The Oklahoma teacher walkout continued for a fourth consecutive day yesterday. As students and teachers protest at the State Capitol, Oklahoma Christian University education professors are arranging alternative school locations for student teachers.
Student teachers on Oklahoma Christian University’s campus have been out of the classroom since last Friday, according to senior education major Kayla England. She said student teachers will transfer to Oklahoma Christian Academy—a private school unaffected by the walkout—for the remainder of the semester if public school cancellations continue into Monday of next week.
“We’ve only been at our schools for one week, but it was a lot of time spent with those kids,” England said. “You heard the stories and saw circumstances where their personal life played into their personality. It would be really rough leaving them because they got excited to see you every day, and you got excited to see them.”
England said she joined students to protest at the capitol Monday and Thursday mainly because a lack of funding is causing school conditions to deteriorate and education as a whole to suffer. Because of budget cuts at Cesar Chavez Elementary School, England’s current student teaching site, she said teachers are limited to making just 200 copies per month.
“I remember looking up and I was like, ‘Why aren’t these lights turned on?’” England said. “The teacher I was with said they had to come and take out half of the light bulbs to save energy and save money, and it’s like that in all the classrooms.”
Passed last week, Oklahoma House Bill 1010xx raised teacher salaries by an average of $6,100 per year, but generated only $51 million dollars in revenue earmarked for education funding. Oklahoma education funding has been cut by $200 million dollars since 2008.
Senior Chris Giltner said the supplies in his mother’s second grade classroom have not been replaced since he was in her class more than 15 years ago. Giltner, an interdisciplinary studies major, said he plans to take the Oklahoma emergency certified teaching exam and teach high school after graduating this month.
“Everything is still the same,” Giltner said. “The same desks, same chairs, the same books that you can’t even read because the pages are so torn. They have gotten a few new things, but most of the things they use are not in good condition.”
According to England, large class sizes also prevent educators from doing their job well. She said many classes at her student teaching site had more than 30 children in them.
“Some students have hearing disabilities, some students learn better when there moving, there are all these kinds of things,” England said. “If you have five or seven lessons a day, that is a lot to take into account for. Also, if there are more kids in the classroom, that means you don’t have as much space and desks as you probably need.”
According to Giltner, smaller class sizes are necessary in order to maintain positive student-teacher relationships.
“Classrooms and teaching are about much more than just sitting down and learning math and science,” Giltner said. “For a lot of kids, their teacher is their mentor in an emotional sense. They may have a really bad home, but this teacher is really nice and great with them, and it becomes much more than learning all this book stuff.”
In an effort to increase education funding and stop the teacher walkout, the Oklahoma State Senate will discuss three bills on Friday—HB 1012, HB 1019xx and HB 3375. HB 3375 would generate an estimated $24 million dollars annually by allowing ball-and-dice games in Oklahoma casinos, while HB 1019xx would provide $20 million through taxing third-party vendors on Amazon. Originally added as part of HB1010xx but later removed, HB 1012 could generate up to $47 million dollars annually through a $5-per-night hotel and motel tax.
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