Pushout in a Suburban Public School District

• In Event: Teachers in Crisis, Teaching in Crisis: Unpacking Individual and Systemic Teacher Deprofessionalization and Dehumanization

Abstract

Objectives
Attrition’s impact can be masked by teacher recruitment efforts (reinforcing deprofessionalizing notions of teacher interchangeability and a failure to invest in retention) and teacher migration (i.e. the most qualified, experienced teachers not leaving the profession, but going to more privileged schools). Because many predominantly white, upper(-middle) class serving schools/ districts do not typically have staffing issues, attrition of teachers of color (TOC) within these settings may also be unseen and unaddressed, despite the key roles these teachers play for students and in the community. This paper provides a counternarrative to the idealized notions of public school teaching in highly performing schools.

Perspectives
While TOC’s unique funds of knowledge and experiences have been shown through research to be a key asset to classrooms (Burciaga & Kohli, 2019; Navarro et al., 2019), they often face racially hostile climates, particularly in sites (and within a profession) where they have predominantly white colleagues, regardless of student demographics (Kohli, 2018; Madsen et al., 2019; Michie, 2007).

Methods & Data
This case study, based on auto-ethnographic reflective data (Chang, 2016) from a Filipina high school Humanities teacher in a “highly-ranked” suburban public high school in the Pacific Northwest, examines repeated lack of administrative support and parent and student “advocacy”challenging justice work, as key push-out factors.

Key Incidents
I had taught K-12 in majority POC student spaces with other POC teachers in two major cities. In order to escape rising rent prices, I moved to a suburban school with predominantly white teachers and upper class students.
In my first month, I was called into the Principal’s office to inform me that a student and their family had threatened to sue me because I taught students “that not standing for the pledge is protected under the 1st amendment.” Two white colleagues used the same teaching materials with no student/parent complaints. The principal’s solution was to remove the student from my class and apologize profusely to the family. I tried to stay under the radar my first year in a new school.
While teaching remotely in 2020, I was asked by a fellow POC to serve on a student equity team. Some of our Black students (~1.5% of the school population) approached with concerns which led to a facilitated discussion around the harm of Blackface. Despite many “Black Lives Matters” signs in the neighborhood, parents complained about “racist teachers” following this discussion, prompting a formal district investigation.
Then, following the events of January 6th, 2021, a student recorded a lesson in class and sent the video to right-wing media intending to doxx and harm me. An article was later written about me and I was labeled as a “left-wing educator” who “brings politics into the classroom.”
I felt I had no other choice but to quit after 15 years of teaching from lack of protection of site and district administration, colleagues and communities - even within communities of color.

Author

• Crystal Visperas, Public School Educator