We’ve long known that kids can teach other kids all sorts of stuff. Think about how you learned about new music, novel cuss words—even the birds and the bees.
Still and all, it was a bit much to watch the Arlandia County school system, now copied by dozens of others in Virginia and beyond, deal with its teacher shortage by putting the entire senior class of its three high schools on the payroll and deploying those teens to fill gaps in the district’s elementary and middle schools, as well as the high schools themselves. No doubt, the kids welcomed the $15-per-hour stipends, and many were surely thrilled to be excused from their regular twelfth grade academic obligations. But what about fulfilling their own graduation requirements?
Consider the plight of Stacey Markoff, a senior at Arlandia’s recently renamed Crispus Attucks High School (nee Stonewall Jackson HS), who said, “The money’s great, though my weekend barista job pays better. And I don’t know how I’m going to pass my final exams in physics and calculus when I’m spending all day trying to tell nine-year-olds what the president does and where Europe is.”
Not to mention the nine-year-olds. After we spoke to Stacey, we had a conversation with a boy named Chad, who piped up to complain that his fourth grade class is now led by a twelfth grader named Ms. Markoff who can’t find Istanbul or Milan on a map.
The teachers union, predictably, has gone bonkers. Local union leader Petula Wantmore denounced the school board for “exploiting kids and employing scabs.” (Or was it the other way around?) While at the same time, they’ve been pestering the teen teachers with calls, texts, emails, letters, and even targeted ads asking them to sign up for the union and start paying dues.
Then there are all the collateral problems. The seniors without wheels suffering the humiliation of riding the school bus with fifth graders to their assignments. The teen anti-vaxxer who caused a group of middle school teachers to sprint for the exits. Or the vegans who can’t find anything to eat in the elementary school cafeteria.
If the teacher shortage worsens, what’s next? Paying teachers more?
