Something I re-discovered within myself during the first few weeks of the Covid-19 quarantine is my determination to reconfigure the structures of power that mold our systems of education. The current health crisis has laid bare the precarity and inadequacy of our social and economic systems. Yet, we are warned by both Democrats and Republicans that these long-standing systems must not be disrupted, or else our great society will collapse.
Those who dare to look can see that those in power will do all that it takes to maintain these systems because it is through these systems that their power is upheld. Those who dare to look can also see that our systems are indeed flexible and can be reconfigured, particularly in times of crisis. However, the adaptations we do tend to see manifest as attempts to maintain the power structures which keep working families of color under the boot of the owning class. The careless dispersal of microscopic stimulus checks to struggling families, juxtaposed with the massive injection of tax-payer dollars into a powerful cadre of private institutions, illustrates this point. Powerful institutions are kept well afloat while workers are given just enough to discourage large scale uprisings.
Public schools have been one of the few examples I can point to of an institution working to reconfigure itself in an attempt to meet the needs of working families during this moment. Is this due to the fact that public schools are one of the few establishments not entirely beholden to the profit motives of the owning class? Perhaps!
After Washington State Governor Inslee mandated school closures and social distancing, it took only a week for Tacoma Public Schools to restructure their operations in order to keep providing food and nutrition services to the families they serve. Now, all families can receive free breakfast and lunches, and many have access to free groceries to help them get through the week.
While Tacoma Public Schools has made an effort to distribute laptops to students during stay-at-home orders, the district has struggled to maintain access to technology for all students during this time. Many students are currently receiving no instruction, simply because their families do not have access to dependable devices or the internet.
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I can’t count how many times in the past two months I’ve heard family, friends and colleagues express how they yearn for “things to go back to normal.” I beg my fellow educators to look at this moment of crisis differently. We can be sure that the owning class will come up with ways to capitalize on this crisis. Why shouldn’t educators and other working folks try to see this as an opportunity for transformation?
At the moment, schools cannot operate as they have in the past. It is not possible. Right now, educators are being forced to adapt their practice due to social distancing measures. I believe there is an opportunity here for administrators and educators to work towards adapting our larger systems in a way that addresses not only the public health needs of the moment, but the other basic needs – inside and outside of the classroom – that many of our students have been denied.
What if we saw social distancing measures in the classroom as a pathway to smaller class sizes and fewer required instruction hours? What if standardized testing stays cancelled? What if instead of funding a militarized police force that harrasses communities of color, our tax dollars were diverted back into providing our students with resources they lack? Now is the time for educators to step out of our comfort zones and utilize our collective imagination to envision and fight for a system designed to meet the needs of all our students.
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What I have learned about myself during this time is that I do not want things to “go back to normal” – I want things to change. I have learned that schools are one of the last truly public social institutions. In the U.S., most are not guaranteed healthcare, housing or food; but all are guaranteed schooling (until now). How are students who don’t have full access to these basic human needs supposed to focus on rigorous academics? How are teachers in Tacoma supposed to live up to Tacoma School District’s promise of “eliminating disparities among all groups” when some groups are systematically treated as less than human by many of our federal, state and local law makers and enforcers?
I believe any educator who is truly dedicated to achieving equity must be willing to fight to transform the institutions in which our classrooms reside. With that being said, I want to express my support for Tacoma Education Association’s call to remove uniformed police officers from Tacoma Public Schools. This summer I will use my privilege and my voice to uplift this call to action and to shed light on why many believe this is an urgent and necessary step in the path toward transforming our educational institutions.
Ryan Grendon (MAT 2020) taught in a 5th grade classroom at Helen B. Stafford Elementary. This summer, he is volunteering with St. Leo’s Food Bank, delivering and distributing groceries to families at Baker Middle School in Tacoma and completing his Master’s coursework.
University of Puget Sound School of Education 
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