South math teacher questions 4J class size forecasting

Presenter: 4J hears from a math teacher: The formula used in the district’s elementary school forecasts is junk. Before the school board Oct. 7, John Stiegler:

John Stiegler (South Eugene High School): My name is John Stiegler. I’m a teacher at South now, a math teacher there. I was a teacher at Churchill.

My wife and I came to this district—this is our ninth year, so eight years ago. And we’ve seen a lot of change in the district and a lot of things that have happened.

And, you know, there’s a lot of decisions that are made that just don’t make sense. And one of the things that we always looked at that’s been a struggle is at the elementary level, the way they forecasted numbers.

So every single year, the numbers were wrong. They were never even close, and I couldn’t figure out why until last year the district released the formula they used, which is to use an average of previous years to calculate a percentage.

Like, that makes no sense.

If you have 60 third graders graduate, you have 60 fourth graders coming in. And so the district doesn’t do that. They don’t use previous years once, and so they calculate out school FTE allotments based on averages of student to teacher ratios and everything.

But none of that takes into account bubble size classes, large classes. And by doing averages, it completely messes the numbers up. And so you end up with things like which are happening right now.

So my wife’s a second grade teacher at Edgewood. She has 31 students, the other teacher has 30. And there’s no way to reallot the FTE that’s been given to the school to make it so that no grade level doesn’t have you take a fourth grade out to move a teacher down.

Now you’ve got 35, 36 in the fourth grade. And so the way the district does the FTEs is completely wrong in that regard. We should be going grade level by grade level at schools and saying: How many FTE do we need at this grade level to keep our class sizes low—especially at K-3 because all the research shows: Where a student comes out of third grade, (that’s where) they’re basically going to be the rest of their education.

And so we should be pumping all of our resources into the K-3 grades to keep the (student-teacher ratios) as low as they can to support these students as much as they can.

My wife is an amazing teacher. She’s a distinguished teacher. She’s the teacher they send all the hard kids to. She’s the hardest worker you’ll ever meet. She puts all of her effort into it. She does an amazing job with the kids, but with 31 kids, no EAs, no support…? She’s got five IEPs (students on individualized education programs).

She at the end of the day comes home and there is nothing left of her. There’s nothing left for our kids. She eats, she goes to sleep, and she gets up and does it again. There’s no emotional strength left. There’s no energy left, and it’s not fair to the teachers.

If a teacher at one school has 20 students and a teacher at another school has 30, the teacher that has 30 has a 50% greater workload, 50% more kids she has to deal with, 50% more noise, 50% more things.

And they’re not able to get through the curriculum we’re supposed to get through. Right. Those elementary teachers are teaching 15 different curriculums and if they’re constantly having to behavior management, they’re not able to get through the materials and stuff.

And so the district, I think we need to look at how the district allocates the FTE, and we need to make it so that it’s a mandatory thing that at the K-3 level, especially K-2, that we are keeping the class sizes low because that is the most important stage.

When we talk about mental health, if these students are running around crazy for an entire year, they’re not learning how to manage their emotions or manage anything. It’s just chaos. And then it moves into the next grade. And then, so it’s a snowball effect, years and years and years and years down the road.

And so if we want to see our district really grow, and do the best for these kids, we need to be putting that energy into the primary level and keeping those class sizes low and putting in as much support as we can.

Okay. Am I out of time? I think I’ll be back to talk about other stuff too.

But by the way, the block schedule is why our attendance is so low. Oregon’s attendance is low because Portland, Salem, Eugene, Springfield, all of us are on the block schedule and it’s the reason that we have bad attendance. We need to go back to the 3×5 (three trimesters, five classes per day). That was the best way.

Presenter: A former student encouraged the district to invest more in student mental health programs. Following the public comment period, the board heard from employee groups. From the Eugene Education Association, Jamie Myers:

Jamie Myers (Eugene Education Association, president): Many years ago, back in the 1980s, my brothers shared a paper route here in town. They used these heavy canvas newspaper bags that were essentially like ponchos they had to wear over their heads to hold the load on certain days. Thanksgiving Day, for instance, the paper was substantially heavier than usual.

I remember one specific time when my brothers were at the drop site loading up their bags. To do this, they had to kneel down, put the bags over their heads, fill the pouches, and then get up and go deliver the route.

Once this heavy load was settled, my youngest brother tried to stand up. Nope, not going to happen. He literally could not stand up under the burden placed on his shoulders.

It’s a striking image, isn’t it? Well, it’s the exact reality our teachers are facing right now. They are struggling to stand up under an unsustainable increase in their workload. Escalating workloads. The absorption of larger class sizes, higher student caseloads, and increased numbers of students with IEP and/or 504 plans leads directly to extended hours required for grading, planning, and parent communication.

Members report routinely working 10 to 12 hours a day just to stay afloat.

Behavioral management: Teachers are spending significantly more time handling behavior, deescalation, and managing student conflicts, which takes crucial time away from instruction and impacts the learning environment for all the students.

Erosion of prep time: the heavy workload burden is continually exacerbated by the loss of planning time for reasons such as being directed to cover unfilled staff absences, or managing student behaviors.

Overall, morale is at an all-time low. There is a deep perception among members of a lack of district level support and poor communication, leaving staff feeling isolated, untrusting, and actively considering leaving the district or the profession altogether. When resources are low, we’re always told, ‘You are just going to have to do more with less.’

But there comes a point when the burden simply becomes too heavy to carry. We are barely a month into the school year, and we have already reached that breaking point, and we know additional budget reductions are coming.

So if I go back to where I began, my little brother trapped under the weight of those newspaper bags and ask: What if he had removed some weight? Well, he would’ve been able to stand. It might have taken him a bit longer to deliver the papers, but he could have done it.

So I have to ask you tonight: What is the district’s plan to allow teachers to do their jobs? How many proverbial newspapers can be removed from their bags?

Can Wednesday professional development be suspended to give back some much needed time? What about a commitment to truly protect prep time? How about refraining from texting members on their personal devices while they are teaching? Or setting a priority to send information through email rather than including it on a meeting agenda.

I urge you to commit to removing something to reduce our members’ workload burden, because right now the weight is simply too heavy.

Lisa Jenkins-Easton (OSEA, Eugene Chapter 1, president): My name is Lisa Jenkins-Easton, president, Oregon School Employees Association, Eugene Chapter 1.

I agree with my counterpart from EEA. It’s been a rough beginning of the school year. Our staff is feeling the pressures of the short staffing and high needs of our students. Additionally, the demands of representation needs across our system are high, but we continue to struggle with the labor relationship and lack of trust that exists.

If you have not tuned into our ad hoc meetings regarding negotiations, I highly encourage you to do so. There’s much to be discovered in how we can prevent the high turnover and retain the valued employees who have remained with us. I am concerned not only about the physical safety of our staff, but also their psychological safety.

The offhand comments that are coded as a compliment for taking on way more than should be given is not landing well. With the constraints we are experiencing, I want to continue to offer collaborative conversations with principals directly. This provides dignity and respect for our staff. Principals seem to be making some decisions that might seem okay in the moment.

I would encourage them to take a beat, review the relevant parts of the OSEA contract to make sure we are on the right path to cover all the tasks we must do and avoid grievances. 

OSEA has an obligation to help our members when this happens. Our classified staff keeps our district rolling and in compliance, but we’re the first to inadvertently give up our rights and voice because of the power dynamics that are in place.

Please do not use this power to abuse the other duties as assigned. I can assure you there are limits to this. My members are struggling to have breaks that are duty-free and timely. Our district cannot afford BOLI and OSHA violations right now. I know there’s a tendency to want to squeeze our environment and to control how stressful things are, but that is not what will help our staff.

Now to something positive. It was quite an honor for me to be here tonight while we congratulated two of our school bus drivers who received awards this evening from the Oregon Pupil Transportation Association, Bryan Ribelin and Marilyn Van Buren. OSEA also recognize and congratulate you on your recognition and dedicated service to our district, our community, and our students.

I am pleased to see our school bus drivers in this space being honored.

Joel Lavin (MAPS): My name is Joel Lavin and I’m speaking tonight on behalf of the MAPS, which is managers, administrators, professionals, and supervisors of 4J, to shine a spotlight on the quiet and essential work happening every day across our districts, specifically within our technology department.

Right now there’s 14 MAPS professionals, down from 16 last year, which is a loss of two MAPS positions.

Yet despite the leaner team, the scope and complexity and urgency of our work have reached an all-time high. In September alone, our technology department processed 3,657 help tickets. That includes over 2,000 desktop support requests, nearly 625 network incidents, and 482 student information system tickets, as well as hundreds more across the instructional tech, AV, repair, and purchasing sections of the department.

And I promise only about half of those were about turning your device on and off again. (That was a joke, but yeah.)

Over the summer and into this fall, our small team completed massive physical and digital upgrades across 4J. We replaced 127 copiers, retired seven outdated units, and migrated to a new vendor and updated documentation for more than 350 printers, district-wide.

We installed brand-new intercom systems across four schools, including Churchill and Sheldon high schools, while also at the same time synching our bell systems. We integrated or we have begun integrating the new ADA camera systems to keep our students safe across the whole district.

And we have also had an area of core network infrastructure improvements. We’re currently executing the Juniper Switch infrastructure upgrade, video surveillance refresh, and managing district phone replacements to ensure secure, reliable connection in every building.

Beyond hardware, our team supports Google Workspace, Synergy Canvas, Clever, the new Renaissance Star testing—to Jamf device management, RapidIdentity, which helps keep our network secure and our email secure; Canva and Adobe administration.

We also lead critical compliance work, including the WCAG 2.0 (accessibility) standards and the first version of the district educational technology handbook. Our instructional data dashboard called Synergy Analytics is part of our Synergy Student Information System to help provide our teachers and administrators a clear picture of student progress as well as our student intervention teams and our multitiered systems of support that are being developed across the district.

Importantly, strategic tech choices and vendor negotiations led by our MAPS staff have already saved Eugene over half a million dollars just within that department alone. That financial efficiency is vital as we navigate the critical device shortage that impact teachers and students every day and evaluate potential cost-saving transitions to less expensive software without disrupting our students’ instruction in the classroom.

Our team steps up every day with extraordinary dedication. They keep our network secure, our classrooms connected, our budgets balanced, and our schools running smoothly. And they might have even stopped a phishing attempt in your email recently too.

On behalf of MAPS, thank you for recognizing and supporting the dedicated professionals who keep Eugene 4J moving forward. Thank you.

Presenter: The 4J school board hears that teachers are at their limits, and a South math teacher says more accurate classroom forecasts would really help.