6 No- or Low-cost Ways to Support Public Schools

My initial teaching career started in 1984 and ran until 2002. When asked during my subsequent corporate training career what I missed about teaching, I always answered emphatically with, “The students!” Those daily interactions were soul-nourishing for me. When I asked what I liked better about my corporate gig, I mentioned three things – paydays, peeing anytime I wanted to just because I needed to, and the shorter hours. The one that often drew the most attention was the one about shorter hours because we frequently worked 60+-hour weeks in corporate life.

As a high school English teacher, I frequently worked many, many more hours than that. Between grading, school activity chaperoning, and the variety of part-time jobs I performed to make the money reach the end of the month, being an educator was exhausting!  After I retired from my corporate career, I rapidly grew bored with having nothing to do. I considered a variety of non-profit project management roles, but my heart was always in the classroom. I didn’t want the stress and long hours of a full-time teaching role, so I decided to give substitute teaching a go.

Yearbook photos from Mark's high school teaching career

I’ve discovered I really enjoy it. I often tell people that subbing is to teaching as grandparenting is to parenting. I get all the fun parts of teaching – interacting with young people every day, teaching them fun stuff, etc. – without all the nonsense – dealing with administrators and parents, lesson planning, tedious paperwork, grading, etc. I do miss working with the same students every day and seeing them grow and change over time, but I think there’s going to be the potential for even that experience as I sub longer at specific campuses.

Being a sub is an interesting mix of inside outsider in the public education system. I’m enough of an insider, both due to my current role and to my previous career as an educator, to see how the sausage is made and to appreciate how hard the foot soldiers are fighting. Conversely, since I’m not actually a full-time teacher, I have an outsider perspective rarely afforded to other members of the general public.

I’m often asked how teaching has changed in the 25 years I was out of the classroom. My first answer often seems to surprise people – very little. Students look and behave very similarly. Even much of the clothing style has changed little. Jeans still dominate, though the holes in some of them are different. I see lots of sweat pants, and I’m actually a bit surprised that notoriously fickle teen fashion trends still embrace sagging pants. Tennis shoes still dominate the footwear scene, though I do see a fair amount of what were once called bedroom slippers, which are often paired with another newer fashion trend – pajamas. I don’t see a lot of them, but I do see several students each day in what look like fleece pajama pants. I have to admit, they do look warm and comfortable! Hands down, however, the biggest change I’ve noticed is the absolute ubiquity of electronic devices. Given the choice, even the best of students will be on their devices every minute of the day. I’m constantly surprised by how absolutely addicted they seem to be.

In the school district where I’ve been subbing, there are 21 high schools, of which eight are substantially smaller magnet schools, but the average academic high school has over 2,500 students. This is the fourth largest school district in the state of Texas.

The Challenge of Mobile Phones in the Classroom

Given how widespread the use of mobile phones has become, I’ve been a bit surprised that this district has chosen to leave the policy regarding phone use to individual campuses and that some campuses have left the policies up to individual teachers. The rules range from one campus where students are not allowed to possess their phones at all during the day to campuses where students may have/use them at any time. To be clear, the campus that doesn’t allow them at all is an alternative high school with a population of students sent there as a final alternative to expulsion. Because of their student population, many of their privileges are severely restricted.

Within the regular education high schools, the policy that’s consistently enforced across the entire school seems most effective. It is clear to me that allowing students to use their phones anytime they choose just isn’t working. If you know anything about adolescents, impulse control is not typically an area in which they excel.

The best system I’ve seen involves a rack of numbered phone cubbies (think about an over-the-closet-door shoe rack) hanging on the classroom wall. Students understand that the expectation is that they will put their phones in the numbered cubbies as they enter the classroom each day. If they successfully complete that day’s assignment and time remains in the class period, they’re allowed to retrieve and use their phones. This system serves the dual purpose of simultaneously removing the temptation to use the phone and providing an incentive to students to focus on and complete their work. The first-time compliance rate with this procedure is near 100% consistently. On the other hand, on campuses with no consistent policy, cell phone use is a near-constant source of conflict and defiance from the students. Even otherwise well-behaved students have a difficult time putting their phones away.

The Role of Electronic and Digital Tools in Schools 

Do I see electronic/digital tools used effectively? Yes! Most school districts now employ a learning management system (LMS) to offer/track online courses. They can be a powerful tool for both synchronous (groups in classrooms) and asynchronous (students working outside of classroom time) learning. In education, where districts often select the lowest bidder, there is one pitfall – the systems are sometimes clunky and outdated. The system in use in the district where I sub is at least a full decade behind the LMS platforms we used in corporate learning. The interface is dated and not very intuitive. I’ve noticed quite a few teachers quietly quitting using it because it presents them with so many tedious challenges.

So many classrooms are back to being paper based again. One area in which the digital tools have completely taken over is the reading of textbooks. Most students don’t even have them anymore. I’m assuming that’s saving school districts money. It also saves them on storage space and on the time/effort it previously took to inventory, track, and maintain all those physical textbooks. As a bonus, students are also no longer required to carry those heavy book bags around all the time.

In the district where I sub, each student is issued a Chromebook laptop. Those are cost-effective, easy to use, and relatively easy to maintain for the technology support personnel. They do require power charging, which is a bit of a nuisance. They also require students to bring them to class each day, also a bit of a nuisance. Overall, though, the impact as I’ve witnessed is positive.

A few campuses have chosen to provide a classroom set of the laptops to each classroom as an alternative to student-issued machines, which means the students always have access to one. The two big trade-offs, however, are that students have to check one out to take home if they need it and teachers have to issue/collect the laptops each period when they’re needed.

The Redistribution of Public-School Funding 

One of the most disturbing trends I’ve noticed in education isn’t new, really, but it has continued to plague public education since the 1980s. There is the notion out there that state tax dollars should be redirected to private and parochial schools. Most schemes for that claim to allow parents to choose how tax dollars are assigned to schools in the form of education vouchers issued by the states to parents to offset the cost of private school tuition.

There is no way to calculate these schemes that does not significantly reduce the funding available for public schools. By definition through a series of ever-widening court decisions and legal federal statutes, public schools are required to provide a “free, appropriate public education” to every child. Are there inequities in the current system of public schools? Of course there are, but many of those are based on how we choose to assign students to various campuses based on geographical districts that often only serve to exacerbate existing economic segregation. School districts are often gerrymandered to keep “them” over there, whoever “they” are and wherever “they” live.

Unfortunately, vouchers are often billed as “school choice” systems. In fact, vouchers are a system in which schools get to choose which students they want to serve. Traditionally underserved populations are typically more complicated and more expensive to educate, so private schools don’t choose to enroll those students. This is especially true of students who are differently abled and require more attention for any number of possible reasons.

All these issues are much larger than the scope of a casual blog piece, but one can’t be involved in public education in any meaningful way without being touched by the issues of vouchers. As a parent, grandparent, educator, and an American citizen, I hope you’ll choose public schools and vote to keep them free and available for all of our children.

How You Can Help Public Schools 

What can you do today to help? Here are my top six no- or low-cost ways you can make a difference in your child’s school. Choose them!

Consistency: Consistently choose to voice your support for your child’s school and public schools in general. Speak to your friends and family members about all the good things going on in schools. Push your local news media to spend as much time covering local school activities and successes as they do school tragedies and crimes.

Help: Seek specific ways to help at your child’s school. What can you do? What do you have time to do? What skills do you possess? Could you read to a child? Offer that. Would you be willing to mentor a child? Offer that. Would you be willing to bake/buy snacks for teachers? Offer that. Reach out to a local teacher’s group/union to offer help recruiting businesses you frequent to offer discounts to educators. Call your child’s school today to see what types of parent volunteer roles they have and get on those lists.

Offer: Offer to support your child daily. Find ways you can ask specific questions to your students about what they did in school that day. Talk to your student’s teachers to find out what your child most needs from you/home to succeed – then do those things consistently. There is so much value in letting your child know YOU support what schools are trying to achieve for them.

Observe: Find ways to observe good things happening in schools. Volunteer to serve on the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA). Go to PTSA meetings. Volunteer to help in the library or the office at your child’s school. It may not be every day or even every week, but surely you could find a few hours per month to help out. When you see good things happening, encourage those by telling the staff, administrators, and children how much you appreciate seeing it. You might be surprised by how many small victories happen every day in schools that almost no one ever recognizes.

Support: Look for ways to support your student’s schools publicly. Go speak at a board meeting. Write emails to board members. Look for ways to get the word out to your friends. You may have hundreds or even thousands of contacts on various social media platforms. Use your voice!

Encourage: Be an encourager. Mr. Rogers advised children during times of crisis to look for the helpers. You don’t have to look much farther than public school educators. They are helpers by nature. They chose a low-status, low-pay career because they want to help children learn and succeed. Find meaningful ways to encourage them. Pat them on the back. Let them know you appreciate them. You don’t have to spend a dime. Drop a note/email. Literally anything you do will be appreciated. One easy thing isn’t even about praising them; it’s about how you approach them when there’s a problem you want addressed. Start the conversation by telling them how much you appreciate them and what they’re doing for your child. You’d be surprised how far that will go in helping you resolve a problem your student is experiencing with an educator.

Many of these suggestions are directed at parents, but the good news is that even grandparents or nonparents can still take these steps. Supporting public education is a central tenet to preserving our democracy.  

Mark Noblitt is a professional educator, trainer, and program manager. He is currently retired and filling his spare time with substitute teaching in public high schools and even some Uber driving. He enjoys spending time with his family, including six grandchildren and a menagerie of grandpets. He enjoys cycling, reading, writing, and traveling.

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