What teachers are worried about as students start the new school year
Aug 18, 2024, 4:00 PM | Updated: 4:31 pm
Teachers have some worries as the new school year starts. (Canva)
(Canva)
SALT LAKE CITY — The 2024 school year has started for students all over Utah. While most educators are excited to head back into the classroom, some teachers have a few worries when it comes to their students.
KSL NewsRadio’s Amanda Dickson brought three guest speakers on her show, ‘A Woman’s View,’ to discuss the problems students may face this school year.
Absences
Former Utah State Senator and Representative Patrice Arent talked about how some students can’t get to school because their parents can’t take them. She said this problem can happen because parents’ work multiple jobs.
Arent said another problem that has caused more absences and also struck teachers is depression.
“The teachers have told me there’s a lot of depression among the teachers,” Arent said. “I think we need to just have so much more support from school psychologists and social workers and counselors. We need that, you know. People don’t prioritize that with funding, but I think it’s really really important.”
Holly Willard, owner of Grand View Family Counseling said the resources schools have to treat depression are limited.
“I work with a lot of teachers and principals. They’re so limited on the resources that they can use, you know,” Willard said. “Most school counselors for elementary have two or three schools that they visit and being able to actually do counseling for kids is really impossible.”
Behavior challenges
According to Willard, school counselors may not have time to council students with depression, but they may have time to help with behavioral challenges.
“[Counselors] can deal with the behavioral issues sometimes,” Willard said. “But to be able to provide good counseling is impossible just based on their time and the means of that amount of students.”
Willard said there are ways to help students who can’t see a counselor.
“We’re using a lot of what we call cognitive behavioral therapy,” Willard said. “Helping [students] talk back to that anxiety of ‘I can’t do it.’ And helping them be brave in situations instead of having it be a crippling situation, having it be more of ‘this is a normal emotion.'”
Willard said there’s difference between students having an anxiety disorder versus an emotion.
“If you start feeling some anxiety you can go and talk to somebody, and understand, and normalize it versus waiting until it’s to the point that you can’t go to school,” Willard said.
Poverty
Arent talked about how homelessness can affect kids in school.
“Teachers are worried about these issues,” Arent said. “They talk about the poverty and how that affects these kids who are moving frequently. Some [kids] don’t even have homes.”
Arent went on to talk about how food insecurity isn’t only a problem for kids, but the teachers as well.
“I’ve been involved in a program for many years where we go to the schools with the Utah food bank, and we back up this food. The kids can take home as much as they want on Friday because they don’t have food for the weekend,” Arent said. “I’ve had principals come out and say, ‘the teachers don’t want to stand in line, but they qualify.'”
Politics in the classroom
Shauna Scott-Bellaccomo, former President of the Women’s State Legislative Council said certain laws can get in the way of teachers being able to do their job.
“Every year the legislature has so many bills trying to impose, I feel like… their will upon teachers and [educators] teaching methods and controlling them,” Scott-Bellaccomo said. “And what information is, you know, disseminated to our children.”
Scott-Bellaccomo said she feels like teachers’ hands are tied, and educators can’t teach how they want to.
“Some of these bills have discussed, you know, it’s an open curriculum,” Scott-Bellaccomo said. “You have to get approval from all the parents of every book. Almost every word you say. And it’s just like… my word it would be so difficult in today’s age to be a teacher and be under that magnifying glass.”
Related:
‘A Woman’s View’ panel discusses sexist comments, women in the workplace
