“I think everybody is a little bit tired,” said history teacher Maureen Galvin. “In addition to transitioning back, we’re transitioning to a new principal and all the changes that go with that… and of course, always having the pandemic hanging over our heads. I think everybody is dealing with a lot that just makes day-to-day interactions more difficult.”
Survey results for the Nov. 2021 multi-page survey on social-emotional learning (SEL) through a company called Panorama were presented to staff in a Jan. 5 faculty meeting—and they show a remarkable drop in student morale since a similar survey from last spring and the fall prior. On the fourth slide of the presentation, the first piece of data is shown: Only 36 percent of students responded that East has a positive energy.
Across the board, it’s agreed that the environment at East this year is unusual, given the transition back into the building coupled with general stressors that come with high school. For some students, like junior Madeline Quinones, it can feel as if there’s no time to breathe with the culture that pressures students to take APs and get straight As. Still, larger systemic issues of equity at East remain the same, where some recognize that steps are sparingly taken to make students of color and marginalized students feel represented and accounted for.
Of the many issues the survey recognized, one regarded teacher-student relationships. Fifty five percent of students noted favorable attitudes toward teachers within and outside of the classroom versus 63 percent of students in the spring, pointing towards a lack of compassion and accommodation. Compared to the nation, East is only in the 20th to 39th percentile in the teacher-student relationships category.
“I think the whole thing we used to have [of] ‘Students and staff working together;’ [is] not really true,” Quinones said. “We do not work together as we should…. There’s a lot of [teachers] that expect a lot from their students and they’re not very considerate [or] good at thinking of [students] as people with lives outside of school.”
“I think the whole thing we used to have [of] ‘Students and staff working together;’ [is] not really true. We do not work together as we should.”
– Madeline Quinones
In the survey, less than half of the student body, 49 percent, responded favorably to the question “If you walked into class upset, how many of your teachers would be concerned?,” which is a 14 percent drop from the spring.
Mintzy Paige, East’s Instructional Coach, works alongside teachers to support them and their curriculum, acknowledges that mending teacher-student relationships is a crucial first step to boost spirits around the school.
“I’m hoping to look again at PAC and how we can best utilize PAC to help with [morale],” said Paige, who has also organized several lessons for PAC. “And then, maybe [get] together with admin to think about some strategies we can implement for student-teacher relationships, because there does seem to be a little disconnect.”
Wildcat PAC now includes a “good news” segment, which has also become a part of interim principal Aaron Acome’s Sunday emails to students and families, a strategy that teachers like Galvin are recognizing could be beneficial in their classrooms.
“We often talk about all of the stuff that’s wrong—there’s not thousands of things that are wrong at East, but there are a few things that are stumbling blocks that we’re working on,” Acome said. “But, there are so many great things that are happening that we just haven’t been talking about.’”
Still, others believe the solution is more complex, as the problems occurring around East and throughout the district are a culmination of some larger, even worldly issues made up of several intricacies: When the survey went out, staff wasn’t accessible to students as they had been in prior years while in the building. In November, there were no full lunch periods and no times for clubs, putting teachers into strictly an instructor role, rather than advisors and real people.
At the same time, threats of violence as well as physical altercations were persistent. Favorable positions on school safety are down 18 percent from the survey in the spring, and again, East is in the 20th to 39th percentile overall. With these circumstances, Paige believes that students were at their “tipping points,” where so much pressure had led to students “lashing out.”
Regarding staff, Paige says that she has also noticed similar trends of burnout displayed throughout the staff as they face the new challenges in their return to in-person teaching.
“I think that [teachers] are trying their best to make sure that they’re covering the curriculum… [and] trying to decipher ‘What time do I have? How do I compensate for students who aren’t able to be here because of COVID?’” Paige said. “Added to that, teachers are planning and over-planning for their own classrooms just in case [they] have colleagues that are out, meaning [they’re] giving up…[their] planning times, to make sure that the building is sustained.”
For social studies teacher Heather Burek, she says that, as a teacher, she doesn’t get the same “grace” that students do. Additionally, Burek says she has experienced a “blatant disrespect,” when on lunch duty, for example, in how students’ speak to her and treat her, acting in direct opposition to how her students treat her in the classroom. Galvin has had similar experiences of disrespect, believing them to be “a post-pandemic issue of transitioning.”
Experiences such as these parallel survey results, where a 25 percent drop from the spring survey to the November survey was recorded in the frequency of disrespectful behavior and attitudes at East.
“I don’t know if [student attitudes] are a question of morale or stress,” Burek said. “I think there might be lower morale as a consequence of there being higher perceptions of stress. They allow themselves to get overwhelmed and it makes it like a cycle [of stress], therefore adding to the morale.”
“I don’t know if [student attitudes] are a question of morale or stress. I think there might be lower morale as a consequence of there being higher perceptions of stress.”
– Heather Burek
Senior Tyler Mead agrees, believing that the novelty of this year perpetuates low morale, stress and uncertainty across students and staff.
“There’s more of a general questioning of the system now, so I can see less of a comfortable and stable environment that can lead to these [survey results],” Mead said. “Whereas before it’s like, ‘You’re in high school and this is how it’s always been,’ and teachers know what to expect and they’re comfortable. I think that that’s maybe the main thing that’s lacking now that we’re in person, but especially at the beginning of the year [when] many teachers still expected to go virtual at some point.”
Fundamentally, the most apparent solution to improving the well-being of students and staff is better communication, says Paige. According to both Acome and Paige, groups of student ambassadors are working alongside administration within East and throughout the district to present their concerns. In Spring 2022, students should expect another survey, which administration hopes will show improvements.
“I understand the impetus behind [the survey], but I think particularly comparing pre-pandemic, during the pandemic [and] still in the pandemic but back at school—unless we’re going to be in this situation forever, I don’t know that it’s helpful at getting at some of the issues that we probably really do need to address here at East,” Galvin said.
Moving forward, students and staff alike hope the district will look at what’s most sustainable for both parties involved. Given that COVID-19 isn’t going away, the administration will need to recognize and implement solutions that are more conducive to SEL, academic learning and mental health.
Photos by Eloise Rich/The ECHO
