Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Doni: Ask almost anyone and they will tell you that the most important factor in predicting a child's success is a solid education.

It's that education that shapes the leaders of this nation.

Education helps us to appreciate our past so that we are better planners of our future.

Of course, the key to this process is teachers.

So why has teaching become one of the country's most difficult professions?

With more than 50% of educators considering leaving the classroom, Kevin Dalton, president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, is here today to discuss the challenges, the joys and the future of teaching.

I'm Doni Miller.

And welcome To The Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You may email me at doni _miller@wgte.org.

For this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

We are excited.

Very excited.

Especially right now when there's so much going on with unions in in our town to have Kevin Dalton with us.

Mr. Dalton is the president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers and has been so since 2012.

And we are glad to have you with us to talk about these important issues surrounding teachers.

Some pretty scary statistics out there.

Right now.

50% of all teachers are considering leaving the profession, which is pretty stunning.

I remember when teachers, everybody wanted to be a teacher.

And some of the most influential people in my life have been teachers.

What's going on?

Kevin: You know, as you mentioned, the 50% either thinking about or have left the profession.

It's staggering.

And when you talk to educators, you know, all of us went into education, you know, not know.

They knew that you're not going to be a millionaire.

Right?

They knew I'm not going to be the richest guy in the world, the richest person in the world.

But they they felt there was a calling there in they want to work with students.

They want to you know, they had a lot of it stems back to just what you said.

Some of the most influential people were teachers and these individuals lives.

So they think back like, I want to be like that person.

No, I remember, you know, Mrs. McConnell talking about all the great things that I could be doing literature, and that's what I want to do.

I want to be that and, you know, making education fun.

And so a lot of teachers get into it.

But then currently, I mean, there's a lot of national narrative out there.

You know, there's a lot of individuals that would like to demonize teachers specifically around public education.

There's a lot of just a lot of different things pulling on people.

And a lot of our younger members or younger teachers, even some veterans, they get into the classroom.

And this is not what they thought it was going to be.

And sometimes they don't feel supported like they thought they would be.

And they look for a different career path.

And unfortunately, we're losing a lot of excellent people to that decision.

So it's our goal.

TFT Is goal working with the American Federation of Teachers to kind of turn that narrative around, coming up with real solutions for our communities and kids around that.

And we know one of the best things that we can do is help stop a teacher shortage and increase the ability for educators to get in the classroom and be supported and do what they want to do.

Doni: So you talk about a narrative that's changed.

Why do you think that narrative has changed?

Kevin: You know, I think there's a lot out there.

But I mean, if you look at states that are trying to, you know, ban books or take away the professional discretion of educators, you know, teachers find that hard to fathom.

But here in Ohio, we're quickly approaching that.

You know, they just instituted a new universal, essentially universal voucher program.

And and it really erodes or marginalizes the public education and the systems that we need.

So when educators are going into it, they're not fully prepared for that.

And so where you are at the AT&T working to turn that around and make sure that our members feel like they have a voice in their profession and we want to make sure that whatever we're fighting for on behalf of our members is truly we're fighting on behalf of the students, and we want to be able to make sure that we have the professional discretion in the classroom.

Because if two for the conversation.

So if a student is talking with you at that point in time, you want to be able to either stop the conversation and divert it to a different way or continue it to make sure that everyone in the classroom understands what's going on.

Doni: So is that what you mean by professional discretion?

Kevin: Absolutely.

You know, our educators should be in are trained.

They go to college, some have masters degree or even PhDs, and which is awesome.

And when they get in that classroom, they have content, specificity and or experiences that will help those students go through.

The one thing that we don't know is what each day will bring.

Every day was different.

I mean, I taught first grade for six years, and not every day was the same.

You know, I had lesson plans and I can tell you those lesson plans were quickly thwarted by a student's question or maybe were talking about a certain topic.

And it went down to a different, you know, a different avenue.

And we want our educators to be able to use that inquisitive behavior of students and grow, you know, help help them grow with that and has that professional discretion they need to be able to have.

Doni: You know, I think one of the issues, though, that parents have with this idea of professional discretion is that they presume that teachers are doing more than teaching, that they are actually directing morals.

LGBTQ policy issues is and is an example of that.

What would you say to those parents who say, you know, I don't want you talking to my kids about that sort of thing in the classroom?

Kevin: You know, I would say that there may be very few examples of something like you, you know, you have called directing morals, but 99% of the time, that's not what's happening.

Many times what's happening is the teachers are viewed as that safe space, that safe person, and kids are opening up to them.

And I would say that there's not any and there's all the conversations I have had with my members and teachers.

They're not looking to direct morals.

They're not looking to even direct students decisions.

But what they are willing to be is that you're to listen and you know, in a safe space.

And I would think as a parent, I would want if my students if my my own children aren't comfortable to come to me and say, hey, because, you know, I'm their father, I would want them to have somebody they felt comfortable talking to because that might be the lifeline they needed to get through that moment in time.

Whether we're talking about what you had addressed or just any circumstance in life.

I'm I'm happy that students identify their teachers as someone they can trust.

And we want our teachers to be able to reciprocate that kind of trust and conversation.

Doni: Yeah.

You know, one of the things I think that parents and and people who don't have kids in school have underestimated particularly is the impact that COVID has had on the classroom.

One of the studies that I read talked about increased behavioral issues and in the classroom and just the probably equally as important is the leaving behind the students who are not performing at the level that they should be performing, which makes this work really tough right now.

Kevin: You know, I think obviously COVID was nothing anyone had planned for Sure.

And when you talk about, you know, kind of going backwards, you know, I just you know, when you're having students and just everything upended, including educators lives, you know, there was trauma introduced in people's lives, even if they don't think it was it was there.

You know, there's a lot of angst, a lot of unknown going on with that.

And even as adults, we struggle with, okay, what's next?

What's going to happen?

And as adults, we should be more emotionally developed and able to handle those conversations and those topics.

So think about how kids address that internally and externally.

So when the students, you know, were coming back to school, you know, we had a lot of conversations around, okay, we're going to be you know, we're going to be working with students that have, you know, have not been with their peers like they would have been.

We're going to be working with students that have not been exposed to structure the way a classroom normally would have been versus being online and working that way.

Doni: Critical issues, both those things were critical issues.

Kevin: Yeah, I mean, and just absolutely imperative to the success of the instructional tech here in the classroom.

And so, you know, we spent those first few months with students coming back, just really getting acclimated back to, you know, this is a school day.

This is what a school day looks.

You know, we just can't mute people.

You know, we can't just mute the kid in the classroom because we didn't hear what they want to say.

So we got to listen, figure out how to navigate that conversation with the other, you know, sets of toe ears in the room.

So it was a big learning curve for all of us.

And I think I applaud our educators, I applaud our community.

Certainly around here, we really stood up for students.

And when COVID did occur, and I think even coming back, our members, our teachers, our administration and our school district have put mechanisms in place to address the student needs.

And I think as we continue to do that, we need to work towards a balance between that social emotional learning and wellness and the balance also for and structural integrity within the classroom and what that actually means now.

Doni: So, Kevin, how are kids in Toledo doing in school right now in terms of performance overall, or are they lagging behind?

Are they keeping up?

Kevin: You know, I think there's a wide variety of performance depending on who you listen to.

I know last week or so, state report cards were released in some areas were were improved and some were not.

And I'll be honest with you, I'm not a big believer in state report cards and testing.

Some of it is very biased and it's not an indicator of where our students start and where they finish within that time.

A lot of times those state assessments are just a snapshot at one point in time, and if the individual's having a bad day, then that's what you caught them at.

I really believe that we should be focused on assessment like kind of formative assessments over time, you know, where did Kevin start, where did he finish and what's everything in between?

So to say, all of our kids are performing behind.

I can't say that to say they're all excelling.

I wouldn't say that either.

But I would say that there's strides being made with within the classrooms.

And I think and I also am confident to say that if there's deficiencies identified within a classroom or a section of students, our teachers, our educators are going above and beyond to address those deficiencies.

Doni: Is does charter schools, do charter schools present any particular challenge?

Kevin: You know, we yes, in short, yes.

And we have charter schools in our region, quite a few.

And I would say there might be one or two that have a track record of success.

And I would say many of them are for profit entities looking to make a profit off of students.

We have experienced and I've experienced as a classroom teacher personally, where students were recruited to go to a charter school for a promise of a better product, only to come back to my classroom.

Our traditional public schools feeling a little bit duped, if you will, really.

But I believe charter schools can be an issue.

I don't fault the teachers that are in the charter schools because I really believe they want to work with students.

I do fault the fact that charter schools, especially when they started off in Ohio, was kind of like the wild, wild West.

It was just anything went.

And then slowly they try to put some parameters in place.

But I don't believe there's enough parameters in place to make sure that charter schools have a consistent curriculum, a set of standards.

I mean, a lot of charter schools don't even have the facilities that our public schools have.

So if you're going to be another entity claiming to be just as good or a better model of education, you should at least come to the table with some of the same standards that we have.

Doni: Absolutely.

I need to go away for just a second.

But you'll stay with me.

I want to come back and talk about safety in the classroom.

Absolutely.

Right.

We will be right back.

Jaden: I'm Jaden Jefferson in on this week's edition of On Point.

I'm asking people, what are some of the challenges facing teachers?

What are some of the challenges facing teachers of today?

Rori: I'm not a teacher, but I know friends who are teachers.

And aside from struggles with funding and needing to buy their own materials.

To me, one of the most pressing things is the idea that some teachers might not be able to be open with their students regarding gender identity or family structures at home and things that are very pressing and real for a lot of folks, not only in our community but in other communities.

Jaden: What are some of the challenges facing teachers?

Timothy: I think the hardest to deal with are understand how that happens.

It's like telling a cop to buy his own gun.

Jaden: What are some of the challenges facing teachers?

Ayana: I think right now it's the overall students.

Yeah, it's I feel like the students make it hard on the teachers on what they already have to do.

And it shouldnt be that way.

Jaden: So at one point this week, I'm Jaden Jefferson.

Doni: Connect with us on our social media pages.

You may email me at doni _miller@wgte.org, for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

We have Kevin Dalton with us today.

Kevin is the president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, and we're talking about the challenges and the joys and the future of public education in this country.

We left with the promise of coming back to address this particular topic.

Lots of teachers have and folks in the community have said to me, teachers just don't feel safe in classrooms anymore.

That's true.

Kevin: You know, there's surveys out there where educators have expressed concerns with the classroom.

And I think this day and age, we as educators, we are dealing with a variety of variables and pressures that come to the classroom and student safety or what I would call instructional integrity.

So right now, I don't think every teacher feels unsafe.

I definitely think there have been a few incidences that that have caused a pause for educators, whether it was.

And fortunately, we've been blessed in Toledo not to have any catastrophic instances where we've seen around the nation.

But even a fight or something like that, when it happens in the classroom, teachers feel very uneasy, not just for themselves, but for the other students around.

Doni: Which I but you kind of have to admit, just a little bit that students are a little different these days than they were when we were growing up there.

There is a bit more opportunity for them to feel as though they can challenge when perhaps we would not have challenged in and our teachers prepared to manage that.

Kevin: You are a master as saying these things, and I would say, are they prepared?

I believe they've been giving been given a lot of training, but nothing prepares you like the experience and the reality of being in that classroom on your own and dealing with that.

Yeah, I 100% agree.

Students aren't what they were even when I first started teaching back in 1996.

And they've come a long way and I've a lot of it I think is around your social media, the use of cell phones and things like that, and it's required our teachers to adjust.

I also think that, you know, the the encouragement of social emotional learning and some other mechanisms, there has been a lot of loss between the balance of social emotional learning as well as accountability in the classroom.

I believe students as well as the adults, should be held accountable for their actions, and I think students will rise to that.

And I've seen very successful classrooms.

In fact, most of our classrooms, too, public schools are very successful and our students are very successful with the educators.

But every now and then you're going to have a student who makes a bad choice.

And I think that we have to have mechanisms in place to address the bad choice and not just a suspension, not just an expulsion, But why did that student make that decision?

Doni: Absolutely.

Kevin: And what are we going to do to provide resources not just for the kid, but for the family?

Right.

Because let's keep in mind, these are just students.

They are not completely emotionally developed.

That's right.

So, I mean, it's easy for the adult like, oh, that student did this.

But we also got to think what's going on in that student's head and then how do we get the resources to him or her and the family?

Because until we make that full impact on the dynamics of the home, it's not going to get much better.

And and that's one of our focuses as well with TFT.

Doni: You know, one of the things, too, that I think is really important is, is that this whole this whole idea of social media that sort of crept into our society and has now become like front and center and has an amazing impact on students and that rolls over into the classroom.

I know of online bullying.

I know of all these things that that diminish the students ability to handle stress and to manage their self-esteem and all of that manifest in the classroom at the end of the day.

Kevin: It does.

And, you know, working with American Federation teachers and the federation teachers working together, we've you know, we have called on social media companies to put in safeguards and parameters to help help these students avoid that, because, like I said, these students aren't completely developed and this children aren't.

So they're just flying through social media doing certain things, and they're not ready to navigate some of the negativity that they're experiencing.

And it's causing a lot of extra stress.

There is, you know, online bullying.

You know, there's opportunities.

Or when students are trying to coordinate bad acts via social media or all the thing, I mean, think about it.

Like when you and I were in school, you know, we were lucky to have a CD rom disc player, something like that.

These students have, like powerful computers at their fingertips, which could be an amazing tool, but I don't believe that tool is ready and or needed in our classrooms just yet.

And I worked with our superintendent recently.

We've talked with other districts that have implemented different policies that have actually mitigated and reduced the usage of cell phones in the classrooms, which has led to what this is coming from students and teachers, administrators alike in this district.

But it's led to more what they describe, more normal conversations, less negative social interactions, because students are actually talking with one another versus being online and being on their phone.

So we are currently reviewing and looking for different solutions to put in place to really safeguard the structural integrity of our classrooms.

Doni: That's really important information, really, really great strides to to helping address an extremely difficult and important and important issue.

Teachers, though, I think that all of us, many of us think that school starts.

They have everything they need.

We we're all stunned to find out that teachers are spending, on average $1,000, 800 to $1000 of their own money.

Sure.

Is that.

Kevin: True?

Absolutely.

I mean, and that's per year.

That's not, you know, that's not just a one time shot.

Well, a lot of times our classrooms do not come with when you walk in to a classroom and you see all those great borders and great bulletin boards, that's not provided by the school district, that's not provided by the employer.

That is provided through our own income.

And we go out there and do that because, like I said, that's what we want to do for the kids.

I mean, nothing's better than starting off your school day with some smiles versus just having a very institutional looking classroom.

And it doesn't happen without spending some of your own money.

Doni: Any discussions about addressing that issue?

Kevin: You know, we talk about it quite a bit.

And, you know, during negotiations we have in the past and we will continue to do so.

We've used our collective bargaining ability to at the very least provide for our new educators and all of our educators a basic inventory list for the classroom.

But as you can imagine, you know, there's a lot of things out there that people want and they want to dress up their classroom, and it does require extra dollars.

We've you know, we have worked with other community entities, whether it's the United Way or other places like that, where they've provided some of the basic needs and resources for students because, you know, that's one of the things we didn't touch on, is not only are we doing that for our classroom to put up the bulletin boards and make everything, you know, very conducive to learning, but we're also providing, you know, the crayons, the pencils, the folders, the papers a lot of that stuff.

That way, you know, if when we're getting ready to do an activity, we don't need to enter into an adversarial conversation with a student may not may or may not have supplies.

Sure.

Just it's easier just to have it on hand and get right into it.

Right.

Doni: So overall, overall, the discussion is that at least the TPS student teachers are paid fairly well.

They've got great support from folks like you and a really active union that looks out for their interests.

Yeah, I know that you were on the picket lines this week.

Kevin: I have been.

I was there Friday for the UAW and was there again this morning.

And I think we all should be standing with the workers and for us, you know, we have close to 3000 members after you add everybody up.

And we have a lot of families who are being impacted by this fight, whether it's their spouses, their kids or family members.

So ultimately, it's important to support that.

And you have to be I was blessed to come in to little public schools and get hired there and have a contract and you talked about that advocated for me.

But I'll be honest with you, when you look through our contract close to 300 and some pages, I would say less than 5% is really about me.

It's about the students.

We fight for class sizes that are manageable and conducive to learning.

We fight such.

Doni: A manageable class size.

Kevin: Well, depending on what you're if you're looking at kindergarten, we would, you know, we try to shoot for 25 in a class.

No more if you're looking.

And it depends on what the grade levels are.

But I think one of the areas our contract we tried to shine definitely needs some tuning up is around the special education classrooms because we know we have students with special needs.

And in order to meet those needs, you need a classroom that is conducive to making sure that all the students can be interacted with.

Doni: Yeah, you know, even with all of the even with all of the challenges, there is a joy that you exude when we talk about education and school.

And I can see you being a first grade teacher, actually, I think that kind of works for you.

Kevin: It was an amazing time.

I you know, Yes.

I mean, I have some I mean, I could write a book I would love.

I'll share just a quick story.

But, you know, I never I never had a little brothers, sisters and never been around little kids.

I come into first grade classroom and a couple of weeks in the school, I had probably some some naughty students right.

So one of my favorite students.

So one day, long story short, he was working on some morning work and he come around from the calendar time and had turned himself in an incredible hawk.

And it was one of my favorite stories out there, but at first grade was amazing.

I miss it every day, but I am absolutely humbled by my role because I go to other and advocate for not just one classroom, but for all the classrooms throughout Philly public schools.

Doni: So we really want to encourage people to think about teaching as a profession and have them understand that it is as important today as it's ever been.

And we really, really want them to know that they are there is great joy in this profession.

What's some of that joy?

Kevin: You know, I'll tell you what some of the joy is, is when you come away from your day and you've had a good day and you're walking out there, I mean, like that was awesome.

Like the day is flew by, everyone's making good decisions, the kids included.

Right.

And adults.

But also there's joy in this.

I don't know if this is joyous, but it also is humbling because I'm walking down the street and this man comes running out to me and gives me a hug is like Mr. Dalton.

It was one of my first students, my first art teacher, you know, basically 30 years old now.

And he remembered everything, all the stuff that we talked about.

And those are the things that really keep people going into it, candidly.

That's why people want education.

So there is a ton of opportunity and a ton of joy.

And I really believe that on this Little Federation of Teachers, as well as other entities, should be working closely to create a more robust conduit between, say, Toledo public schools and University of Toledo, Lourdes, or BGSU.

We have great people in our region and one of the reasons I stay in Toledo and I stayed in Toledo was because of our contract.

It was because of the unions, because this is a town that should and it does support those workers.

And so I would encourage our districts and our universities to come together for a robust program to create this grow your own stay at home type of mentality, because those are the people that we in our classrooms.

Doni: Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today.

And I really I hope that your you'll come back.

This is a huge topic and there's lots to talk about and thank you for joining us as well.

And we will see you next time.

On to the Point.

Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public media.

This program was made possible in part by viewers like you.