What else should a teacher be expected to do?

 What’s a Teacher to do?

Anne Arundel County Public Schools recently made the decision that for young children who are not yet potty trained, teachers must participate in the training.   Starting this fall, teachers who work with preK and kindergarten age kids will be expected to help children put on underwear, change diapers and pull-ups.  They will also be required to put children on and off the toilet, use a changing table and cleanse the child afterwards.  The school board adopted this policy because of a growing number of children who are coming to school without being potty trained.  In the past, non- disabled children who were not potty trained could be turned away. 

Teaching assistants are saying that they expect this work to fall to them.  But many classrooms do not have assistants.  Teachers have said this activity is not within their sphere of teaching.  The superintendent has said that he understands he may lose educators over this issue.  Children are also coming to school without other basic foundational skills.  There are young children who do not know how to use a fork or a spoon.  Anne Arundel County schools do not know how many children are going to need this assistance. But a national survey by the EdWeek Research Center found that more than half of educators said their students found potty training and independent toilet use more challenging.  Some school districts are even writing curriculum on toileting.

Most districts in Maryland have guidelines for helping teachers deal with accidents, but stop short of full on potty training.   Many teachers are attributing the lack of these skills to the pandemic when families basically stayed within themselves and didn’t expect children meet community standards.  Some of the school districts require parents to come to school if a child is consistently having accidents to help the child clean up. 

Some parents have actually “washed their hands” of the situation (no pun intended) and say they have given up and the school needs to address the issue.  The teachers union is STRONGLY against the policy and acknowledges that many classrooms do not have attached bathrooms.  One teacher wrote to the Board and said, “ any adult who has had to change a standing child with a bowel movement knows how incredibly difficult this can be to do so safely, effectively and with dignity”. In spite of over  50 people showing up at the Board meeting to voice their feelings against the policy, it was passed unanimously.

The question is simply where do the responsibilities of parenting end and where do the responsibilities of teaching begin. How many parenting tasks are going to be passed on to teachers? Teachers are expected to get kids to grade level skills AND potty train.  And people ask why teachers are leaving the profession.

 

Promises made, Still not kept

 Promises Made, And Never Kept

In 1975, President Ford signed the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EHA),   This Act morphed into the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA).  In both pieces of legislation, the Federal government was supposed to contribute 40% of the cost for providing these many new services.   Never Happened!  In the early years, the states and local systems received about 6% of the cost.   Recently, that number has risen to almost 10%, still a far cry from the promise made in the legislation.

How much does it really cost to provide a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to a child with a disability.   Does it matter what the child’s disability is?  Does it matter the intensity of the service the child is receiving.  Basically, we don’t know.  The last review of cost was done twenty-two years ago.  At that time the average cost was $12,639 per pupil.  There was no differentiation as to disability or level of service.  There is also no mention of what it costs to educate a plain child.

During the 2024-25 and 2025-2026 school years, a 5.6 million dollar pilot study was done to attempt to discover what today's costs are.  

The Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has requested funds from the Department of Budget and Management to move ahead with the full study during the 2026-27 school year.  The plan is to include 1,500 school districts, and approximately 3000 schools.  Roughly 10,000 children with disabilities will be included, as well as 2,000 plain students.  The expectation is that the results will be available for budget purposes in the 2027-28 school year.  

The Department of Education knows the amount of federal funds districts are receiving.  What it doesn’t know is what is the actual cost of a free and appropriate public education. Given that we don't know the full and actual cost, it is difficult to determine what percentage of the full costs, the feds are paying. Funds for the study were almost eliminated mid-process.  Now it is on again.

Will we learn enough to keep the promise made so many years ago, or just learn more about what we are not doing.