Equity in Education

knew it. Today, I am sharing part of that forty five minute conversation to give you insight on how educators have had to spring into action to address issues and inequities that existed long before the COVID nineteen outbreak. You'll hear from Brian Meeker, a high school biology teacher in Chicago, Illinois, who started his schools GSA and anti racist group. You'll hear from Teresa Finski Venucci, dean of students for an elementary school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, and Leona Fowler, a

special education instructional support teacher in Queens, New York. Take a listen to how these schools have been coping with this unprecedented disruption to what we previously considered our normal, everyday life. You know, one of the things that I have always thought, particularly about the teaching profession, is just how underresourced teachers are consistently across the board. It doesn't matter if you teach in a suburb or you teach in a city or a rural area. Education across the

board is really under serviced and under resource. And I'm wondering, and I'll start with you, Brian, what are the ways in which you have seen through teaching virtually in this pandemic, things that like should have been in place, like that schools should have had access to. One of the conversations that I've had with a one of the people running from mayor in New York City here is, you know a majority of low income students didn't have access to internet,

don't have laptops, don't have computers in their home. These are things that we knew, we knew before the pandemic, right, but didn't do anything about. So I'm wondering, what are some of the things that have come up for you that you are learning about the needs of students, the needs that the school should have, the infrastructure I should say that school should have in order to be able to teach in this new innovative space. There's just countless

inequities that we've seen. The example you brought up. We knew that going completely virtual for this long would mean giving every student a laptop, which we did, but like you mentioned, not all of our students have internet or reliable internet, or reliable a reliable space to focus and do their work. I have a student who just just emailed me this morning, and I know for a fact that when she's at home, she is taking care of her younger brother, who is also doing remote learning. So

she's on my biology class. She's there, but if I call in her, she's not there. And when I assigned the work, she doesn't do the work. And so we've had conversations over email, and she said, you're on in the background, but I have to help my little brother. So you know, my parents are working two jobs trying to make this work right now, Like my parents lost the job because of COVID, so they picked up this. So I'm in charge of both of us, and I'm sorry,

I'm missing your class. So it's this kind of it's this terrible no win situation because I obviously want her to learn, but obviously I have to understand that she and her family and lots of other families are kind of in these situations too. The zip code where my school is has a COVID positivity rate somewhere nineteen twenty percent. It was the worst. It's the worst in Chicago for

a long period of time. It's a neighborhood that needs more investment in general, more infrastructure in general, more access to vaccines, more access to medical care in general. It's just been something we've kind of had to reconcile with. This has helped us realize that we need to be

better about communicating with parents. It's difficult for us because if they are working two or three jobs, or if it does require a translator, or if it does require you know, other kind of pieces, it's a lot more difficult for us. But especially with this remote teaching. You know, if I can name some students and I have been seen a student in two weeks on my online class, I need to be able to reach out to someone.

Get that going, get that communication going, get the kid a Wi Fi hot spot, tell them to go to a library figure out something. Yeah, a lot, a lot of pieces there, Teresa. What are the ways in which your school has been able, you know, to some of the points that Brian is making about providing laptops, providing hot spots. What is the makeup the economic makeup of where you are situated, and how have you been able to deal with some of the inequities that have bubbled

up to the surface. Yeah, the school district that I work in is has a very high rate of free reduced lunch, so our poverty level is quite high. And we ran into the same problems that Brian was talking about when we went virtual, like when the school shut down last spring, especially at the elementary levels, we didn't have computers and technology for every student. The secondaries did because they already had that implemented, but that internet connection

was definitely tricky. This fall, we did have a device for each student. We were running a little bit low, like the pre k and kindergarten students were using really old devices that had already been retired by the secondary level, so they weren't the most reliable. And then everything of course was on back order. As you can imagine, every

school district in this country is ordering more technology. So we were able to get every student some kind of device, so that was great, and we were able to provide hot spots. Also, there was a list and there was a delay in getting them and then there's you know, some tricky things that have to happen there as ours logistics and getting them picked up and all of that.

In our school, the social worker and I, especially at the beginning of this year, once we got classes going, we were completely virtual at the beginning of the year, and the social worker and I went into a ton of home visits, which we had Our school district had implemented home visits a few years ago as like a relationship builder and as a way to connect home and family,

but it had it wasn't it hadn't been sustainable. So it's really and I was a big part of that program when it came to our district, so it's really exciting for me to be able to do that again. And we went into so many homes, knocked on doors. You know, some families are really excited to see us and some are not, like they're nervous, you know, especially like this administrator popping and knocking on your door unannounced, right, They're like, am I in trouble? Things like that, and

want to be like, how can we support? And sometimes, you know, especially when if they've had history with the county and attendance or whatnot, like me showing up, especially as a white woman, is not all ways good news, right, even that it's coming from a place of support. So being able to kind of navigate that and figure that out was really great for me. And then it was also building that relationship so then they can call like, hey,

you know, I need this. So I was able to build those relationships with the families that I don't think I would have been able to make had we just been in like regular school quote unquote, yeah, yeah, so we've definitely done that. We also have every quarter we have a supply pickup with new supplies that our district has been able you know, with the money that we

were able to purchase materials with. It's a lot of work for teachers to plan that far in advance, to think what do our students need you know, a month from now for a quarter and then any and then we had you know, a scheduled pickup time and then

any families that weren't able to pick it up. My principal social worker and I went around and delivered bags, which again was like, which was a lot of work, but it was also like really nice to get in the community more and again knock on those doors, and families that aren't able to pick them up are generally really happy that you know that you're making things, are

making the effort to drop them off. I mean, you know, I have often said, and I'm sure you all can attest to the fact that schools are community hubs, right, and they are the source of nutrition, education, safety, you know,

so much for the community. And I think that now one of the I would say, one of the good hopefully one of the good side effects of having to have been virtual for so long is the fact that people recognize how much they should appreciate you all and how much work you do on a regular basis, because now they've been home with their own children eight, you know, nine twenty four hours a day and are just like, oh, so this is actually like a real thing, not just a place that I go to drop my kids off.

And I hope you know that all goes well. So I think that that can be a positive side effect, and I like the way that you're saying that you have been engaging more in community that has been one of you know, sounds to be a good side effect as well. Leona. You know, I have been wondering for

the past year. I've been thinking so much about special education students and wondering how because you know, there are a variety of special needs that students have, right, but I remember being in the classroom with my kids and I was thinking that I've been thinking about them, and I'm like, there's no way that they would have been able to do virtual learning right, Like learning one on one in the classroom or doing pullouts was hard enough, And so how has it been as a special education

teacher this time? Tough? Just thinking about inequities. It really exposed a lot in regards to infrastructure and things that just should have been in place. I think, even for the students of special needs, this whole aspect of virtual learning or technology just should have never been new for New York City. It seemed like many of the special educators, especially speaking specifically to us, this was like a brand

new world. Although in the classroom we have to use devices, we have to use communication adaptive devices, smart board that they can touch screens and all that we had to use that the gap was shown in Transferred to home where that was that disconnects. I'm glad to hear Theresa.

You guys really made this family effort. I would say, like the hardest part has been with parents having them now learn I have to learn, be forced to learn to teach their kid too, or to work their child too in the capacity or at least in some capacity as we do. So my inequity piece outside of that whole digital divide, which is a conversation of by itself across the US, specifically here in New York, would be an other one was parent trainings. Parents really need it

training on how to work an iPad. They may have just known it for the recreational matter to touch an app and go into an app, but watching YouTube, maybe check an email I message, but in the capacity of work of a Google classroom, it was like, oh my god, you would have never thought anyone ever saw iPad before. It was just like, no, it's the same like your phone. It's the same. It was a lot. I mean, that's

been the stress. Even to this. They were a year now later into this virtual space, and parents are still struggling, and that's been hard because it's like I can't go into home, like I can't tell you how to help Leona stop crying right now, Like this is what I would have done, Please, mom, go get this, go get that. This is what we use. And parents are just kind of like, I don't know, and that is why a lot do send them back in even though they're fearful

of Corona there. I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do, but as don't know what to do at home, and I think if we did an even greater effort, because my school really is trying to really make greater effort to continue to strengthen and fostered to

parents and student and family connection. But before COVID, it just should have been a lot of in home stuff that was happening, not when it's just a crisis, especially like kids, they go into crisis, and that's where in home attempts happened, because things really can happen really bad depending on the type of disability or behavior challenge. I would say the tough piece is a lot of parents

just don't know what to do. They don't know how to work or device to the point where they're pushing it aside and just saying like, we just can't do it. And because as special needs students, it sometimes just goes with all right, well, we're just glad you tried, mom, We're just glad you tried. And then that's like the end of it, you know, And then the accountability is just kind of like uneven because then you have those parents that really are into it. They're in every meeting,

they're like trying to do these ips with you. Whatever button you tell them the press, They're like, I see it. Can you hear me? Now, okay, I tried it. I did a reset. You have those parents too, so then it's like you don't want one parent to be able to get away with I don't know what to do, so I don't even know where the iPad is, miss Fowler,

you know, or you know, and then that's it. So that's been a real struggle, and it really showed an inequity to access for parents materials and things that see that their child is learning at home, I mean in the school when they're with us. It really should be a transparency of like oh yes, when Leona brought that home. She did show me in her Google classroom, so that when she's now in the language should just be so even.

And it's going to take work because we have English language learners, we have parents from other countries, like it's New York City is a huge, one of the largest school districts, right, so it's never easy to try to get every parent to attend a training. But if that was just like a huge rollout or more of a megaphone of a thing we need parents to get on

board with, that would be something I rally for. And I too do policy work, have a degree in policy, so I'm really trying to push, even on a community level that parents really take advantage of when they see these blasts for training on Google, for training on Zoom, we're training on adaptive communication devices. Tackle it, try it, try it out. My roundtable with Leona, Teresa and Brian was an incredibly deep, insightful discussion and one that I

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