Our teachers are being asked to do increasingly more with less: less time and far fewer resources than ever before. And, while they’re amazing, teachers can’t be miracle workers. That’s why I will fight for smaller class sizes and to ensure teachers have the supplies in their classrooms that they need to set up our students for success.
Virginia faces a persistent teacher shortage, with around 1,000 unfilled positions each year. This has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. Thanks to funding and staffing shortage, teachers are filling more roles than ever before: as counselors, healthcare providers, food distributors, and substitutes for other classes.
Our teachers and paraprofessionals are stretched thin, and they are burnt out. We must provide support and fair compensation for our teachers and staff, or risk losing them – and compounding the ongoing staff shortages.
As our teachers are asked to take on additional work in and out of class, I will fight for them to have unencumbered planning time. If they are being asked to cover other classes during this time, they must be fairly compensated. I will fight for the same for paraprofessionals, who are also asked to cover classes.
Stafford County Public Schools currently has only one social worker per 1,176 students, one school psychologist per 1,531 students, and one school counselor per 325 students. For too long we’ve relied on teachers and other educational professionals to step into that gap. I will fight for more social workers and school psychologists to address the mental health needs of our students, while also expanding employee well-being opportunities and additional support for their mental health needs.
I will also look for opportunities to improve operational efficiency so that teachers can focus more on their classrooms, mental health professionals can focus on actual counseling, and administrators can focus on building the best learning environments possible.
Finally, every student deserves professional teachers and instructional staff who are competitively compensated. This includes our paraprofessionals, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, admins, nurses, and everyone who works to provide our students and our community with a quality education. Each and every one of them are essential in creating a successful learning environment and a strong community, and I will demand that they be respected – and compensated – accordingly.