Teacher urges parents to voice budget concerns

Reprinted with permission from the Claremore Progress. This article originally appeared on Jun 21, 2016. Support local journalism with a subscription or a day pass for $1.99 :)

With growing classrooms and a reduction in resources, veteran teacher Jan McClaren is warning new teachers to leave Oklahoma.

“I am telling all young educators to get out of this state, this is not the state for educators,” said McClaren. “I hate to tell people that because I love my state. I was born in Oklahoma, but it is going to be at least another decade before our state catches up with all the things that have been neglected.”

McClaren said she offers the advice because in other states teachers can make a decent living, and other states are putting money toward education, so teachers can have the items necessary in their classrooms without having to purchase the supplies out of their personal incomes.

She said there is no reason for new teachers to stay in the state because they will not be valued by the Legislature.

“I know that is a controversial thing to say, but why should we stay in the state?” said McClaren.

McClaren did the math on what the extra students in her classroom mean in terms of hours of work related to grading. She said five extra students in each class means 180 extra hours of work per school year, which is an extra month of work.

She averages 50 to 60 hours of work per week to manage the growing workload.

Eventually she will have to offer fewer essay assignments or less feedback, and she doesn’t know if it is worth continuing to teach next year. She has reached her walk-away point, she said, but she stays for her students.

“I am at that point, but my students — I have the same ones over and over again. They ask me to stay one more year and I love my students and love teaching. I dread grading essays for hours and if I stay, I am going to be doing more and more of that,” she said. “What if I don’t want to spend an extra 180 hours grading?”

McClaren urges parents to voice their concern to legislators about the condition of education in Oklahoma.

“The parents need to rise up. They are not going to listen to teachers because we are talking about our jobs,” she said. “When I say, ‘rise up’, I don’t mean a French Revolution, but I do think parents need to get upset about this and take action.”

She even urges members of the Claremore community to take a stand and demand the Legislature make education a priority.

McClaren said while Gov. Mary Fallin focuses strongly on bringing businesses to the state, those businesses will not have an incentive to relocate if there is an uneducated population.

She also said while teachers and classrooms are weathering budget cuts, she doesn’t understand why state leaders won’t take a pay cut as an opportunity to stand in solidarity with all the state services struggling to manage shrinking budgets.

“Even though it won’t go far, we are taking cuts. They have not taken a percentage cut. That tells me something about their feelings. I am not bitter toward my school or toward my students, but I am angry that the state does not consider education a priority,” she said.

Education continues to accept the shrinking budget, despite having to do more with less.

“They cut education funding and they say, ‘Well, they seem to be doing fine.’ The Legislature just keeps tightening and tightening the budget. That is their prerogative, but Oklahoma is not going to have anyone who wants to do the job,” she said.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of stories on the challenges local teachers face in the classroom during the current budget crisis.