was given my first year of teaching from a veteran educator. He found me in my classroom after school one day crying. We were only a month into the school year, and over half of the students in my reading class had Fs. I felt like a fraud, like I was a failure myself, incapable of teaching anything to anyone effectively. I can’t remember his name, but I can still picture him standing in my doorway, a graying beard on his face and a smoker’s rasp in his voice, as he said, “Honey, listen. It’s a war. And you are a nurse on the battlefield. There are bodies everywhere, and some of them are too far gone to help. You can’t save everyone; you have to step over some to get to the ones you can save. Step over those kids and concentrate on the ones you can really help.”

I nodded at him, but inside, I was horrified. The 23 year-old me was sure that I could save them all; I just had to figure out how. Their grades in my class were in my control. After all, I was the teacher.

The definitely-older and hopefully-wiser me now knows that there is not much I truly control in my classroom. I can plan lessons and write assessments, and more often, revise plans and assessments. I can try to inspire my students, try to help them see the value of education, the relevance of what I teach, and yes, even the importance of preparing for those awful state tests. But just as I make choices and decisions both as I plan and on the fly, my students make choices.

And sometimes they choose to cheat. Sometimes they choose not to turn in assignments, or not to study for a test. Sometimes they choose to wait until the last minute to work on an essay. And apparently, sometimes they choose to take 20 hot pink Justin Bieber pencils.

This doesn’t make them bad kids. It makes them typical teenagers who sometimes make bad choices.

But I’m not ready to step over any kids just yet. If they are lying on the battlefield and deemed by some to be “too far gone”, at some point they were injured. Something happened to put them in that position, and most likely, lots of people in their lives have stepped over them. I can’t be just one more person to walk away from them in favor of easier cases. I’m experienced enough to know that I can’t save all of them, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try. Some of my students have solid home lives with lots of support, yet they make occasional bad decisions. Some of my students have a lot of history and a lot of pain to overcome, and they bring those burdens to school with them. They all deserve my attention and my best efforts. Maybe I can’t reach them all on the same day. Today I might give my attention to the girl crying in the bathroom, but tomorrow, I will be back for the kid who needs help writing a thesis statement. The triage of teaching isn’t about who we give up on and who we still treat; it’s about choosing our battles, but never giving up the fight. It’s about doing our best to help all of our kids, no matter how many other people have stepped over them, no matter how much they’re hurting, and no matter what choices they make that in turn make our jobs harder.

There’s a lot I can’t control at school, and that gets frustrating. I get angry. I get disappointed. I get tired. But that all comes from caring, and when I stop caring, it’s time to get out. I take things too personally sometimes, and I forget that the 100+ people I spend every day with are still growing and learning, and becoming an adult is not an easy process. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t entirely mastered it myself. I may not always like my students’ choices, but I’ll stay in the battlefield. Thanksgiving is coming, and I will use that long weekend to count my blessings, among them those crazy kids who drive me nuts. I will restock my arsenal of physical and emotional supplies, and next week, I’ll be ready to fight again.

By Julie Rine, Minerva Local Education Association

Knowing when to move on with a lesson and when to slow down, when to allow a teachable moment to blossom even though it will mess up your lesson plans for the rest of the week, or when to give a kid a break and when to hold the line: this is the art of teaching.

But teaching is also a science, and we all experiment in our classrooms. Good teachers are constantly changing how we approach our practice of teaching, sometimes to keep the subject material fresh for us, sometimes to prepare our kids for a standardized test…but always, ALWAYS, to improve the education our kids are getting.

Sometimes those little experiments with a new method or a new resource garner great success, and we congratulate ourselves for our forward thinking and our willingness to try something different.

Sometimes those little experiments fail. Epically.

Last spring, I decided to teach a new book to my honors sophomores. I had always wanted to try reading a book for the first time with my students, so I did. After I read the first assigned selection, I had to force myself not to read ahead. I could not wait to get to school and talk about it. When class started, I said, “Didn’t you just love it? Where do you want to start our discussion?” I was met with disdain. They hated it. In fact, one of those students, for an essay contest we entered this fall, wrote an essay entitled “The Book We Won’t Forget”. He recounted this failed experiment with the book that was “revolting” and will “haunt” the students for the rest of their lives. The experiment certainly did not go as planned, but no one was too damaged, despite his hyperbolic essay.

The government experiments, too, particularly in public education, where the desire for improvement drives new policies and laws. But the difference between teachers’ experiments in the classroom and the state’s experiments is that we know our kids. We conduct safe experiments, where even the epic failures provide a lesson and where no real damage is done. If we have any concerns that something we want to try could hurt our kids, we don’t do it. Because to teachers, the kids come first.

To Ohio’s educational leaders, however, kids don’t come first. Charter schools continue to take money away from other public schools, despite documented corruption (David Hansen’s data-scrubbing) and continued research that shows students in traditional public schools outperform charter school students on standardized tests. In fact, a recent study showed kids in online charter schools lost nearly a half a year in reading, and 180 days in math. Writer Lindsey Layton, in her coverage of the study, pointed out that “it is literally as if the kid did not go to school for an entire year.”^[1] And our Ohio Department of Education, despite all this, just received $71 million to dole out to charter schools. ^[2] There is some hope in the fact that the federal government realized how foolish it is to give that amount of money to a scandal-ridden charter school system; earlier this month, the US Department of Education wrote to Superintendent Ross to say it was adding several stipulations that must be met before Ohio’s Department of Education will see any of that money.^[3] In spite of this rare moment of sanity in the world of charter school news, it seems clear to me that the charter school experiment, which is working in some other states, is failing miserably in Ohio.

Perhaps the greatest “experiment” being conducted now is the Youngstown Experiment, er, I mean Plan. A Columbus judge recently shot down an injunction which would have stopped a CEO, who is not even required to have a background in education, from taking over the district. This CEO “will have broad authority including the power to reopen contracts, hire and fire administrators and turn failing schools over to charter or other outside operators.”^[4]

I am not the only one who sees a somewhat suspicious connection between these two experiments; a recent Cleveland.com editorial implies that the lack of legislative debate on the Youngstown Plan exists because “the Kasich administration’s ultimate goal may be to convert the Youngstown district’s schools into charter schools.”^[5] Make no mistake; any public school could be subjected to a similar plan. One failing report card grade and a takeover could be imminent. I don’t believe for a minute that Youngstown is the only school district Kasich would like to see become a charter school; after all, for-profit charter schools make money, and money funds campaigns.

My students knew they were part of an experiment. But our students have no idea that they are subjects in a wide-spread state experiment, an experiment that may do irreparable harm to them. We have to be their voice. We have to pay attention to what our state’s leaders are doing with education in Ohio. We have to bombard social media, write letters to our legislators, and protest loudly that it is not acceptable for our kids to be used in this way. Otherwise, we will be just like the Michigan fan whose horrified “What-just-happened?” face was plastered all over social media after Michigan lost in spectacular fashion to Michigan State earlier this year. As Buckeyes, we love that. But as teachers, we can’t afford to wear that face. We can’t allow ourselves to be shocked at the loss public education will suffer if we allow the state’s experiments on our students to go unchecked. We must unite to stop the mad scientists.

^[1] “Study on online charter schools: ‘It is literally as if the kid did …” 2015. 8 Nov. 2015 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/31/study-on-online-charter-schools-it-is-literally-as-if-the-kid-did-not-go-to-school-for-an-entire-year/>

^[2] “Ohio wins $71 million charter school expansion grant …” 2015. 19 Oct. 2015 <http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/10/ohio_wins_71_million_charter_school_expansion_grant_drawing_pride_and_distrust.html>

^[3] “Ohio has some explaining to do before receiving $71 million …” 2015. 8 Nov. 2015 <http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/11/ohio_has_some_explaining_to_do.html>

^[4] “Youngstown School Board plans appeal of judge’s ruling.” 2015. 19 Oct. 2015 <http://www.vindy.com/news/2015/oct/14/youngstown-plan-to-proceed/>

^[5] “The charter school dimension of Ohio’s stealth heist of Youngstown schools: editorial.” 2015. 19 Oct. 2015 <http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/10/more_troubling_developments_in.html>

By Julie Rine, Minerva Local Education Association

I can’t remember a time when teaching hasn’t been part of my story, when I didn’t answer, “Be a teacher” to the ubiquitous question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Although I loved to read, it wasn’t until 7th grade, when I had Joyce Schiff for English, that I decided what I wanted to teach. Many other teachers also influenced me along the way. I considered becoming a music teacher after singing in Linda Boyd’s choir and I toyed with teaching history after taking Paul Tefft’s government class, but my true desire was to teach literature, the classic stories of the past and present.

It didn’t take me long to realize that my little fantasy about discussing great literature with kids all day was far from reality. Teaching English in today’s world is less about reading and discussing good stories than it is about preparing for different types of test questions and learning how to pace oneself when reading a nonfiction passage on a usually terribly outdated and irrelevant topic in a certain amount of time. A colleague recently bemoaned the fact that she feels torn between preparing her students for real life and preparing them for the standardized tests. Any good teacher knows that struggle.

In addition to teaching content and preparing kids for mandated tests, educators now have to crunch data, keep up with changing legislation, and generally be prepared on any given day to prove to politicians that we are not doing irreparable damage to the youth of America.

Many high-profile teachers have had enough. They have decided to serve kids in other ways. Their resignations have made national news and their eloquent explanations for their decision to leave the profession have gone viral. So why do those of us who stay in the classroom do it?

I do it because I want my students to know that they are more than a test score, more than a box on a spreadsheet. I teach because some of my students have home lives that are so foreign to my own experience that it still seems a miracle to me when they show up to school and put any effort into my class at all. I want them to know, there is an adult who cares about them, who believes in them, who celebrates their victories, and who hurts over their failures. I want them to know that while I can’t change the situation they go home to, I can help them forge a path out of their past and into a future where they will have more control over the kind of life they live.

I teach because I love a good challenge. I teach because overcoming the constant changes in education is empowering. I teach because there is no other high in this world like seeing a student who didn’t believe in himself, achieve a success beyond my highest expectations. I teach because I work with some of the hardest-working, most passionate people in the world. I teach for the sense of camaraderie that happens when good teachers problem-solve together.

I teach because this job is never boring. How many people, other than teachers, show up to work on a cold winter’s day and are greeted by a 6-foot tall, anatomically correct snow penis in front of their place of work?

I once read a poem written by a shy, quiet girl who wrote about dreaming of a boy’s “sweet genital kisses”. (She meant “gentle”). And then there’s the essay many years ago about what we should put in a time capsule in the year 2000 so people in the future will know what we did for fun. The answer? “Compacted dicks”. Fifteen years later, compact disks are becoming obsolete, but I will never forget that answer! I teach because when you spend your days with kids, there is always humor.

Teaching gives me something to laugh about, cry about, write about, and pray about. I teach because I can’t imagine working this hard for a job that isn’t going to have an impact on society.

The thanks I get from my students, in letters and emails and Facebook posts, is worth more than a fat paycheck for a job where I don’t make a difference. I teach because Joyce Schiff, Linda Boyd, and Paul Tefft each in their own way made me believe that I could do anything I wanted, and what I wanted was to be like them, to have both passion for content and compassion for kids.

I stay in education because it’s who I am, it’s an integral part of my story. I teach because when I walk into my classroom each day and see the empty desks, I know that those desks will soon be filled with kids whose stories are still unfolding. I teach because the stories of my students are worth knowing.

I can only speak for myself. We each have our own story, the narrative of who we are, what we believe, what we do, and why we do it.

What’s your story? Send us an image that expresses why you do it.

Registration Open for Focus Groups

The Ohio Department of Education is seeking your feedback on a draft of the revised Ohio Technology Learning Standards. Feedback will be used to refine the draft document for review and adoption by the State Board of Education. K–12 teachers, curriculum directors and administrators representing all content areas are invited.

Focus Group Regions and Meeting Dates:

• Gallia-Vinton ESC: 10/19/15, 12:00-4:00
• Southern Ohio ESC: 11/5/15, 12:00-4:00
• Wood County ESC: 11/9/15, 12:00-4:00
• Mahoning County ESC: 11/12/15, 12:00-4:00
• Ohio Dept. of Agriculture (Central Ohio): 11/16/15, 8:30-12:30

Click on the link below for more information and to register in STARS (keyword: technology) – https://safe.ode.state.oh.us/portal