Think back to the beginning of September 2022. School was delayed for a total of five days as Seattle Public School (SPS) teachers went on strike due to salary issues and a lack of support for students. Today, many still believe those issues haven’t been resolved.
Junior Jasper Thomas sees these challenges firsthand, particularly through his mother, a teacher at John Rogers Elementary.
“A lot of teachers, you hear it everywhere, saying [with] bigger class sizes, it can get hard to give individual students attention they need, and have the resources to help them grow,” Thomas said.
Thomas would like to do something to fix the issue.
Bigger classes not only increase the workload for teachers, but also make school more difficult for students. With bigger classes, teachers have fewer chances to work individually with students, and fewer opportunities to give students the resources they need.
“Not all students can just sit there in class and be a part of the group and listen and learn. A lot of students need individual attention,” Thomas said.
The issue caught Thomas’ attention when he saw a social media post about the SPS superintendent’s $400,000 annual salary. “I thought that was awful,” he said.
Thomas continued to look into the SPS budget, and the SPS budget cuts. Through his research, Thomas found that schools in our district receive very little funding. Without proper funding, schools are often understaffed, or have insufficient support for teachers and students.
At Nathan Hale, these challenges are evident. Rising class sizes and fewer staff members, limit opportunities for students to receive additional help. Thomas credits the issues teachers are facing to district wide budget cuts, and says that these can especially be seen at Hale.
“The social studies program at Hale has taken a big hit. 10th grade social studies is now only semester long,” Thomas said. “We’re down to five social studies teachers in the entire school, and Ms. Volkman is the only social studies teacher for tenth grade.”
Social studies teacher Kristina Volkman believes that SPS is taking more control of the curriculum to ensure that kids across the district are having similar experiences and lessons.
“On one hand, that may be perceived as support, maybe it is support for a lot of teachers, to have that curriculum created,” Volkman said. “For other teachers, it feels like they’re being hamstrung. Like we’re not allowed to have creativity, we’re not allowed to have control of the content in our own classes.”
“I think that the district is really interested in creating a bunch of efficiency,” said Mike Renes, another social studies teacher Mike Renes said at Hale. Renes has previously worked as an administrator in higher education, and says that he can understand the need for that efficiency.
However, that efficiency can create uniformity across the district. Because itour district is so large, uniformity isn’t always goodthe best thing for students.
“I think that that’s probably not the best thing for educators, because kids are different in every place,” Renes said. “Kids here at Hale have different needs than the kids at other schools—different journeys.”
For some teachers, especially in social studies, having less control over the content in their classes feels more restrictive than supportive.
“It’s not supportive in the way some teachers within the social studies and language arts at Hale would want,” Volkman said. “We want funding, so we can buy books, or other primary source resources. Things that aren’t like district textbooks, that are problematic, not because they’re from the district, but because textbooks can be problematic.”
Less funding doesn’t only affect what resources teachers can give students, it also affects how much support staff a school can have to help teachers.
“Education is complicated, but in the end, it’s also how many caring adults you can put in a classroom with students,” Renes said. “The budget has an effect on how many caring adults you can put in the room.”
“I don’t think enough students really know about this issue,” Thomas said. Thomas believes that students should pay more attention to the lack of support teachers get, because it’s their education that suffers as a result.
“I recently learned from Mx. Zoba that last year, only three-quarters of our senior class graduated,” Thomas said. “Our graduation average is 15% lower than the rest of Seattle Public Schools.”
Thomas believes that our schools lower graduation rate is directly related to budget cuts, which he says Hale is hit harder by than a lot of other schools.
Thomas has been to a Seattle Public Schools bBoard meeting to try and discuss this issue, but did not get the opportunity to speak. Despite not getting to speak to the whole board, he did get the chance to speak to the SPS Superintendent, Dr. Brent Jones.
“I brought these issues to him, and he said that if I have any ideas I want to do, that I could come to him and the board, and I could get support,” Thomas said. “I’ve reached out to them. I haven’t heard anything.”
For Thomas, a strike would be the best way to show how important this issue is.
“I don’t think walkouts really do much,” Thomas said. “They send a bit of a message, but when it’s over, we go back to school the next day and nothing happens.”
In the past, strikes have led to some improved support for teachers, but high schools aren’t always prioritized.
“We have such a big district, with a lot of elementary schools,” Volkman said. “The needs of elementary schools are different from the needs of middle schools and the needs of high schools. When the majority of our union is based on elementary school teachers, they’re going to be where the priority goes.”
If teachers were to go on strike, Thomas would want students to join them.
“I’d really want students to go and join them, and walk with them,” he said. “A student strike would send a much larger message.”
According to Thomas, the best possible outcome of a strike would be to properly fund our schools. Proper funding would allow schools to be able to have more support staff, and smaller class sizes.
“Unfortunately, strikes can have a negative impact,” Volkman said. While strikes send a larger message than a lot of other protests, Volkman isn’t sure if it would be the most helpful in this situation.
Not all students would support or be willing to participate in a strike. Additionally, whether or not a student participates in a strike, it will lead to a lot of missed school, which staff and students would have to make up for at one point.
“Anything to help teachers give more attention to the students,” Thomas said.
