The Not So Secret (But Still Widely Unknown) Lives of TK-12 Public School Teachers
An Introduction to the Series Featuring Renee Dunigan
By Brian Lees
Introduction
When I was about 8 years old, I had one of those moments that for many kids can be a paradigm-shifting epiphany: I ran into my third-grade teacher in the “real world” outside of school, not just once, but twice in the same day. The first time was on a late Saturday morning after soccer practice with my dad at what was then a Union 76 gas station near the intersection of Iowa Avenue and University Avenue in Riverside, California, where I spent most of my formative years.
I remember being in shock to see this person, whom I only knew as Ms. Lehman, the omniscient keeper and dispenser of the content for all things curricular for third grade, driving a car and stopping to fill it up with gas! Even though, as I grew older, I became aware that most of my teachers (as well as my parents, both teachers themselves) lived in this part of town near the University of California at Riverside because it was both affordable and yet considered “safe” and “middle class,” it was unfathomable to me at this age that my teacher would be doing this, when surely she slept, ate, received mail, and basically lived at school, right? I hunkered down in the back seat, lest she discover that I had now found out about her “secret life.”
Potential crisis averted, my dad and I continued down University Avenue another block, turned down Chicago Avenue, and made a quick stop into what was then the local franchise of the now-defunct Market Basket Grocery Stores for what my dad called “provisions” for some of his famous “Dagwood” sandwiches. As we headed down one of the aisles, turning the corner and entering our aisle was…Ms. Lehman…again!
This time, she saw me clear as day (although I tried to position myself inconspicuously behind my dad), nodded and smiled weakly with a hurriedly whispered “hello,” while trying to hustle unnoticed down the aisle to safer shores in some far corner of the store. Turns out she was as embarrassed as I was; upon later learning that this woman was my third-grade teacher, my dad informed me “she seemed to have quite a few bottles of wine” in her cart.
What I learned that day (or maybe much later upon further reflection at a more mature age) was that my teacher, or in fact, all teachers, are human, with regular human lives, human needs, human wants, human desires. We (yes, I have since joined the profession myself) are actually not superhuman, even though we have our superhuman moments when we might absorb bullets for our students to protect them in school shootings, feed or clothe or provide supplies for students out of our own pockets, support equity and inclusion of students for whom no one else will, or teach with limited resources and protections in the midst of a pandemic so the rest of our economy can be open and thrive.
We feel the stress, emotional drain, power struggle, lack of resources and support, threats to the sustainability and the volatility of the profession, declining working conditions and morale, and the financial challenges that so many other workers in other fields feel, even if we feel them differently. We too have worker stories, and while our stories may not be as dire or heartbreaking or tragic as some of the absolutely incredible stories you might hear from the Economic Policy Institute or Healthy Work Campaign, my hope is that our worker stories will illuminate our humanity and some of our very real struggles.
With that, I believe I have found my own “jumping-off place,” and I present to you, the following series of worker stories: The Not So Secret (But Still Widely Unknown) Lives of TK-12 Public School Teachers.
For this project, I reached out to fellow teachers in my own district and other friends and relatives in the profession (or in a few cases, formerly in the profession) to ask them about being a public school educator and union member. I asked each participant to respond to three basic questions in an open-ended mini-interview style, with a modicum of latitude to tweak the questions slightly to each person’s specific circumstances (for example, a retired teacher or one nearing the end of their career after starting in the 1980s or 90s will have a vastly different perspective on how their profession has evolved over their career than a teacher hired after the height of COVID).
Each worker story includes a brief background on the individual (many have asked not to have their real name used) to help set the demographic as much as provide context for the answers. Some form of each of the following questions was the basis for the stories in the series, with a few extensions to help others elaborate:
1. What are (or have been) some of the biggest challenges or struggles you have faced as a public school teacher in your career (or recently or so far)?
2. What role has your union played in meeting those challenges or mitigating those struggles or in contributing to your success as an educator? (Extension: If a new teacher came to you and asked you if they should join the union and if it is worth it, what experiences would you share with them to help them decide?)
3. What are (or have been or you hope to be) some of your greatest successes as a public school teacher in your career (or recently or so far)?
BONUS: In a few instances, I asked some colleagues I know a little bit better on a personal level this question: If your son or daughter told you they were thinking of becoming a public school teacher and asked you what you thought of their decision, what would you tell them?
The Not So Secret (But Still Widely Unknown) Life of Renee Dunigan
Renee was a public school teacher in the Poway Unified School District from 2005-2008, teaching primarily Kindergarten in that time. Like me, she originally hails from the Inland Empire and is a fellow alumnus of the California State University at San Bernardino teacher credentialing program, as well as her undergraduate work. Renee was a teacher casualty of the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009, when numerous teachers in our district were given layoff warnings by March 15th of 2008, most of which were later rescinded. This happened when Poway teachers voted by a relatively narrow margin to accept a 4.17% salary “roll back” (a temporary cut that would then be immediately restored when the financial crisis ended).
The roll back agreement saved over a hundred jobs, but not without consequence to many of the teachers keeping jobs but losing pay; many teachers throughout the district suffered home foreclosures, including four at our site alone, and although some were able to own a home again while others still don’t, several could not afford to live within the district boundaries of where they teach and moved as far away as Menifee and Temecula to be able to afford housing.
Renee was not among the lucky ones, as she was still laid off. And while even some of those laid off in 2008 were able to return in 2009 or 2010, as they were reinstated in the reverse order of having been laid off, Renee waited as long as she could for her turn to come to be reinstated before finally deciding to pursue other employment, including as a receptionist for a dentist office, a personal trainer and yoga instructor for a gym, and finally as a pediatric nurse.
According to an article in the April 2022 issue of the MIT Press Direct, the Great Recession led to over 350,000 K-12 teacher layoffs nationwide, with nearly 120,000 of those elementary teachers, and that because these layoffs were disproportionately given to less experienced teachers, there was an increase in educational inequality, while the large numbers of layoffs in general harmed student achievement in general due to higher class sizes and shuffled teachers. Renee’s worker story as a public school teacher about her experiences in being laid off from a job she loved, while somewhat dated, is still relevant to current times in the wake of COVID-induced layoffs, reports of teacher shortages, and now further threats of layoffs throughout our state as we enter yet another period of budget crises
What was your biggest disappointment as a public school teacher?
It was over so quick. One day I was living my dream of teaching Kindergarten that I had had ever since I was a little girl growing up in the Philippines. The next day it was over. I couldn’t believe it. I thought as long as I was doing a good job and got good evals and made it to tenure I was going to have my job until I was done working or at least until I had kids of my own.
I was just getting started as a teacher. I was just getting into a groove in that third year of teaching. I didn’t know that would be it. Even though I got that pink slip, I told my students I’d still see them next year. I thought for sure they’d find a way to bring me back, like they did so many others. Two years I waited. A few phone calls that I had moved up the priority list for rehiring. More waiting. Nothing happened. I had moved back in with my parents, picking up part time work here and there. Nothing serious or permanent. Just saving money.
Then the guy I was seeing, his mom retired from a receptionist job and recommended me, and soon I decided not to worry about going back to teaching. I was not going to see my students from my last class again. Then a friend who also got laid off from her district told me she missed working with kids and was going back to school to become a pediatric nurse, so I did too. And now here I am. It’s not the same as teaching kids to count and make their sounds and their letters and all that, that power of knowing I made their learning happen isn’t there, but I don’t take much home or work after hours, and I make a lot more now than I did then, so I am sure doing as well financially now as I would be teaching if not better.
(NOTE: Teacher pay scales are determined by steps of years of experience and columns of educational units; Renee never finished clearing her credential with additional classes, did not have a master’s degree, and did not have the extra hours of professional growth that in our district leads to higher pay. Looking at a pay scale for our district with these things in mind, we figured she makes around $10,000 more a year than she would if she had remained a teacher; with the additional educational requirements, master’s degree, and professional growth hours fulfilled, she would make around $1,000 more a year as a teacher.)
What role did our union, PFT, play in supporting you, and if a new teacher came to you and asked you if they should join the union and if it is worth it, what experiences would you share with them to help them decide?
At first, I was frustrated with the union for not doing more to save my job or keep me in it, but as time went on, I realized they did a lot for what they could do and other stuff there wasn’t much they could do. They did offer a lot of moral support initially, spent a lot of time with me, kept me updated, gave me lots of information on the rules of how to get unemployment benefits and when I could get it and also benefits. I was updated on small job opportunities like substituting and becoming an aide and stuff, but it was too heartbreaking and degrading, so I never went back.
After the second year of not getting called back to my original job, I sort of gave up. The union stopped updating me as much. I didn’t apply to renew my credential when it was due again, and once it expired, I had decided to move on to something else, even though I was living at home again and making a lot less money. It wasn’t worth it to wait any longer and emotionally it was bad. But I still think it was good that I got all the help I got from the union that I did and was able to understand more of what was happening to me than I would have if I didn’t have them at all.
So, I would say to anyone starting out, it’s probably best to join your union. Hopefully you won’t need them for what I did, but you never know when you might.
Because we’re elementary teachers and a bit of a “different breed,” we always like to end on a positive; anything to share about a great success during your brief career?
My second year, I had a little boy from Russia, who did not speak a word of English when he started the first day in my class. We worked hard on ELL strategies to support his growth in letters and sounds. It was only one year in his school career and only Kindergarten, but it was also his first year in a public school in America.
I always wondered how much of a difference it made and what happened to him. I recently got my answer. I heard through a friend whose daughter was in his graduating class at Mt. Carmel that he made honor roll, graduated, and is finishing up at UC Davis with an agricultural science degree this spring. I’ve always been unsure if I taught long enough to be able to say I had an impact on kids’ lives, but I think that one counts.
That’s what I miss most about teaching: that feeling that I’m a part of kids’ success. At least as far as learning goes. But now I play a different role in their success, but instead it’s about being healthy and well. At least I still get to help kids be better. And that’s good enough for me.
Brian Lees is a 28-year veteran public elementary school teacher currently teaching 5th grade at a school in the Sabre Springs neighborhood of the Poway Unified School District. During his time as an educator, he has spent 25 of those years as a school site union representative, the last five years as a delegate from his union to the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, many months as a key organizer of frequent food distributions in conjunction with the Labor Council and Palomar College during the height of the COVID pandemic (June 2020 to November 2021), and most recently was appointed as the Secretary of the COPE Committee for his union, the Poway Federation of Teachers (AFT Local 2357). The son of two retired teachers who also volunteered their time as union leaders, one as a site rep in San Bernardino City Schools and the other as an executive director in Associated Teachers of Metropolitan Riverside, he comes from a long line of educators and active pro-labor advocates. He lives in northeast Escondido with his two dogs and 8-year-old daughter, and his hobbies include reading, writing, composing music, and photography, the last of which he hopes to share in future issues of The Jumping-Off Place, in a photo essay series called “My Esco.”