30 years, $750, and 15%

 There are a lot of numbers in today's blog post title. 

This is my 30th year teaching. It's hard to believe I've been teaching this long; the time has flown! This is probably the most positive number in today's blog post. 30 years in the profession has taught me that there are cycles in education. I hate to quote the motto from Survivor, but it helps to be able to "outwit, outplay, outlast". 

Being flexible is pretty important. Despite all the challenges, I am still glad I became a teacher. We are still fortunate that we have elementary teacher-librarians in my school board, but there's no guarantee that the position will continue to exist. For instance, in our latest round of cuts, in my school board, we lost a significant portion of our central library technicians in our school board. How will it be possible for one person to catalog for 600 schools? These job eliminations were supposed to "not impact the classroom" but this is incorrect. Our "Tippett Staff" may have located in a building outside our school, but they were essential to ensuring that in-school library staff focused on the students; I have no clue how we are expected to process books we purchase and teach simultaneously. (I brought this up in May 2026 when the cuts were first announced.)  We must continue to advocate for school library professionals in Canada and all over the world.

For instance, see this notification from the Australian School Library Association

Since this blog gets updated on Mondays, you won't see the actual "first day of school outfit", but I'm leaning into the library part of my portfolio with my outfit. This is what I'll be wearing. Big thanks to Justina at the gym for giving me this dress; I apologize that I didn't send this "testing the outfit" photo beforehand!

$750 is the amount that elementary school teachers were given to pay for their school supplies. On the surface, this looks like a generous offer. Don't be fooled. This comes at a tremendous cost.

1) The money was partly taken out of school budgets. I won't tell you how much less our school budget is now, but for a small school, it's a big hit.

2) The school board distribution centers were closed and the only option for using the $750 is Staples (an American company). As Kimiko Shibata, an elementary educator I used to follow on Twitter-when-it-was-good, points out in this interview with CBC, the prices are higher on the teachers' portal. 

3) The portal itself only opened on September 1, and with hundreds of thousands of teachers ordering supplies, it is unlikely that teachers will have these materials in time for the start of school.

4) The $750 only applies to "homeroom teachers". As a teacher-librarian, and ESL teacher, and guidance teacher, I "don't count". 

I understand that the Minister of Education is trying to fix problems, but these solutions are causing more problems. His suggestion to turn to your principal if there are issues with the new system is not helpful, because principals do not have the power to make changes.

The head of ETT, Nigel Barriffe, wrote to the TDSB Supervisor about this issue and received an automatic reply that made it clear that they answer to "clients" (parents) before "employees" (education staff), and the first suggestion is to talk to the teacher or principal.

It's a negotiation year, and I think it will be a bumpy ride.

The 15% is a nod to my secondary school colleagues. They have a different struggle they must endure this year - a new policy that insists that 15% of a final grade for courses for Grade 9-10 students must be for attendance. Again, it doesn't sound like much, but tracking students period-by-period in a passport, in addition to submitting their final exams to ensure they are "up to snuff", is a lot of new pressure in an environment that is already difficult. My friend Jonelle, who is a Peel DSB high school teacher-librarian, described her start-up like this:

Imagine starting as now the only librarian thanks to budget cuts, knowing I have to close the library for one period each day because we lost a staff member. And to add insult to injury, finding out all library spending has been "paused" for who knows how long and I can't buy new books for my students.

This makes it difficult for us to do our jobs well.  

Despite the critical, cynical tone of this post, I am looking forward to this school year. There won't be as many presentations or travel plans, but there will be more opportunities for collaboration and more media literacy outreach moments. I am grateful for the summer and the time to work on AQs, book medical appointments, socialize with friends, and attend IBBY World Congress. My own children are doing fine - we recently celebrated my son's 24th birthday at Chako (I like how the placement of the light in the photo below makes Peter look like a saint) - and we just keeping plugging away.