Since January, many public-school teachers have felt their work scrutinized and challenged by new directives and policies of the Trump administration.
There have been orders to eliminate illegal diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a temporary hold on millions of dollars in school funding just before the school year started.
Up until June, there was a portal set up for members of the public to report teachers and schools that engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion practices. A grant for mental health support for Colorado students was cut. Last week, the federal department of education rescinded guidance to school districts on how they provide services for students learning English to make sure they’re getting adequate resources.
The administration has argued that many schools use DEI groups to discriminate against white and Asian students. It has declared it wants to return federal education programs to the states and argued the guidance for English-language learners was “overly prescriptive” and that it micromanaged states.
CPR education reporter Jenny Brundin spoke to Denver high school English teacher Moira Casados-Cassidy about how teachers are reacting to the changes.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Moira Casados-Cassidy: I think at this point we have a sort of detached reaction to a lot of what's happening on the federal level because we can't afford to take it that seriously on a day-to-day basis, because we have to come in here and do our jobs. It feels very disconnected from the reality that we're living in the classroom.
Jenny Brundin: Explain that more for people who aren’t as familiar with what happens in the classroom. Why are the mandates, especially about diversity, equity and inclusion, disconnected from the reality of what you do every day?
Casados-Cassidy: Realistically, our job as educators is to serve the kids who are here in front of us every day and they are from every different background, right? There’re kids of different races, kids of different socioeconomic classes, kids with different sexual and gender identities, and we don't have time to pursue political agendas — we just need to make a safe and welcoming place for our kids. So, the idea that when teachers welcome students from different backgrounds, that we're somehow doing something wrong does feel absurd because it's so foundational to what we do in the classroom. If a kid doesn't feel respected, if they don't feel at home, they're not going to learn.
Brundin: To have a “welcoming environment” — what does that mean in a classroom?
Casados-Cassidy: Kids want to see themselves reflected in the curriculum. They want to see their experiences reflected in the people who are teaching them in the building. They want to have places to have a Black student group or like queer students' affinity groups. Those are things that give kids a home at school. This is different at different (school) levels, obviously. I'm a high school teacher, but welcoming means accepting, right? And we accept kids regardless of what their identity is and regardless of what our individual politics are, we still have to accept the students who are sitting in the desks in front of us.
Brundin: And we should mention, since this interview took place, a federal judge in mid-August blocked the Trump administration order aimed at eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion. You mentioned many teachers feel they have to separate themselves from all the news coming out in order to get through the day. Tell us what your day looks like.
Casados-Cassidy: I am the teacher of record for somewhere between 150 and 175 students, depending on the semester. I have a ton of interaction with all those kids throughout the day. I'm grading papers, I'm talking to them about their mom's surgery tomorrow, I'm managing three different curriculums that I write myself and fundamentally, I'm helping each of those individual people try to figure out who they are and trying to get to know them and that's a task that you could spend more than 24 hours in a day on.
You don't have time to intellectualize the larger political situation. Most of the time, you just have time to say ‘that kid needs a Band-Aid,’ ‘I need to call home for that kid,’ ‘Where's that girl's paper?’ ‘What a wonderful, incredible thing it is that they're talking about film in this way in front of me all of a sudden.’
Brundin: So, you don’t see impacts of federal changes in the classroom right now, but do you worry about more tangible impacts, things like funding?
Casados-Cassidy: Yes, definitely. As much as I say when I'm up in front of the classroom, I'm not worrying about politics; we're all reading the newspaper. We know what's going on and when I discuss with my co-workers the situation, there are real concerns, not just with Title I, but with IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act, money for special education students) and other streams of funding that are essential to what we do.
Brundin: …those are federal pots of money ... In President Trump’s proposed budget for the next school year, Colorado would lose about $100 million education dollars …
Casados-Cassidy: It’s hard to, at this point, conceptualize what the actual impacts will be because there's so many questions around, like whether the funding could be recouped locally somehow, what the school districts will do to handle it, but I think there's a constant fear that the other shoe is going to drop.
Brundin: This job of being a teacher is monumentally hard already. I know you're trying to create that barrier (from news about impacts to education), but it (the federal directives) must be adding stress to your job, or has it, or do you feel it in your colleagues?
Casados-Cassidy: I think, you know, we're humans … we bleed. When there are fundamental changes to the conditions of our day-to-day lives, people are afraid, not even particularly for ourselves, but for our students, so I don't want to trivialize that.
I think people are feeling it, but at the same time, if you're a teacher in American public schools and you made it through COVID, and you've made it through years of TikTok pranks and you're still standing, you probably have a pretty thick skin and you probably really believe in what you're doing. And that's true for me. In spite of all of the many complications, it feels more important to me than ever to be doing this work.
