“I’m just here for teachers’ rights,” she said.

Vasquez joined hundreds who marched as part of New York’s ongoing Freedom Rally, a constellation of organizations in opposition to the vaccine mandate, which requires the Department of Education’s roughly 3,000 remaining unvaccinated teachers to have received at least one dose of the vaccine to remain active employees of the city. 

“I love my job. This is so upsetting to me that I’ve dedicated so much of my life – you know, I’m a devoted teacher,” said Vasquez. “Now they’re saying I can’t work unless I get vaccinated.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio estimated that 8,000 of the DOE’s nearly 150,000 school-based employees are out of compliance as of this morning. Vasquez, who teaches at P.S. 372 and has over 20 years of classroom experience, believes she should be able to use her sick and personal days to remain on payroll, since she claims to only use either in extreme circumstances. As of Monday, she’s on unpaid leave. 

Early last month, an independent arbitrator ruled that New York City teachers with qualified medical or religious exemptions must either be offered non-classroom assignments, a severance package, or be placed on unpaid leave that continues to provide them healthcare coverage. 

“I feel like if we’re practicing all these safety protocols, then the teachers will be fine,” said Vasquez. “It’s the children that are getting Covid, so I feel like it should be up to me. I’d rather get it and develop my own antibodies than have what they call a vaccine.” 

Last Friday, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to hear an attempt to block New York City’s vaccine mandate, giving the city the green light to require employees to have received one Covid-19 vaccination dose by 5 p.m.

By the end of the day Monday, 95% of full time employees had received at least one shot, including 96% of teachers and 99% of principals. Since the mayor’s mandate was announced in August, 43,000 injections have been administered, including 18,000 in the past 10 days. The United Federation of Teachers (U.F.T.) announced on Monday that a 1,000 teachers had been vaccinated over the weekend to remain on the district’s payroll. 

While the city claims to have thousands of substitute teachers and paraprofessionals waiting in the wings to supplant employees, many, including the U.F.T., are highly skeptical that the plan in place will adequately address their absence. U.F.T. estimates that two-thirds of public schools could face disruptions resulting from staff shortages. 

Garrett Ramirez is a paraprofessional with Energy Tech High School in Queens and a member of the steering committee for Teachers for Choice, an organization in opposition to New York City’s vaccine mandate. With 15 years of experience, Ramirez can understand why some of his peers are capitulating to the city’s mandate, though he would only consider getting vaccinated after clinical trials conclude near the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023.  

“Unfortunately, some teachers are being coerced, some of them are caving in, in order to preserve their jobs and income for their families,” said Ramirez. 

With appearances from Founder Michael Kane on outlets such as Fox News and a petition with a running total of 52,000 signatories,Teachers for Choice is bolstering support and digging in their heels. A restraining order was filed yesterday morning in the ongoing Kane vs de Blasio in an effort to stop the vaccine mandate from being implemented. 

Kane vs de Blasio, originally filed in federal court on September 21, challenges the Department of Education’s mandate as ‘immoral and illegal.’ The lawsuit claims that the mandate violates fundamental constitutional rights by ‘discriminating on the basis of religion and medical status’ and ‘places unconstitutional conditions of employment.’ 

“They’ve (the D.O.E.) denied almost all the religious exemptions and all, almost all of the medical exemptions,” said Ramirez, who was denied a religious exemption himself. “Religious exemptions are supposed to be based upon personal religious convictions, not upon an established church. It actually violates the establishment clause in the first amendment to apply that criteria.”

Ramirez plans to apply for a medical exemption next, this time seekling to qualify as having natural immunity.  

“The science of natural immunity is kind of overwhelming,” said Ramirez, noting a peer-reviewed article from the British Medical Journal and research by Johns Hopkins surgical oncologist Dr. Marty Makary as evidence. “I have recovered from Covid-19, I’ve tested positive for antibodies twice. Antibodies are only the tip of the iceberg as far as natural immunity goes.”

While much is still unknown about the durability of either vaccine or natural immunity, a study released in August from CDC found that vaccination offers higher protection than previous Covid-19 infection, noting that the unvaccinated have 2.34 times the odds of reinfection as the vaccinated. Dr. Makary’s colleague, the infectious disease expert Dr. Anna Durbin, cited research from Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research that estimated those odds even higher, at 2.5 times as likely for reinfection. 

And while New York City remains an area at ‘high risk of transmission’ with an average of 1,662 cases per day over the last week, city data available for the year through the end of August shows remarkably strong protection for the vaccinated. Just 0.33% vaccinated individuals have contracted the virus and 96.9% of those hospitalized were unvaccinated at the time of their hospitalization.  

Ramirez is optimistic that Kane vs De Blasio will prove the vaccine mandates are unconstitutional. He is considering all his options, like transitioning to virtual teaching or moving out of the city. 

“At the end of the day, these mandates are really intimidation tactics,” said Ramirez. “It’s an act of psychological terrorism, frankly. I’m not going to succumb to it, and I don’t think that anyone should.”

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According to Maya Wiley – one of the candidates – the meeting was so important that day because the NYC public schooling system “wasn’t working before COVID, and isn’t working during COVID,” and that it was important for New York students to “not only catch up, but to exceed expectation.”

The Association of Black Educators of New York (ABENY), the Eagle Academy of the Bronx and Black Edfluencers United (BE-U) hosted the virtual town hall to discuss educational reform in NYC, particularly within public schools with predominantly Black, Brown, and students of color. 

“Parents are an important component and parents also need to be empowered and engaged in understanding what it is their children are learning and how to come alongside them in development,” said Schenay Augustin, a parent, during the forum. 

Participating mayoral candidates included former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang, activist and educator Maya Wiley, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, mother and non-profit executive Dianne Morales, NYC controller Scott Stringer, Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams and NYC businessman Ray McGuire.  

Seven community members were allowed to direct questions to candidates with a focus on equity and accessibility, educational quality and safety in the classroom.  

Some candidates, including Yang, advocated for immediately reopening schools to allow students to catch up on the curriculum they might have missed due to the pandemic. 

“We need to reopen schools as soon as possible,” said Yang. “The simple truth is that we should be fighting harder to reopen schools right now, and that is doubly true for communities that are falling behind and young children in particular.”

However, other candidates strongly disagreed with this proposal to improve student performance. 

“The first thing we have to do is keep our Black and Brown families from dying,” said Morales. “Right now, the idea of rushing back to schools without first providing our families and our teachers and our children with the adequate [coronavirus] protections is highly problematic.”  

One solution proposed to improve online learning was to increase accessibility to broadband internet and devices in order to engage and participate in virtual classrooms. According to Pix News, 77,000 NYC students don’t have access to devices or reliable internet. 

“The issue of accessibility to [working] devices is also compounding the difficulty of remote learning.” said Dr. Jawana Johnson, chief achievement officer of the Eagle Academy Foundation. “It can be hard to prioritize remote learning when families are focusing on just meeting basic needs during this pandemic.” 

These sentiments were echoed by many candidates including Adams who emphasized the importance of technology to learning saying “equity is the key to education.”

The forum touched on other priorities like the importance of having a school administrative and teaching environment that reflected the students that attended the schools themselves. 

“I went to PS 119 and IS 278 in Brooklyn, both schools with a pretty high demographic of Black, Latino and Middle Eastern students,” said former student Maya Layne, 23 who is Black. “When I went to middle school it was a pretty huge shock for me because all of a sudden my teachers didn’t really look like me and I didn’t feel personally connected to any of them.”

Several attendees believed that it was incredibly important to have administrators and teachers that have shared racial experiences or identities with their student body but also be more equipped to educate students of color on their heritage and histories. 

“We need equity in hiring processes,” said participant, Melissa Cisco. “The teaching and administrative staff should reflect its [student] population.”

Candidate Scott Stringer proposed a solution to hiring and recruiting 1,000 diverse teachers a year and to “aggressively recruit from communities of color”, but the problem arose that there is often little incentive for many teachers to work at schools with lower high stake standardized test scores. 

Another issue discussed was high stakes testing which was suspended in NYC in November of 2020.Yang argued that there was still value in utilizing standardized testing as “data points show how badly New York City is doing.”

 But school principal Marc Medley of Patterson, New Jersey disagreed,

“I can tell you that children have the ability to show what they know beyond a high stakes assessment,” he said. “Some children verbalize and conceptualize better than they write. It is just that some students don’t do as well on these tests, and I don’t think they should suffer because of that.”

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Studying remotely from Beijing was the best option for Weichen Du, academically problematic as it could be. The Australian border restriction did not allow Weichen to travel to the country, and Weichen could not find a job due to the pandemic.  Travel possibilities were also limited.

Weichen Du was attends a Zoom tutorial held by the University of Melbourne from his home in Beijing, China. Photo by Xinhui Ying

“I think the quality of teaching, and also the class, has significantly dropped down,” Du, a first-year master’s student in Marketing Communications at the University of Melbourne said.  “It is harder to understand what the professor wants on each assignment.”

At the same time, Weichen felt depressed and isolated from the rest of the class. He believed that everyone in his program felt the same way. The physical distance made him feel less close to professors and discouraged him from reaching out.

 “I tried everything to keep me busy… but my mental health still got worse because of the social distancing,” Weichen said. “I realized that interaction between people was so important for our being.You need to interact with people to keep everything moving.”

Siyi Xie, a sophomore studying Business Administration and Management at the University of Toronto, decided to do the entire academic year remotely from Vancouver. She revealed that the online learning experience was very inconvenient because of the time difference and the fact that students were not used to the instruction mode. However, she believed it would be better over time.

“My biggest fear is about how they would deliver the exams, ” Xie said. “Because people who do courses online have the opportunity to cheat. Therefore, the test they give these people will be harder than those who do the in-person exams. I am afraid of being graded unfairly because I don’t cheat although I take classes online.”

Siyi Xie takes handwriting notes at home in Vancouver, Canada for a University of Toronto course. Photo by Siyi Xie

Xie was also concerned about the safety of living on campus, and that was one of the major reasons she decided not to return to class in-person.

“Just live in close proximity to other people who you don’t know and cannot trust fully, I feel that’s a bit dangerous,” she said.

In terms of social life outside of academics, COVID-19 has made it harder for Xie to hang out with people. Most restaurants in Vancouver were closed for dine-in options. When she interacted with people online, she had to wait for responses.  Also, the tone and meaning behind the words were a bit hazier, as she could not hear or see her friends.

“If it’s just a normal school year, it will be so easy to go to class in person and actually make a few friends,” Siyi said. “So you can swap notes maybe and become study buddies. But right now, because of COVID-19 and because of online delivery, it’s hard to actually just text someone and become close with them.”

Tiankuo Jiang is a freshman in a middle school in Nanjing, China. He started his first day of class on Sept.1.

“I think except the dining, all things are just normal,” Jiang said.  “We just can’t eat together. Every student has one corner of the table, and then you put a cross-shaped plastic between students to make them separate.”

The teachers did not tell students to wear masks, but most students did. In addition, students were not required to keep a 2-meter distance.  But Jiang does not feel stressed about contracting the virus.

“I think it’s just okay, because we had very great protection before and now we don’t have many cases,” Jiang said.

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“How do you operate a school that’s socially distanced, with masks, without gatherings with the  public transportation system that has a lowered number of students on it. How would you get that plan up and running?” Cuomo said. 

The decision on summer school programming will not be made until the end of May.

“Nobody can predict what the situation is going to be three four weeks from now. So we’re trying to stage decisions, add intervals that give us the information but also enough time for people to make the preparations they need to make,” Cuomo said.  

No decision has not been made for the fall, but the state will be approving plans to reopen schools that include safety measures for students and staff.

“They should start preparing their plans now, because this is going to be a real exercise,” Cuomo said. 

Cuomo told reporters that schools should begin to think on how socially distancing can take place in classrooms, buses, cafeterias and dorm rooms.

“We want schools to start now developing a plan to reopen,” he said. “The plan has to have protocols in place that incorporate everything we are now doing in society and everything that we’ve learned.” 

The state closed all K-12 schools on March 18th. Colleges and universities  also moved to social distancing learning. Campuses closed on May 19th except for students who were dependent on student housing.

The New York school system is large.

According to Cuomo there are 4.2 million K- 12 school  students in New York. In addition there are 89 state and  city college and university campuses with 700,000 students. And over 100 private colleges with 500,000 students. 

The schools by definition have higher density and have transportation issues, Cuomo said. 

“The decisions on the education system are obviously critically important,” he said. “We must protect our children, every parent, every citizen feels that, we must protect our students, we must protect our educators.”

New Jersey has not made a decision on the reopening of schools. The decision will most likely be shared next week, said Governor Phil Murphy.

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When Paterson Public Schools shut down on March 17th, students were expected to either pick up educational packets at distribution sites or print them at home. Parents who feel that the packets are insufficient have voiced their concerns about them.

“Many parents in the district are now unemployed wondering where the next meal is coming from… An added stressor then is when they have to sit and homeschool their child or children,” said Griselda Polanco Guzman, a Paterson parent.

Guzman is the mother of a child in the Paterson Schools District who is under the Individualized Education Program. Often called IEP, this is a legal document under United States law that is developed for public school children who need special education.

Since the packets are not individualized, they can be hard to follow for IEP students. After coming home from her job as a nurse, Guzman has to try and help her child understand the schoolwork.

“What about some of us who are in healthcare and go out there every day to be on the frontlines of this pandemic and have to come home and homeschool a child without the teachers’ guidance or support?” she said.

City officials plan to provide 7,000 Chromebooks to all district high school students starting the week of April 19th, so that teachers can begin to use resources like Google Classroom and Khan Academy. But middle school and elementary school students are still left without them.

The American Community Survey estimates that about 30 percent of the people in Paterson speak English “less than very well,” as Paterson is a city made up of many immigrants.

This becomes a problem for children whose parents cannot help them to understand the packets, because they do not understand the language. The packets online are only available in English and Spanish.

Guzman believes that the students should switch to virtual learning, like other school districts, so that students have the ability to interact with their teachers. However, about 22.4 percent of Paterson residents do not have a computer, and about 35.6 percent do not have a broadband internet subscription, according to the U.S. census.

“I am home doing whatever I can, but I haven’t heard from my students,” said Therese Hipkins, a teacher at Eastside High School in Paterson. “I keep reaching out, but I know that they have many things going on in their own lives.”

Paterson Public Schools have an average math proficiency score of 16 percent and a reading score of 25 percent, versus the New Jersey statewide average of 41 percent and 53 percent, as designated by state tests.

Hipkins fears that the coronavirus will increase the disparity in education that already exists between low-income and high-income communities.

The lack of virtual learning is only one of the hardships that low-income families face at this time. Students’ parents are getting let go from their jobs. And if they still have a job, they often lack healthcare and are not guaranteed paid sick leave.

Many students in Paterson rely on their schools to provide meals for them. The schools now have pick up sites for students to get food, but this is inconvenient for many and it also risks spreading the disease.

“It’s not easy for them to go out and get them,” said Hipkins. “This is a hardship for low-income families.”

Oasis, a social service organization for women and children in Paterson, was forced to close down their after school educational program, which aims to get students’ math and reading proficiencies up to the statewide averages.

Currently, Oasis is unable to keep their after school teachers because they are losing funding due to the pandemic. Their main focus right now is to provide food for those who are in need.

They serve over 500 meals every day. On a typical pre-COVID day, they would serve around 150.

“These people are in very dire straits because they often do not have a large reserve at savings, if they have anything,” said Laetitia Cairoli, the Director of Development at Oasis. “And so they need food.”

Right now, the focus is on making sure that students’ and families’ most basic needs are met.

“We want to think about what’s going to happen weeks from now,” Cairoli said. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Shaina Ahmed is an NYU undergraduate journalism student.

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But California Governor Gavin Newsom announced this year’s school vacation could last until Fall. 

In the Golden State, 1,039 Coronavirus cases have been confirmed and a total number of 19 deaths. In the Bay Area, around 675 cases have been identified. Last night, Governor Newsom gave a mandatory order for all Californians to self-isolate, in addition to a “shelter in place” policy that was enforced Tuesday. The policies are some of the strictest methods enforced in the U.S., asking all residents to stay inside their homes. 

In Alameda County, Oakland Unified School District said they would move to remote learning for the duration of the lockdown. Last Monday, teachers were warned they may not have classes for the remainder of the school year. 

Sylviane Cohn felt a sense of pain when she taught her last class at Joaquin Miller Elementary for the foreseeable future. 

“I miss them and I feel super useless,” said Cohn, 35. “I just feel so helpless in terms of how I am supposed to fulfill my professional obligation to make sure these kids come out knowing how to read.” 

She said she is worried about students who have difficulties learning on their own. 

“I have to figure out how to be an online educator. How I manage to reach the kids I need to reach, some of the most vulnerable students in the school,” she said. “So that learning can continue.” 

As kids struggle to begin online classes in Oakland, there is a digital divide for low-income families. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 22% of low-income households with school-aged children had no internet access, and Bay Area families making under $59,000 reported having less internet availability than wealthier families. In Bay Area public schools, inequality is a common issue. 

Joaquin Miller Elementary School, Oakland Hills, California. Photo by Joaquin Miller Elementary.

At Joaquin Miller Elementary, they are trying to decrease the gap among students.

“We have allowed families to check out Chromebooks from the school so if families don’t have a computer they can get one,” Cohn said. “We have tried to publicize that Comcast is delivering two months of free internet to families who need it.” 

But she said they can’t control family circumstances and some students will fall behind. She said there are parents who can’t afford to stay at home. 

“Between kids who have families at home who have the time and capacity to work with them and support their continuing learning, versus kids who are taking care of themselves at this time because there is no one who can support them,” she said. “There are kids who have resources at home, but then there are kids who don’t have resources and will watch TV all day. I think that is going to be the largest equity gap.” 

Zoe Lieberman experienced this disparity with her Joaquin Miller Elementary class. Lieberman, 27, began teaching online this week, but said that half of her students didn’t show up for their first class. 

Zoe Lieberman teaches 3rd-5th graders at Joaquin Miller Elementary. Photo by Joaquin Miller Elementary.

“I am happy because I did have half of my class show up to our video chats, but that is only half of my class,” she said. “How many kids are going to have access to technology? There are many different school districts and socio-economic boundaries here. These are all these things that teachers are worried about right now.”

Lieberman’s concerns are common across the nation. 

Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed distress in closing New York City’s public schools in reaction to the spread of the Coronavirus. The nation’s largest public school system serves around 750,000 low-income students, and doubles as a place for students to get meals and have access to technology. 

But public schools will be closing down this week to lessen contamination, and will switch to online learning on March 23. Teachers will be asked to come to work for training on remote education, and New York City schools are offering computers for students who need them. 

For Oakland students, Lieberman said they are trying to help by being available for support. 

“I wish there was more that we could do but I am trying to make myself available online,” she said. “Next week I am setting up office hours if anyone wants to video chat, or do a lesson.” 

She said there will be unique challenges for students beginning online education. 

“Our community is different,” Lieberman said. “A lot of our kids don’t have the ability to independently log on, and answer the questions. Some of them might not be able to read the questions. There are challenges and it’s hard to accommodate everybody.” 

Families are also worried about their children’s mental health while learning remotely.  

“This morning was the roughest morning for the kids, because it sank in that they aren’t gonna see their friends,” said Anne Hurst, 46, a mother of two. “They said they miss their friends and their teachers and they don’t want to do homeschool anymore.” 

She said that there has been emotional distress for her family while staying at home, but they are trying to remain positive. 

“They are sad right now,” she said. ““We take one day at a time, and try not to think too much about the future, because it is unknown. It feels too scary, so just focus on doing the best with what you can do today.” 

And Cohn, who may not see her K-5 classes for the rest of the school year, said that her students were equally devastated about missing their friends. 

“They seem to have a clear understanding that play dates were gonna be cancelled for the indefinite future and that was scary for them. It was both wonderful and horrible that they were devastated by the notion of not going to school. We love structure as humans, and that was taken from them.” 

The post The coronavirus hurls Oakland schools into uncertainty appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Cynthia Ryalls-Clephane, 69, has been a school counselor in Pasco since 1992. There are countless cases, she said, of parents too high to even discuss their child’s well-being. She has seen students unable and unwilling to focus on their exams because their mom overdosed the night before and they were placed into a stranger’s home in the middle of the night. The teachers she works with are just getting more stressed, overwhelmed and defeated. They want to help, but the district and parents expect them to be foster parents, behavioral specialists, social workers, school counselors, personal tutors, life coaches and babysitters — on top of simply trying to teach students a basic curriculum between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.      

 “I get kids that come to school who are homeless living in the woods. … Many times kids want to be at school because this is the safest place,” said Ryalls-Clephane. “I think about a variety of children that I’ve talked to teachers about. They feel helpless because the drugs are causing so many problems.”

Throughout the year, Child Protective Investigations receives approximately 7,500 allegations of child abuse and neglect. Most of those reports are submitted by teachers, school administrators and daycare facilities who can no longer handle the tolling effects of the opioid crisis. Multiple educators said they have countless students who have clearly not bathed, eaten or slept more than a few hours for days at a time. Others have seen students become violent, throwing desks, getting into fights and verbally abusing other students and teachers.

“They say some really horrific things to you. They call you every name in the book. They will physically aggress towards you,” said Sarah Merchant, a behavioral specialist and teacher at Schrader Elementary School. “If you don’t have a thick skin you can definitely become burnt out. We have had teachers who have had breakdowns.”

This above-average problem, teachers say, has taken over a seemingly average town. The county of roughly 525,000 people does not offer much entertainment aside from a couple of old movie theaters, Dairy Queen, Walmart parking lots and unkempt beaches littered with pollution. The median income is just over $48,000 and only about 53 percent of citizens are in the labor force, many of which work in education, retail or fast food.

The Sheriff’s Office said there were at least 140 reported overdoses in January and February alone, which is 59 more overdoses than that same time frame in 2018. Sixty percent of those were directly related to opioids. They find it hard to keep track of how many people are truly using because the demand for drugs — specifically opioids — is so high, but Capt. Mike Jenkins of the Pasco Sheriff’s Office believes 2019 will continue seeing a rise in overdoses.

U.S. 19, the main road through Pasco County, is a hub for overdoses and drug deals. This needle was found lying a few feet off the highway, surrounded by pieces of cotton gauze and shredded latex. Photo by Li Cohen.

“I liken it sometimes to whack-a-mole. There’ll be a source of supply, we whack that one down and inevitably … there’s someone who immediately fills that gap within a short period of time and then the cycle continues,” he said.  

Even though the state and county have done a lot to combat opioid pills, he said there is still much more to do in regards to the illegal forms of opioids. “

“That solved one problem, but then that contributed to another issue. … If you do not address the demand issue something else is going to fill the void and fill the gap,” Jenkins said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

The office is also trying to handle the large number of opioid addiction cases where children are in the home. Over the past four to five months, Child Protective Investigations has had to remove 250 children from their homes because their parents or guardians were addicted to opioids, a problem that makes up 60 percent of all child removal cases in the county.

While CPI Director Ken Kilian said the department does their best to place children with family members, hundreds of children end up in foster care or staying with teachers until their parents can take them back.

“It’s not easy for a child victim who is witnessing their parents, their aunt, their uncle, suffer from this horrific disease,” Kilian said. “Addiction is extremely traumatizing and that has generational effects that we will see for years to come.”

And that trauma is expected to continue. As Kilian explained, the disease of opioid addiction is an endless cycle. The parents will continuously use, recover and relapse while the child develops behavioral and mental disorders they don’t understand and can’t control when they are at school. Then one day the parents take a dose a little too high. The child is left alone, hopeless and drained. They just watched their parents die and will have to go back to a school system the next day where the staff can’t help but mirror that same feeling.

Teachers feel more unprepared than ever

The school district is trying to help teachers by implementing Trauma Informed Care and the Harmony Project – initiatives that teach educators how to work with students and parents experiencing trauma and how to take care of themselves in dealing with that. Pasco schools social worker Danica Cockrell said being in a community that has high needs and high social deficits establishes an environment with drug use, poor mental health and a lack of communication. With the Trauma Informed Care, she hopes the schools will help teachers be prepared for what is expected to only get worse.

“It is no longer just coming to school to read, write and do math.’ We have to address and answer those social and emotional needs in order for students to be successful,” said Cockrell. I don’t think any school district will ever say that they are over-resourced or over-funded. …  We are definitely a whole child and whole family perspective – we have to be.”

But teachers in the area believe this initiative is not enough. They say there are too many students per teacher given the extent of the issues. They want more resources and support. They are struggling mentally, emotionally and physically to keep up with what is asked of them.

Despite reaching out to nearly 50 current teachers in the county, only two would agree to speak and , only on the condition of anonymity in fear of losing their jobs or worsening their situation in the classroom.

One of those teachers has been with Pasco for 13 years and works at a Title I school. She said the impact of this crisis is difficult to truly assess. Countless students do not receive their basic needs, such as stable housing, food and clothing because of their parents’ addiction, she said.

“How can you support them and tell them it will be alright when they lose their homes constantly? When there is no food, no electricity, no clothes, backpack, school supplies,” she said. “Many of us staff say constantly this feels like a mental health facility, full of emotional and behavioral needs in a place that lacks resources and personnel.”

This gap has led to a severe teacher shortage in the district. There have been 50 teaching positions posted on the district’s website since January alone. On the first day of school last August, there were 66 open positions.

Teachers say it is increasingly hard to stick around when they don’t receive cooperation from students, parents and administrators. Merchant explained that in the behavioral unit at Schrader Elementary School, only three out of seven teachers returned to their positions this year. Replacing them has not been easy, as the replacements tend to be first-year teachers or are cross-certification teachers who earned bachelor’s degrees in a different academic area and are working on getting their teaching certifications.

“I don’t know there’s a lot of teachers that see this day in, day out for years because not a lot of teachers stick around,” she said, adding that teachers tend to have emotional and mental breakdowns because of the behavioral issues they experience with students. “I would say the breakdowns are probably once every month or two. … Every day, every other day we have major incidents.”

The second anonymous teacher worked in Pasco for more than a decade and only recently moved to another district after suffering physical attacks and threats from her third-grade students. She claimed she never received adequate assistance from the school, the district or parents and the support staff was “often underqualified or spread too thin.” She, and many other teachers, she said, often left their classrooms shaking, crying, and headed to therapy or the doctor for elevated stress.

“Teachers are under severe duress and pressure due to the workload expectations that are completely and humanly impossible,” she said. “We are charged with finding differentiated lessons to meet the needs of kids who are usually two to three years below grade level.”

She went on to say that administrators won’t write referrals for bad student behavior because it impacts the school’s overall grade and can create bad press. She has personally complained of threats from her students and administrators would not document them.

“Children who are severely neglected by unfit parents do not self-regulate and reason like kids from healthy, functioning homes. … We are trying to teach kids grade level standards when they are unable to focus, disrespectful, don’t care and know an adult at home doesn’t care,” she said. “Teachers fight a battle every day and we never win.”

Students try to take control

Ashley Dew was 12 years old when she found her dad was using opioids. Despite living most of her life in Pasco County, she felt that most of the people she grew up with, including teachers and school administrators, did not know how to help her.

Her experience as a student dealing with the opioid crisis led to her becoming a teaching aide at World of Montessori School in Pasco. The 19-year-old is surrounded by despair seeing children fight the same struggles as she did. Many of her kindergarteners and first-graders suffer from behavioral and neurological disorders because of their parents’ drug abuse. Drug deals occur within feet of the school’s locked gates.

“In the classroom you have your bad students … Talking non-stop. Always having to be the center of attention,” she said. “It breaks my heart. I have two brothers in my class and I know that they go through a lot because of their father with substance misuse.”

As a teaching aide at World of Knowledge Montessori School, Ashley Dew, 19, works with students to complete assignments and learn material that works with their mental and emotional state on any given date. This document helps students organize what they can and cannot handle given their situation for the day. Photo by Li Cohen.

The school does what it can to help. When students are overwhelmed – academically or personally – Dew and other teachers allows them to play with class pets, walk through a vibrant garden or have one-on-one talks with staff members. During her talks with students, Dew tries to help students cope with their parents’ situations and realize that they are not their parents’ caretakers. She, however, struggles to take her own advice and regularly chokes up when she reflects on her situation.

Dew watched her father, who she was once very close with, become a disheveled shell. Her relationship with her father became a couple of comments on Facebook and missed birthdays. There were days when she found it difficult to focus in school and on the days she needed the most help understanding her father’s choices, the school counselor did not have a spare moment to help.

“My father was never a bad person, but this drug issue changed him and changed us. … It hit me at my sweet 16. I didn’t have him come because every time I’m around him it was like talking to a stranger,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I wanted that daddy-daughter sweet 16 dance but I didn’t get it. It’s sad waking up with anxiety like am I going to get that call – is he dead or alive.”

One of the worst parts of the situation for Dew was that she felt her multiple high schools never took her situation seriously. She often felt left in the dust and it took years for her to realize that there were others going through similar situation.

“I definitely don’t feel like [schools] take it serious. It’s like ‘Oh, your dad’s just a junkie,’ and that’s not true,” she said, adding that the first time she found help was at the PACE Center for Girls. “In public school you were lucky to even get in the counselor’s office. I think I saw my counselor once. … They just don’t really care.”

While Dew hopes that her school can set a new standard for how teachers and schools as a whole approach these issues, other students in the district are trying to help students better understand what opioids are, how they impact the body and how they can impact the future of the crisis in Pasco.

Jocelyn Meriwether is only 14 years old, but when the Bayonet Point Middle schooler opens her mouth to speak about the opioid crisis, her soft and high-pitched voice becomes a megaphone. After seeing a presentation on the effects of opioids by local youth-led organization Save Teens Against Drugs (STAND), she decided to get involved and has since worked her way up to vice president of the organization.

“Kids don’t understand the effects. They think, you did it for a day and if you don’t like it you never do it again,” she said. “But it’s not that simple; you can get addicted and then it follows you because you have that need for it and that want for it.”

As part of the youth-led organization, Meriwether goes to various events and speaks at conferences in Pasco. She wants students and parents to know the signs of substance abuse so they can help those who are struggling and spread awareness about the direct and indirect effects.

“Kids will get disruptive in classes and a big thing in our school right now is fights,” she said. “Disruptions is hard because the teacher gets involved and tries and stops it. It takes away from our learning time and our education.”

Meriwether n and the other STAND members are working with state legislators to get their organization involved with more schools and change prescription opioid legislation.

A community searches for a solution

Since 2016, Pasco County schools have gained more than 3,300 new pre-k to 12th-grade students among their 96 schools, according to the school district, but only one more instructional employee. There were 601 new support employees, including secretaries, bus drivers and custodians, as well as administrators.

Along with caring for students who are dealing with opioid abuse at home, World of Knowledge Montessori School in Holiday, Florida, is surrounded by drug deals and people under the influence coming within feet of the school’s property. Photo by Li Cohen.

While the district has an overall “B” rating by the state, the majority of the schools within the district are rated a “C,” meaning they are just meeting the standard requirements for student performance, learning gains, student attendance, and standardized test results. When schools and districts have higher grades, they receive more funding from the state and more control over what they can do with that money.

“Without the funding to put people in place to do threat assessments, to respond to students’ needs, we’re not going to be able to meet our goals or meet our responsibilities under the law,” said Public Information Officer Linda Cobbe. “People don’t know what the district does as a whole but they also don’t understand what teachers do in a day. … People say you get off for the summer, you only work 8 to 3. Why should you make even what you’re making. But it’s not just standing in front of a classroom and teaching.”

Cobbe and other school administrators are continuing to implement Trauma Informed Care, as well as more programs and trainings for teachers. Police have created a system that looks at opioid addiction as an illness, rather than a crime, and now focus on helping people recover from addiction. When they execute a search warrant at a home where they know there are addicts, for example, they bring health coordinators to talk and help addicts mentally process the situation.

Even still, overdose cases are increasing, as is the burden on educators and students.

Ryalls-Clephane said smaller class sizes may help. Per state legislation, pre-k through third-grade classes should have no more than 18 students; grades four through eight should have no more than 22; and grades nine through 12 should have no more than 25.

“I work in a school with 700 students and I’m the only school counselor there,” she said. “In my fifth-grade classes I’ve got 26 kids … One or two more make a huge difference. One with behavior problems makes a huge difference.”

Dew wants schools to realize how the behavioral and mental effects of dealing with the opioid crisis truly impacts her and the hundreds of other students and teachers. There should be more counselors and staff available that are thoroughly trained to speak with and help all members of the school.

“Every teenager feels like they’re alone if they’re going through a personal issue with substance misuse,” said Dew. “It takes a big part of their self-esteem out and they may think this is how my life is so this is how I’m going to grow up.”

The post As parents overdose, Pasco County schools becomes overburdened appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Pasco County, Florida, is a primarily white middle-class community perfectly nestled between the Gulf of Mexico’s sunny beaches and Disney World. But despite being in the sunniest state and close to the happiest place on earth, it is clouded by addiction. Parents are getting high, children are being neglected and teachers are desperately seeking help as the opioid crisis unleashes its plague on the state of education.

Cynthia Ryalls-Clephane, 69, has been a school counselor in Pasco since 1992. There are countless cases, she said, of parents too high to even discuss their child’s well-being. She has seen students unable and unwilling to focus on their exams because their mom overdosed the night before and they were placed into a stranger’s home in the middle of the night. The teachers she works with are just getting more stressed, overwhelmed and defeated. They want to help, but the district and parents expect them to be foster parents, behavioral specialists, social workers, school counselors, personal tutors, life coaches and babysitters — on top of simply trying to teach students a basic curriculum between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.      

 “I get kids that come to school who are homeless living in the woods. … Many times kids want to be at school because this is the safest place,” said Ryalls-Clephane. “I think about a variety of children that I’ve talked to teachers about. They feel helpless because the drugs are causing so many problems.”

Throughout the year, Child Protective Investigations receives approximately 7,500 allegations of child abuse and neglect. Most of those reports are submitted by teachers, school administrators and daycare facilities who can no longer handle the tolling effects of the opioid crisis. Multiple educators said they have countless students who have clearly not bathed, eaten or slept more than a few hours for days at a time. Others have seen students become violent, throwing desks, getting into fights and verbally abusing other students and teachers.

“They say some really horrific things to you. They call you every name in the book. They will physically aggress towards you,” said Sarah Merchant, a behavioral specialist and teacher at Schrader Elementary School. “If you don’t have a thick skin you can definitely become burnt out. We have had teachers who have had breakdowns.”

This above-average problem, teachers say, has taken over a seemingly average town. The county of roughly 525,000 people does not offer much entertainment aside from a couple of old movie theaters, Dairy Queen, Walmart parking lots and unkempt beaches littered with pollution. The median income is just over $48,000 and only about 53 percent of citizens are in the labor force, many of which work in education, retail or fast food.

The Sheriff’s Office said there were at least 140 reported overdoses in January and February alone, which is 59 more overdoses than that same time frame in 2018. Sixty percent of those were directly related to opioids. They find it hard to keep track of how many people are truly using because the demand for drugs — specifically opioids — is so high, but Capt. Mike Jenkins of the Pasco Sheriff’s Office believes 2019 will continue seeing a rise in overdoses.

U.S. 19, the main road through Pasco County, is a hub for overdoses and drug deals. This needle was found lying a few feet off the highway, surrounded by pieces of cotton gauze and shredded latex. Photo by Li Cohen.

“I liken it sometimes to whack-a-mole. There’ll be a source of supply, we whack that one down and inevitably … there’s someone who immediately fills that gap within a short period of time and then the cycle continues,” he said.  

Even though the state and county have done a lot to combat opioid pills, he said there is still much more to do in regards to the illegal forms of opioids. “

“That solved one problem, but then that contributed to another issue. … If you do not address the demand issue something else is going to fill the void and fill the gap,” Jenkins said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

The office is also trying to handle the large number of opioid addiction cases where children are in the home. Over the past four to five months, Child Protective Investigations has had to remove 250 children from their homes because their parents or guardians were addicted to opioids, a problem that makes up 60 percent of all child removal cases in the county.

While CPI Director Ken Kilian said the department does their best to place children with family members, hundreds of children end up in foster care or staying with teachers until their parents can take them back.

“It’s not easy for a child victim who is witnessing their parents, their aunt, their uncle, suffer from this horrific disease,” Kilian said. “Addiction is extremely traumatizing and that has generational effects that we will see for years to come.”

And that trauma is expected to continue. As Kilian explained, the disease of opioid addiction is an endless cycle. The parents will continuously use, recover and relapse while the child develops behavioral and mental disorders they don’t understand and can’t control when they are at school. Then one day the parents take a dose a little too high. The child is left alone, hopeless and drained. They just watched their parents die and will have to go back to a school system the next day where the staff can’t help but mirror that same feeling.

Teachers feel more unprepared than ever

The school district is trying to help teachers by implementing Trauma Informed Care and the Harmony Project – initiatives that teach educators how to work with students and parents experiencing trauma and how to take care of themselves in dealing with that. Pasco schools social worker Danica Cockrell said being in a community that has high needs and high social deficits establishes an environment with drug use, poor mental health and a lack of communication. With the Trauma Informed Care, she hopes the schools will help teachers be prepared for what is expected to only get worse.

“It is no longer just coming to school to read, write and do math.’ We have to address and answer those social and emotional needs in order for students to be successful,” said Cockrell. I don’t think any school district will ever say that they are over-resourced or over-funded. …  We are definitely a whole child and whole family perspective – we have to be.”

But teachers in the area believe this initiative is not enough. They say there are too many students per teacher given the extent of the issues. They want more resources and support. They are struggling mentally, emotionally and physically to keep up with what is asked of them.

Despite reaching out to nearly 50 current teachers in the county, only two would agree to speak and , only on the condition of anonymity in fear of losing their jobs or worsening their situation in the classroom.

One of those teachers has been with Pasco for 13 years and works at a Title I school. She said the impact of this crisis is difficult to truly assess. Countless students do not receive their basic needs, such as stable housing, food and clothing because of their parents’ addiction, she said.

“How can you support them and tell them it will be alright when they lose their homes constantly? When there is no food, no electricity, no clothes, backpack, school supplies,” she said. “Many of us staff say constantly this feels like a mental health facility, full of emotional and behavioral needs in a place that lacks resources and personnel.”

This gap has led to a severe teacher shortage in the district. There have been 50 teaching positions posted on the district’s website since January alone. On the first day of school last August, there were 66 open positions.

Teachers say it is increasingly hard to stick around when they don’t receive cooperation from students, parents and administrators. Merchant explained that in the behavioral unit at Schrader Elementary School, only three out of seven teachers returned to their positions this year. Replacing them has not been easy, as the replacements tend to be first-year teachers or are cross-certification teachers who earned bachelor’s degrees in a different academic area and are working on getting their teaching certifications.

“I don’t know there’s a lot of teachers that see this day in, day out for years because not a lot of teachers stick around,” she said, adding that teachers tend to have emotional and mental breakdowns because of the behavioral issues they experience with students. “I would say the breakdowns are probably once every month or two. … Every day, every other day we have major incidents.”

The second anonymous teacher worked in Pasco for more than a decade and only recently moved to another district after suffering physical attacks and threats from her third-grade students. She claimed she never received adequate assistance from the school, the district or parents and the support staff was “often underqualified or spread too thin.” She, and many other teachers, she said, often left their classrooms shaking, crying, and headed to therapy or the doctor for elevated stress.

“Teachers are under severe duress and pressure due to the workload expectations that are completely and humanly impossible,” she said. “We are charged with finding differentiated lessons to meet the needs of kids who are usually two to three years below grade level.”

She went on to say that administrators won’t write referrals for bad student behavior because it impacts the school’s overall grade and can create bad press. She has personally complained of threats from her students and administrators would not document them.

“Children who are severely neglected by unfit parents do not self-regulate and reason like kids from healthy, functioning homes. … We are trying to teach kids grade level standards when they are unable to focus, disrespectful, don’t care and know an adult at home doesn’t care,” she said. “Teachers fight a battle every day and we never win.”

Students try to take control

Ashley Dew was 12 years old when she found her dad was using opioids. Despite living most of her life in Pasco County, she felt that most of the people she grew up with, including teachers and school administrators, did not know how to help her.

Her experience as a student dealing with the opioid crisis led to her becoming a teaching aide at World of Montessori School in Pasco. The 19-year-old is surrounded by despair seeing children fight the same struggles as she did. Many of her kindergarteners and first-graders suffer from behavioral and neurological disorders because of their parents’ drug abuse. Drug deals occur within feet of the school’s locked gates.

“In the classroom you have your bad students … Talking non-stop. Always having to be the center of attention,” she said. “It breaks my heart. I have two brothers in my class and I know that they go through a lot because of their father with substance misuse.”

The school does what it can to help. When students are overwhelmed – academically or personally – Dew and other teachers allows them to play with class pets, walk through a vibrant garden or have one-on-one talks with staff members. During her talks with students, Dew tries to help students cope with their parents’ situations and realize that they are not their parents’ caretakers. She, however, struggles to take her own advice and regularly chokes up when she reflects on her situation.

Dew watched her father, who she was once very close with, become a disheveled shell. Her relationship with her father became a couple of comments on Facebook and missed birthdays. There were days when she found it difficult to focus in school and on the days she needed the most help understanding her father’s choices, the school counselor did not have a spare moment to help.

“My father was never a bad person, but this drug issue changed him and changed us. … It hit me at my sweet 16. I didn’t have him come because every time I’m around him it was like talking to a stranger,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I wanted that daddy-daughter sweet 16 dance but I didn’t get it. It’s sad waking up with anxiety like am I going to get that call – is he dead or alive.”

One of the worst parts of the situation for Dew was that she felt her multiple high schools never took her situation seriously. She often felt left in the dust and it took years for her to realize that there were others going through similar situation.

“I definitely don’t feel like [schools] take it serious. It’s like ‘Oh, your dad’s just a junkie,’ and that’s not true,” she said, adding that the first time she found help was at the PACE Center for Girls. “In public school you were lucky to even get in the counselor’s office. I think I saw my counselor once. … They just don’t really care.”

While Dew hopes that her school can set a new standard for how teachers and schools as a whole approach these issues, other students in the district are trying to help students better understand what opioids are, how they impact the body and how they can impact the future of the crisis in Pasco.

Jocelyn Meriwether is only 14 years old, but when the Bayonet Point Middle schooler opens her mouth to speak about the opioid crisis, her soft and high-pitched voice becomes a megaphone. After seeing a presentation on the effects of opioids by local youth-led organization Save Teens Against Drugs (STAND), she decided to get involved and has since worked her way up to vice president of the organization.

“Kids don’t understand the effects. They think, you did it for a day and if you don’t like it you never do it again,” she said. “But it’s not that simple; you can get addicted and then it follows you because you have that need for it and that want for it.”

As part of the youth-led organization, Meriwether goes to various events and speaks at conferences in Pasco. She wants students and parents to know the signs of substance abuse so they can help those who are struggling and spread awareness about the direct and indirect effects.

“Kids will get disruptive in classes and a big thing in our school right now is fights,” she said. “Disruptions is hard because the teacher gets involved and tries and stops it. It takes away from our learning time and our education.”

Meriwether n and the other STAND members are working with state legislators to get their organization involved with more schools and change prescription opioid legislation.

A community searches for a solution

Since 2016, Pasco County schools have gained more than 3,300 new pre-k to 12th-grade students among their 96 schools, according to the school district, but only one more instructional employee. There were 601 new support employees, including secretaries, bus drivers and custodians, as well as administrators.

While the district has an overall “B” rating by the state, the majority of the schools within the district are rated a “C,” meaning they are just meeting the standard requirements for student performance, learning gains, student attendance, and standardized test results. When schools and districts have higher grades, they receive more funding from the state and more control over what they can do with that money.

“Without the funding to put people in place to do threat assessments, to respond to students’ needs, we’re not going to be able to meet our goals or meet our responsibilities under the law,” said Public Information Officer Linda Cobbe. “People don’t know what the district does as a whole but they also don’t understand what teachers do in a day. … People say you get off for the summer, you only work 8 to 3. Why should you make even what you’re making. But it’s not just standing in front of a classroom and teaching.”

Cobbe and other school administrators are continuing to implement Trauma Informed Care, as well as more programs and trainings for teachers. Police have created a system that looks at opioid addiction as an illness, rather than a crime, and now focus on helping people recover from addiction. When they execute a search warrant at a home where they know there are addicts, for example, they bring health coordinators to talk and help addicts mentally process the situation.

Even still, overdose cases are increasing, as is the burden on educators and students.

Ryalls-Clephane said smaller class sizes may help. Per state legislation, pre-k through third-grade classes should have no more than 18 students; grades four through eight should have no more than 22; and grades nine through 12 should have no more than 25.

“I work in a school with 700 students and I’m the only school counselor there,” she said. “In my fifth-grade classes I’ve got 26 kids … One or two more make a huge difference. One with behavior problems makes a huge difference.”

Dew wants schools to realize how the behavioral and mental effects of dealing with the opioid crisis truly impacts her and the hundreds of other students and teachers. There should be more counselors and staff available that are thoroughly trained to speak with and help all members of the school.

“Every teenager feels like they’re alone if they’re going through a personal issue with substance misuse,” said Dew. “It takes a big part of their self-esteem out and they may think this is how my life is so this is how I’m going to grow up.”

The post As parents overdose, education becomes overburdened appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

For many students, after-school theatre club is a place of refuge. They become stage managers and costume designers; they are lead actresses and featured dancers. It’s an activity that lets them relieve stress, form friendships, and can lead to better grades.

But thousands of students across New York State don’t have access to these opportunities. Their schools don’t even have art classrooms, let alone space for a theatre. Budgets can barely cover classroom supplies – costuming and staging a production is out of the question. While arts funding is actually slightly increasing, a lot of New York City students won’t see any changes.

“I constantly bemoan the state of arts in the schools,” said Judy Tate, a professor at New York University. “For as long as I’ve been in arts education, I feel like the resources have been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.”

Tate is a teaching artist who works with Manhattan Theatre Club. It’s one of many organizations that works to make sure that students across the city get the opportunity to study and practice theatre.

With the help of these organizations, students from schools across the city get the chance to go backstage at best-selling Broadway shows, learn from professional actors, and bring theatre into the classroom.

A Neighborhood-Specific Crisis

While arts funding is slowly improving, the majority of schools are still at a disadvantage, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.

“People want to come to school when they’re going to stay for the after-school drama club, or when they’re going to play music,” said Tate. “Arts is one of the things that helps people stay in school, and that people in charge don’t recognize that – it’s really disheartening.”

While the amount of hours mandated varies based on grade, the state requires that students spend between 93 hours and 186 hours per academic year on arts education, taught by a certified arts teacher. High school students must complete a certain amount of arts education hours to graduate – at least on paper.

But according to a 2014 report released by the office of the city comptroller, 28 percent of schools in New York City do not have a full-time certified arts teacher, while an additional 20 percent of schools have neither a full- nor part-time certified arts teacher. More than 42 percent of schools without these teachers are located in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn, despite these neighborhoods only having 31 percent of all NYC schools.

The above charts, taken from the NYC Department of Education, show median household income compared to the amount of arts teachers in the districts. Right: schools with no part-time or full-time certified arts teacher, focusing on the South Bronx. Left: schools with no full-time certified arts teacher, focusing on Central Brooklyn.

“There are instances, significant instances, of inequity, studies showing there’s a kind of correlation between high poverty areas and low arts in schools,” said David Shookhoff, Director of Education at Manhattan Theatre Club,. “There are problems, and we’re trying to adjust those problems.”

Filling the Gap

In the neighborhoods where these gaps exist, there’s no theaters or concert halls, not even off-off-off-Broadway spaces. There’s hardly any museums, and no art galleries. Instead, streets are lined with fast food restaurants, convenience stores and small businesses. As a result, many students don’t even have the chance to consider a career in the arts, let alone work towards one.

That deficit can be seen at The Academy of Applied Mathematics and Technology, or MS-343. Located in the Bronx, it’s among the schools that have no full- or part-time arts teachers, and while it’s highly ranked, according to the city’s Department of Education’s performance dashboard, it is located in one of the poorest Congressional districts in the country. In 2011, they were approached by Damian Bazadona, founder of the Situation Project.

“The school was missing something critical,” said Bazadona, “access to the extraordinary arts and cultural offerings of their city.”

Bazadona worked with MS-343 principal to secure 300 tickets to the then-running Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark. According to Bazadona, it was the first time many students had been on a field trip, let alone seen a Broadway show.

“Knowing what theatre meant to me as a young person, I think we have a responsibility to share our work with as many young people as we can,” said Seth Greenleaf, a producer at The Play That Goes Wrong, which the Situation Project recently brought students to. “Especially those without the means to attend on their own.”

The program has grown to include employee shadowing, artist talkbacks, on-site education seminars, and multiple shows. By the time a student whose school is involved with the Situation Project has graduated middle school, they’ve seen half a dozen shows.

“The biggest benefit our students have had is the opportunity to expand their cultural lens while also being given the chance to appreciate the arts,” said Tania Sanchez, an assistant principal at PS/MS 278, via an email with Bazadona. “Students have also made a personal and real connection to the performing arts especially through the opportunities to meet the cast and ask questions.”

The Situation Program can’t bring the arts directly into the classroom, but it makes sure that students at least have the chance to experience live theatre, and see the potential career paths ahead of them.

Meanwhile, Manhattan Theatre Club gives students a chance to write their own plays and see them staged by professional actors. MTC’s teaching artists also work alongside classroom teachers, blending theatre education with the existing curriculum.

In the past year, MTC has gone into 50 schools, working alongside 83 classroom teachers and impacting the lives of nearly 3,000 students.

“The work is designed as a collaboration between classroom artists and classroom teachers,” said Shookhoff. “Ideally, and i think in most cases in reality, the teacher and the teaching artist plan the work that’s going to take place in the classrooms, and collaborate in the classroom, and the expectation is that the classroom teacher is going to carry the work forward.”

The classroom work can include anything from learning about and preparing to see a play, learning how to write and stage plays of their own, and having the chance to see their work performed by professional actors. While MTC offers multiple programs, they all have a similar mission: ensuring that students across the city get a chance at a quality arts education.

“The idea is to bring [students] in contact with the power of live theatre, as a way to help them understand themselves and the world,” said Shookhoff. “What we’re doing is filling a gap. We’re making up a deficit.”  

Arts Leading to Increased Outcomes

Arts education leads to increased outcomes – but not just in academic terms. Students who are exposed to arts are more likely to go to college, to be civically engaged, and be better off socially.

“The crazy thing is, if you put [resources] into the arts, kids will tend to stay in school,” said Tate, who went on to explain that she has seen students become interested in, and eventually go to, colleges due to the increased opportunities for theatre there.

Bazadona said that in addition to seeing an increase in students wanting to go to college, many of them were specifically looking at performing arts schools.

“Before Situation Project, the number of kids in our founding school [MS-343] who applied to performing arts schools was about zero to two, out of a class of 100,” he said. “By the time the first Situation Project class was ready to graduate, 16 students had applied.”

Students involved with the Situation Project attended a performance of The Play That Goes Wrong. Photo courtesy of the Situation Project.

Both organizations agreed that while they don’t exist deliberately to lead students into theatrical careers, letting them see the potential careers that lie ahead of them is always a benefit.

“Our mission is not audience development, or talent development, per se,” said Shookhoff. “It’s about expressing aspects of humanity. That’s what we want our students to do, by coming to see our plays and preparing to see the plays. The plays that we ask them to write ultimately are ways for them to express what’s on their minds and in their hearts.”

Shookhoff explained that it’s also easy to see the changes in students in just a few weeks, both as they write their own plays and see live shows performed.

“The kids are excited about what they see and what they’ve done,” he said. “When the lights go down at the end of the play, there’s a palpable enthusiasm in the audience. They really dig the work, and connect with it. It becomes, in some cases, an almost rock-concert sort of enthusiasm.”

Always Hoping to be of Use

While arts education is still almost nonexistent in some parts of New York, there are indications that it’s getting better. This year, the National Endowment for the Arts, which President Donald Trump has frequently threatened to cut, actually saw an increase in its funding. City mayor Bill de Blasio has increased the amount of funding that goes towards arts education.

“The trend is positive,” said Shookhoff. “There’s been an effort to rectify a deficit situation. The hole is so deep that it certainly hasn’t been completely filled, but they’re trying.”

The increases will inevitably help students across the city. However, even if the situation continues to improve, these organizations still hope to be involved in bringing theatre to students.

“Even if all the schools were in  compliance with state mandates for art education, which they’re not, there would still be a role for organizations like MTC,” said Shookhoff. “We are the professionals, if you will. No matter how great your theatre program is, without the existence of Manhattan Theatre Club, you’re not going to see world class productions of plays by August Wilson or Sam Shephard. We’re always, all of the organizations, a value add.”

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