As the Common Ground Over Chaos bus tour wended its way south, Congressman Pat Ryan met with Hudson Valley educators. Ryan, who served as representative for New York's 19th congressional district from 2022 to 2023, is currently the Democratic candidate running for New York’s recently redrawn 18th district.
In back-to-back sessions, one with teachers and one with School-Related Professionals, Ryan expressed appreciation for educators’ continued dedication to their students and spoke reverently of the respect this profession should be accorded.
“I do think it's important to say that at a time when a lot of institutions and places in our country are not trusted and not supported, I think you all like are still held up, and rightfully so. Everybody understands and appreciates the importance of the work you’re doing in our community,” Ryan told the educators.
The challenges for today’s teachers are many. “Our school buildings have become the social safety net for the whole state,” explained NYSUT President Melinda Person. “We’re a one-stop-shop, and we’re willing to be the center of the community and fulfill that role, but we need resources.”
Ryan, whose mom is a retired elementary teacher at Kingston City School District, was born and raised in Kingston and has high hopes for the city’s revitalization but said he understands that the future of the city depends on meeting the needs of its students.
SRPs asked for more resources at both the school and the community-level to meet the emerging mental health crisis in youth.
“We are seeing a lot more students coming in, even to regular education that have some pretty severe mental health issues, and we're talking about first graders or kindergarteners,” said Kim Decker, member of the Kingston Teachers Federation. “It’s violent behavior. I mean, I come home with bruises.”
Typically, schools have a social worker and one school psychologist, but that’s not enough now, she said. Without more staff, schools can’t provide consistent therapeutic services for students in need of daily interventions or offer the kind of wraparound services families in crisis need. “We need the proper settings in order to handle that,” said Decker.
Person also talked about the fact that educator salaries aren’t keeping pace with inflation, and too often educators can’t afford to live in the community where they work.
Ryan said it was critical to increase educator salaries and also bring down housing costs. Ryan said he’s currently engaged in discussions about creative solutions to housing, which could potentially include new housing stock built with teachers and other public servants in mind.
After the discussion with SRPs, Ryan held a roundtable with local teachers aboard the bus. There, teachers talked about the issues they’re confronting in their classrooms daily, including a constant struggle for adequate school funding, student mental health struggles, teacher shortages, student loan debt, and of course, over-testing.
Across the board, teachers expressed frustration with the way high-stakes testing are dominating classrooms across New York, narrowing the curriculum, and forcing educators to spend all their time “teaching to the test” -- all for what ultimately turns out to be data of very little use.
“Maybe we need to stop asking for more time, and really start asking, ‘Can we look at what we’re asking of our children. Is it developmentally appropriate? Is it even possible for them to be learning all of this so quickly at their stage of development?” asked Bonnie Van Kleeck, president of the Kingston Teachers Federation. “Because I think we’re harming them more than we’re supporting them.”