Earlier today I biked over to Allen Elementary on the Southeast Side of Ann Arbor to attend my daughter’s 5th grade promotion ceremony. While biking I waved to some friends who were also headed there. The parking lot was packed and the great room was buzzing with excitement. We’d watched our kids navigate kindergarten on iPads and now they were all dressed up and looking forward to middle school. I am immensely proud of my daughter and her friends for everything they have accomplished over the past 6 years.
I’ve been reflecting a lot about what Allen Elementary means to me. For my family it means education for my kids, sure, but it also centers our social lives and community. On Friday the Parent Council held the annual Country Fair, a fun outdoor fair with a petting zoo, face painting, games, and food. I got to meet parents I had never met before and make connections between their kids and mine. We checked in with friends, my kids got their faces painted (snowflake for the 5th grader and snake for the Y5er). When the rain started I got to help clean up while knowing that my kids were safe playing on the school grounds.
When I walk my son into school in the morning I get to say hi to our wonderful specials teachers. They’re the ones who do the hard job of helping kids get from the buses and cars into the school every morning. They greet parents and kids by name with smiles and help them in all the small ways that are invisible and not tasks they strictly need to do.
All of the teachers are like this. They give out hugs and are generally in tune with the emotional state of these tiny humans. They are helping them become the sorts of people they will be later on in life in ways that extend far beyond worksheets. Schools, it turns out, are vital for much more than good test scores.
But…
When I walk in I also walk past a line of cars with signs in the windows about how the teachers are working without a contract. And have been for months.
Working without a contract for the vast majority of the year.
Months upon months of a total failure of leadership to deliver a fair and robust contract to a teaching cohort that unequivocally deserves better.
And, the most galling part, the only contract that was put to a vote was resoundingly struck down by the teachers, which is a clear signal that it was not presented in good faith, despite the messaging that immediately came out of the superintendent’s office to the contrary. They are now into the last week of the school year with nothing.
The primary task of a superintendent of a school system is to provide systems in which the district can operate and grow. At the moment there is an abdication of that responsibility. Between alarming budget issues and the inability to present a sufficient contract to teachers it is past time for the board to request the superintendent’s resignation.
Other people can give thorough lists of specific wrongs and ills. I’m interested in those, but that’s not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because I have seen the morale of teachers and staff shrink over the course of this year and yet, despite that, they show up for our kids in millions of small and large ways that we do not deserve.
I place the blame for this lack of morale squarely on the superintendent. If the goal was to demoralize teachers so much that they will leave in droves over the summer, we have achieved that goal!
During the 5th grade promotion ceremony they read out reflections from each kid. So many of them mentioned the confidence they’d gained over their time at Allen. About the art that they got to create, the music they played, the math they learned. That they now love writing and reading. They see the world as a bigger place that they belong in.
The teachers deserve a superintendent that is capable of leading the district and serving our teachers. My hope is that the board acts swiftly to ensure that that leader is in place.
If you’re an AAPS parent reading this, please let your kid’s teachers know that you appreciate their tireless work! And share this post around with other parents.