Soccer Games and the Lady in the Pink Dress

Last week I traveled to Ohio for a national conference to speak about the research I did with ECU for my doctorate. Many of you know that my research involved finding pathways to college for undocumented Hispanic students in Greene County. I'll quickly admit that until I came to work in Greene County ten years ago, I was unfamiliar with the problem. It wasn't until I met the students and learned of their stories that I decided to try to do something to change the situation locally. In my presentation last week, I was joined by two other colleagues that also focused their efforts on supporting Hispanic students. Our message was mostly well-received with the exception of one participant in the crowd, a lady in a pink dress. This participant was critical that we had not done more to push political activism, and even went as far as to criticize us for not directing our staff on how to vote. It initially bothered me a little but I brushed it off at the thought that she just wasn't aware of the restrictions of K-12 schools versus her own world in higher education. 

The thought of the lady in the pink dress came back to me this week as our soccer team celebrated on Tuesday night. If only she could see just how far our community has come in embracing our Hispanic students and families. Teachers volunteered roles and stepped up in a major way to help run various functions of the game and so many unseen functions before and after. Our stands were filled with a mix of English and Spanish-speaking families, all there to support the same group of students. While the soccer game gave us a reason to all be in the same place at the same time, these are the same people that are always supporting this community. They know the students, their stories, and their goals for life after high school. Our staff supports these students in ways far beyond what is asked and long after the bell rings. When we are called upon to celebrate or help students of any background, we know how to step up and we do, time after time. 

The lady in the pink dress does not know our school or our community. My presentation talked about fancy research methods and didn't fully convey the stories of the human beings that love one another enough to give their time, money, and energy to see others that may not look or speak like them celebrate. Effort and care for others are very hard things to quantify. They don't fit into neat little paragraphs in a dissertation and even less into PowerPoint presentation slides. But if the lady in the pink dress could have been with us on Tuesday night, she would have felt it. If she could see the work of the new Juntos program that Mrs. Galue has been leading, should would have to be impressed. If she can see the relationships that happen in our classes and hear the discussions in our hallways, she would understand. Thanks for embracing this community and for all that you do to support students whose background is different from your own. What you do is much bigger than any dissertation that I can write. 

(Still) Making Do

In 2019 I wrote a blog post entitled "Making Do" where I talk about our state budget and a difference of opinion I had with a state politician. My grandmother used the phrase "making do" a lot to describe how she grew up. She was the second of seven children in a sharecropping family that had a definition of poverty that I am not familiar with. Making Do means figuring out how to get by with what you had. We haven't adopted a state budget since that conversation with the politician and in many ways, we are still making do throughout our state. 

But this post isn't about a state budget. It's about the state of education right now. I work with principals from throughout our state, many of which work in much more affluent school districts than ours. They are used to having resources and the money to acquire them. Principals in high-poverty schools often joke that we do a great job training the teachers that more wealthy areas are happy to steal from us later on. As I talked with some of these principals over the past few weeks, a different perspective hit me. But you'll have to indulge me in a bit of a history lesson and a relation to my grandmother. 

When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression began, many wealthy areas throughout the country and the world suddenly went from rich to poor and struggled for several years to come. On the contrary, rural parts of the south and midwest did not feel the immediate shock. These areas had been poor for a long time. They were used to small houses, families where everyone worked on the farm and worked harder to stay one step ahead of hunger and bankruptcy. This is the life that my grandmother was born into and grew up in. Making Do meant stretching meals, sewing dresses from flour sacks, and contributing to the family as soon as you were old enough to help.

Rural schools were making do long before we did not have a budget or before COVID brought about staff shortages. More affluent districts are realizing a way of life that we have been accustomed to for some time and to be honest, we are better at it than them. We know how to help support others in ways beyond our classrooms or our traditional roles because, quite frankly, we have always had to. That doesn't mean that it isn't difficult but it does mean that we know that we can beat it. In the same way that my grandparents learned to live without many luxuries and could save money and provide a better life for their children, we are doing the exact same thing today with our students. While the state and nation gripe about shortages, I am seeing teachers in our building that roll up their sleeves and get things done. We are still Making Do and we are doing a great job at it.