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Elementary teacher explains why we can't keep using schools as band-aids for society's ills

"We now need schools to reopen so that kids can eat, get healthcare, get clothes, shoes, and school supplies, be safe, be healthy, and be supervised. Oh, and so that they can get an education."

Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli on Unsplash

The challenges facing America's public school systems is sadly nothing new to any parent who has navigated the ups and downs of looking after their child's educations. There are wildly different solutions, and pain points, for people of all backgrounds and views. But one undeniable factor is how an increasing burden is placed on teachers and schools themselves. We all know America's schools need to do better for the future adults of our society but the only thing we seem to have silently agreed upon is to avoid addressing the problems at hand.

A 2020 Facebook post by an award-winning teacher from Iowa, Alison Hoeman, has beautifully explained how society has dumped most of its failings onto the shoulders of schools and teachers. These challenges became heightened during the peak of the Coronavirus lockdowns but remain just as strikingly relevant today.


Hoeman wrote on Facebook:

"Society: In the richest country in the world, between 11 and 13 million children live in food insecure homes.

Schools: We can help..... Kids can eat breakfast and lunch at school, and in many places, teachers will spend their own money on snacks. For the most needy, we will send food home for dinner and weekends.

Society: Over 4 million children in the US do not have health insurance or adequate healthcare.

Schools: We can help..... we will bring doctors to do free physicals, eye exams, and dental treatments right at school. In many places, school nurses will spend their own money on sanitary supplies for girls.

Society: Over 17% of US children live without basic necessities.

Schools: We can help.... we will install washers and dryers in schools. We will hand out clothes, school supplies, shoes, and winter coats for free. Many of these items are purchased by school nurses and teachers.


man in black shirt sitting beside woman in white shirt Photo by Saúl Bucio on Unsplash

Society: There are 5.5 million reports annually of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect of minors.

Schools: We can help.... schools will be safe places and teachers will be safe people. We will have some counselors, but not enough.... some therapists, but not enough, right in the schools. Teachers with minimal training in trauma will come to school early and stay late to mentor these children. Teachers will spend more time with their students than with their own children. Teachers will cry and sometimes crumble at the thought of not being able to do more for the innocent children in their care.

Society: Almost 25% of US children have parents that work past school hours.

Schools: We can help.... we will install before and after school programs in thousands of schools where kids can get another meal, get help with their homework, and participate in organized activities.

Society: Almost 14 million children in the US are obese.

Schools: we can help... Physical Education classes will be mandatory and we will incorporate lessons about healthy food choices.

Society: The US averages one school shooting every 77 days.


woman standing in front of children Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

School: We can help... we will do lock down drills and train our students to hide and be quiet. And if need be, teachers will literally die for their students.

Society: We are in the midst of a global pandemic which our government has failed to control. Almost 130,000 Americans are dead and the numbers are rising, not declining, in many places. Because we have chosen to ignore, for decades, the racism, inequality, and discrimination that is at the root of all the aforementioned problems, we now need schools to reopen so that kids can eat, get healthcare, get clothes, shoes, and school supplies, be safe, be healthy, and be supervised. Oh, and so that they can get an education. It appears that COVID doesn't affect children, so let's go back to school.

Teachers: We can help.... of course we will help, that's what we do. We miss our students and want to be back at school with them.... but what about the 25-30% of us that are over the age of 50? What about those of us who are immunocompromised or live with someone who is? What about those of us who are pregnant... we still have very limited data on what COVID does to unborn children. Will you have PPE for us? Will you have hand sanitizer for us? What if we get sick, and don't have enough sick days to cover the time that we are out? What if a family member gets sick and we need to care for them?

Society: Wow, why are you suddenly being a bunch of crybabies? Before you were always willing to sacrifice your time, your money, your mental health.... and now when we need you, you aren't willing to sacrifice your health and possibly your life? But 75% of you are women.... and that's what we, as a society, expect women to do... sacrifice yourself for others.


girl sitting on chair Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

* For decades, schools and teachers have been the band-aid on society's failings, because we care about children.... because we know that in society's failings, it is almost always the children that suffer the most. Schools and teachers are not responsible for, or capable of, the repair of our broken America. Make no mistake that going back to school has very little to do with education and much more to do with the other social services that schools provide... we need children's to return to school so that they are fed, cared for, and supervised... so that their parents can go back to work and participate in the economy. While it literally breaks the heart of every teacher in America to think of all of the children that they know who are not eating enough, not being well cared for, and not safe in their home, teachers will not be the lambs sent to slaughter because no one else cared enough to actually address the racism, discrimination, and inequality that is at the root of our problems, while schools and teachers were picking up all the slack and holding it all together with a band-aid that is growing very thin."

Since everything is already turned upside down anyway, perhaps now would be a good opportunity for us to reexamine how we as a society—one with a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people"—handles issues like hunger, poverty, child abuse, health and healthcare, working parents balancing childcare, etc. The fact that we've tacitly decided to address these problems through underfunded school systems with overworked teachers and school personnel is rather ridiculous. It's not fair to teachers, parents, or kids to expect schools to fix everything. It's high time to tackle our ills head on, with resources and experience and expertise that makes sense, and stop treating gaping holes with bandaids that weren't designed for such a purpose in the first place.


This article originally appeared on 7.10.20

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60 Sandy Hook survivors graduate high school, sharing complex feelings about the milestone

"A chunk of our class is missing."

Image by Stacey Kennedy from Pixabay

Graduation is a big milestone that can come with grief for some communities.

It's been nearly 12 years since a young man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, with an AR-15. rifle and two handguns and opened fire, killing 20 first graders and six faculty members before turning the gun on himself.

Survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting—kids who watched their friends and teachers being murdered in their classrooms—are now graduating from high school, and they have complicated feelings about the milestone and the 20 classmates who aren't joining them.

A private graduation ceremony was held at Newtown High School on June 12, 2024, with 335 graduates including around 60 Sandy Hook survivors. Some of them shared their thoughts with journalists in the days leading up to graduation.

“I think we’re all super excited for the day,” Lilly Wasilnak, 17, shared with the AP. "But I think we can’t forget ... that there is a whole chunk of our class missing. And so going into graduation, we all have very mixed emotions — trying to be excited for ourselves and this accomplishment that we’ve worked so hard for, but also those who aren’t able to share it with us, who should have been able to.”

"The shooter actually came into my classroom," Emma Ehrens, 17, told CBS News. "So I had to, like, watch all my friends and teachers get killed, and I had to run for my life at six years old."

According to the AP, Ehrens was one of 11 kids who survived from Classroom 10. She was able to escape with a group of students when the shooter paused to reload his gun. Five students and both teachers in the room were killed.

“I am definitely going be feeling a lot of mixed emotions,” Ehrens said. “I’m super excited to be, like, done with high school and moving on to the next chapter of my life. But I’m also so ... mournful, I guess, to have to be walking across that stage alone. … I like to think that they’ll be there with us and walking across that stage with us.”

The survivors who are graduating this year are dealing with both the exciting what ifs of their futures and the tragic what ifs of their past as they remember their slain classmates.

"Just growing up with having the fear, and the what ifs of what could have happened if I stayed? Because I was, like, I was going to be next," Ehrens told CBS News.

"So even going to prom, you think, well, what if they were my prom date? Or, you know, what if they were my significant other? What if they were able to walk the stage with me," survivor Ella Seaver added.

“As much as we’ve tried to have that normal, like, childhood and normal high school experience, it wasn’t totally normal,” Grace Fischer, 18, told CBS. “But even though we are missing ... such a big chunk of our class, like Lilly said, we are still graduating. ... We want to be those regular teenagers who walk across the stage that day and feel that, like, celebratory feeling in ourselves, knowing that we’ve come this far.”

That desire for normalcy conflicting with their not normal childhood is part of what makes graduation such a bittersweet experience for these young people. They had so much taken from them at such a young age, and that trauma doesn't just disappear. Some of the students expressed that they are looking forward to moving away from Newtown and building a life in which the school shooting doesn't define them.

Sandy Hook was unique in that the victims were so young and there were so many of them, but the survivors aren't alone in their experience. In the years since the Sandy Hook massacre, the U.S. has seen dozens more school shootings, and there are thousands of school shooting survivors dealing with related traumas. Many of those survivors have become outspoken anti-gun-violence advocates, pressuring officials to enact stronger laws to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

But for now, the Sandy Hook graduates are celebrating a big life milestone, just as they—and their 20 missing classmates—should be.

Watch six of the Sandy Hook survivors share their stories on Good Morning America:


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Parents win fight to get young daughter a tryout with Mississippi school's baseball team

Everyone came together to do the right thing.

Curtesy of Shannon van Duijvendijk

Family of little girl take on Mississippi state for baseball tryout

As the old saying goes, "baseball is America's pastime." It was so important that during the second World War, Major League Baseball executives created all women's baseball teams since most of the young men were away fighting. The blockbuster hit movie, "A League of Their Own" details this era that not only provided fans with entertainment but proved women could be fierce competitive baseball players.

One South Mississippi family found themselves in the middle of a battle they didn't anticipate when it came to the game. Their daughter Jewel has been playing baseball since she was 5-years-old on city recreational teams, eventually making All Stars and travel baseball. With the 7th grader aging out of the recreational program, she wanted to join the middle school team.

That's where the problem came in. The girl's mom, Shannon van Duijvendijk says the Ocean Springs School District refused her a tryout for the baseball team.

This is the same school district that has had girls step out of their football cleats to put on a homecoming crown after kicking for the high school team. So the decision seemed a bit confusing for the community who chimed in to support the parents petitioning for Jewel to play on the middle school team.

Jewel is one of two girls planning to try out for the baseball team that many of their male teammates are competing for. But it was van Duijvendijk's husband who was determined to make sure his daughter got to play the game that she loves.

"It was actually my husband. That sense of injustice rose up in him and he was just like 'no, uh uh.'"

The initial call came from the school's athletic director who told them that it was a state rule that girls couldn't play on the baseball team because softball was considered an equivalent. That's when Mr. van Duijvendijk started contacting every person he could find in Jackson to help get his daughter a tryout. But the quest to speak with someone on the state level proved to be futile.

Curtesy of Shannon van Duijvendijk

After finding out the school's grievance policy, the determined dad emailed the superintendent who was extremely responsive according to van Duijvendijk. The mom tells Upworthy that the superintendent contacted people at the state level, eventually reporting back that Mississippi's High School Athletic Association (MSHAA) rule was unclear.

The rule from section 7.6.2 of the MSHAA Handbook reads in part, "When a state championship is offered for girls, they may not play on a boys’ team in that sport.”

As van Duijvendijk points out in her post, baseball and softball are two different sports and that ruling was made official by the NCAA in 2009. So a girls softball team would not be equivalent to a boys baseball team, according to the NCAA rules, the equivalent to baseball is baseball.

van Duijvendijk explains that the family got the most pushback from parents of softball players, which it is suspected the original complaint about girls trying out for baseball originated. There was confusion over why a girl would prefer to play baseball over softball and speculation on if the parents felt that baseball was superior.

But there was no feeling of one sport being superior over the other. In fact, in van Duijvendijk's social media post she writes, "I know a lot of people don’t understand why she chose to play baseball instead of softball, I didn’t for a while either. In the beginning I tried to convince her so many times to make the switch."

Jewel was so steadfast in her determination to play the sport van Duijvendijk says could see it in her eyes. That changed everything for the mom when it came to her support of Jewel's love of the sport. Right now, softball isn't even a practical switch.

"She has never played softball and doesn’t even own the equipment necessary to play the game. We have nothing against softball and we have so much love and respect for the girls that do play it, but that is not the sport she plays."

Curtesy of Shannon van Duijvendijk

Thanks to the determination of a dad who saw his daughter encounter an injustice, a mom who would do anything to support her and a superintendent that was intent on hunting someone down to clear up the rules–Jewel gets to tryout. Now that's what you call teamwork. As for Jewel, she's been playing with the boys since she was old enough to pick up a ball, she just wanted a chance to show them what she can do.

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Over-the-top school dress-up weeks have parents feeling grinchy

The holidays are busy enough without throwing "dress as your favorite Christmas song" into the mix.

Photo by Geoffrey Moffett on Unsplash, @riahthelee/X

Time to rein in the school dress-up days, folks.

Hey, kids! Happy December! We know that school can feel like drudgery, and it's been a few months since school started, and we want you to not hate coming here, so we decided to do something fun and festive that we think will create a sense of school pride and spirit! It's school dress-up week!

What this means is that during the busiest time of the year, when your parents are already up to their ears in holiday prep, shopping for and wrapping gifts, planning and attending work parties and end-of-year recitals and concerts, trying to navigate the emotional complexities of holiday family drama, trying to make your Christmas magical by moving that frickin' Elf on the Shelf every night, etc., we're going to add to the to-do list by pressuring them to help you come up with specific outfits to wear to school for an entire week. Doesn't that sound neat?

Dress-up weeks are fun on paper, and they can be fun when they're kept super simple. "Wear red or green!" is easy enough. "Dress as your favorite Christmas character!" though? Not so much.

Parents are crying uncle on over-the-top dressup weeks, saying it's just too much. A mom who goes by Mariah on X shared her frustration with how "ridiculous" the whole thing has become.

"I have 2 kids and 9 different dress up days next week," she wrote, before laying out some of the significant problems with said days:

"1. It expects families to be able to go out at the drop of a hat and get multiple Christmas character shirts and ugly sweaters at the most expensive time of year. It’s just another way to alienate kids whose families can’t afford a bunch of extra stuff or the mental load of the extra work.

2. It also assumes EVERYONE in the school celebrates Christmas and creates a whole week out of dressing up for it. Most people do celebrate Christmas where I live but then it’s even more alienating for people that don’t."

Then she offered a simple solution: "Have a PJ Day on the last day before break and call it good… please."

Mariah is certainly not the only parent to feel strongly about dress-up weeks—or months. Some parents shared that their young elementary school kids—second and third graders—had dress-up days the entire month of December leading up to the holiday break.

It's one thing when it's high schoolers who might have the ability to take themselves to a thrift store or whip together some kind of outfit themselves, but for elementary school kids, it's 100% on the parents.

Some teachers are even weighing in with why they dislike dress-up days as well, both for the annoyance and the lack of inclusivity.

Some people offered solutions that allow those who enjoy dress-up days to have their fun while taking the pressure off of everyone else. For instance, one teacher shared that her school dress-up days are always a specific way of dressing up OR wearing school colors. She said many of the students opt for school colors so no one feels like the odd one out for not wearing their PJs or holiday socks or whatever.

She said it's helpful for her as a teacher as well, since dress-up days are a lot of pressure and can mean spending extra money that a lot of teachers don't have to spend.

What if schools moved the dress-up days to January, when the holiday hustle and bustle has passed and the long winter could use an extra dose of fun? What if they kept them super simple, sticking to colors or general things that are easy for everyone, like "Wear your favorite comfy pants" or "Silly hairstyle day" or something like that.

The bottom line is to not let school dress-up days turn into the road to hell paved with good intentions. Rein it in, folks, for the parents' sake.

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