When I was an education consultant, I secretly judged coworkers who didn’t enroll their kids in neighborhood schools. In 2020, I saw a meme about how Austinites with Black Lives Matter yard signs won’t even put their kids in predominantly Black schools. I vowed that Maya would attend her neighborhood school. She did. And this year made me realize, once again, that public education is not fixable.

It’s not fixable because it’s broken, sure, but here’s the real reason it’s not fixable: we expect it to provide daycare, instruct on academics, deliver social services, and reinforce our individual values. Taylor Swift isn’t ever going to make a statement on Palestine. And public schools are never going to raise your kids for you. You just can’t expect all things from all entities.

So why bother with public school, especially during this teacher shortage? This is an incredibly complex topic worthy of a book, but you’ll have to make do with a blog for today.

Part 1: Keep Austin Segregated + Me, The Smug Liberal

Here is a brief and grossly oversimplified history. I-35 was built to deliberately segregate Austin. The Texas Department of Transportation itself put that in writing, and in the year of our Lord 2024 has decided to retract it because it’s not fashionable to be racist in certain circles anymore. Anyway, the East side was for not-white people1. Fast forward to 2009 when I moved here, and there was still a perception that it was the “dangerous” side of town. In a city where the murder rate was the lowest per capita in the country, “dangerous” meant “your car might be more likely to get broken into”.

So I settled in southwest Austin right across from the ritzy private school, then migrated to Crestview with all the other 20-somethings who couldn’t live downtown but still had enough cash for loft apartments. When it came time to buy, James and I just couldn’t fathom shelling out $250k for a house with one bathroom. Bye bye Crestview, we’re off to the northeast ‘burbs.

The East side didn’t seem so dangerous in a subdivision full of cul-de-sacs and trees. In the five years between moving to Austin and purchasing our home, I’d grown up some. Enough to realize that our home was affordable precisely because it was on the undesirable side of town, and that buying it would contribute to Austin’s gentrification. This was the side originally built to be neglected, or literally dumped upon. I live less than 10 minutes from the city dump, and it took a concerted band of petitions to stop the city from building another landfill down the road a few years ago. The sidewalks are cracked. There are a lot of police sirens at night. There isn’t an overpriced boutique for miles.

When we moved in, we had one Black neighbor. Her house was paid off by her parents, who lived on the East side because they were forced to. She was a cafeteria worker herself, and she sold the house a few years after we moved in. I’m guessing it was because taxes alone were $800/month then, and that’s a steep price on an hourly salary. She also had some severe mental illness issues, which are more likely to happen when you have the general trauma of systemic racism. Of course, white neighbors moved in in her place. I say that utterly without judgment. It’s me, hi. I’m the (semi)white family next door, it’s me.

Enough affluence has moved in that the neighborhood is changing. Instead of gas stations only, we now have a Starbucks and a Baskin Robbins. Houses go for over half a million. Much has been said about Austin’s unaffordability, so I’ll keep it brief. I’ll just say this - if we hadn’t bought in 2014, we wouldn’t be able to now. I think there is a steep human cost when your service workers - cops, nurses, teachers - can’t afford to live in the city they serve. If a middle-income couple can’t afford a house right by the dump, then what is the eventual fate of your city?

Anyway, that’s the neighborhood. The school reflects those changing demographics, plus a lot of apartment complexes. According to the Texas Tribune, the demographic breakdown is:

• 25% Black

• 40% Hispanic

• 11% Asian

• 14% White

• 68% receive free/reduced lunch

• 31% are English Language Learners

All numbers rounded; some subgroups not included

In the A-F grading system, the school’s most recent grade was a B. On paper, this all looked fantastic. The diversity we’re seeking AND good academic outcomes? Cue my smugness in choosing the neighborhood school. I was *that* person who told people we chose the school because diversity matters to us. Truly, is there anything more annoying than a smug liberal?

Part 2: Hiring Teachers Is Like Hosting Your Best Friend’s Hookup Buddy

It’s summer now, and I’m reflecting on Maya’s kindergarten experience. She is a deeply feeling kid, very sensitive to her environment and to criticism. James and I met with her principal to discuss potential first grade teachers. Who are they?

• Teacher 1 is a veteran teacher

• Teacher 2 has been randomly assigned to the campus, so the principal has not met her yet.

• Teacher 3 just resigned

• Teacher 4 is needed since there were 4 kindergarten classes last year, but the district won’t let the principal hire yet

To summarize: there is one teacher in 1st grade that the principal can guarantee; all other bets are off.

Here’s where my inner nerd comes out. I’m going to explain 10 years of working in education talent systems to you, without one word of jargon. And I’ll try to make it as sexy as discussing HR can be. Make this jump with me.

You’re hosting a dinner party, and you made individual tarts for dessert. Now, you’re a barista at the coffeeshop, so you’re on a strict budget for this party. The fresh fruit on those tarts wasn’t cheap, and you’ve spent $150 total and can’t spend more if you want to keep your phone on this month.

You’ve set the 6 tarts in the fridge to chill. Your best friend, let’s call her Sophia, has been seeing this guy Marcus. Sophia texts you an hour before the party. “Hey, Marcus might be able to come tonight but idk. He has a work thing and might get out early.”

Sophiaaaaaa, I know you want to see your man, but I only planned for 6 people. Marcus makes it 7. In the weeks he’s been talking with Sophia, this has been his vibe. Maybe. He’s not fully committed yet, but he normally comes through. So what do you do about the tarts?

As a host, you have a spectrum of choices. At one end of the spectrum is the host who would have made extras even before Sophia’s text because the feeling of abundance is important to them. At the other end is the host who says Marcus can’t come because there isn’t enough. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

School districts are the dinner party hosts, and they have to keep their bills paid. Most school districts refuse to purchase more tarts unless Marcus actually shows up. While everyone else has dessert, or starts the school year, Marcus has to wait while you go to the store (recruit), make the tart (hire), and finally deliver. Even if Marcus has a historical track record of showing up, to party after party, for years, they will wait until he sets foot in the door. This is why some kids don’t have teachers until October.

Some school districts say screw it, we know Marcus is coming. If he doesn’t, someone else’s friend or partner will. Let’s just make extra tarts. But to do that, you have to borrow money from the phone bill that needs to be paid. Ok, fine. Then we take a little from next month’s rent to pay the phone bill. Then we ultimately wind up eating Cheerios for the last 3 days before payday, but hey, at least Marcus got his tart.

These districts look at projections and say, “If there were 80 kindergartners last year, there will probably be 80 1st graders next year, so we need another teacher.” They grant the hiring permission, even if the kids haven’t physically walked in the door. This requires a lot of budget gymnastics and pleading before the school board that no, we won’t overspend by millions.

I spent years of my life convincing school districts to make extra tarts ahead of time. It was tedious, complicated, and involved a lot of spreadsheets. It was noble work, and it truly mattered. I still believe that today. While I never met the principals who got permission to make these hires, I knew that their summers were less stressful. They would start the year with their whole team, which is important to build culture and consistency. Kids would have a teacher, not a random substitute, on Day One.

Back to my meeting with Maya’s principal. She knows Marcus is coming, and she wants to bake that extra tart, but the school district has said no. It’s not personal. There is a massive budget shortage in Texas education, and school districts can’t spend what they don’t have. To make the numbers come out right, her district will play it safe and wait until Marcus walks in the door. Maya might not have a teacher until October. She might start the year with one teacher and then get shuffled once classes are resized.

To her credit, the principal was transparent about all these possibilities. Her job is impossible. Parents come in seeking reassurance about their kid’s first grade teacher, and all she can tell them is “anything could happen”. We took my nerdy detour mostly so I could tell you that I know this principal is doing her best in a broken system.

Part 3: Are the Best Tarts Homemade?

I ain’t here to fix this district’s dinner party processes though. I’m just trying to be a parent. The reason I wanted more information on Maya’s teacher is because she struggled with some aspects of the class culture. I felt that Maya internalized some lessons about discipline and shame, and I don’t take that lightly. My dilemma is: do you prepare the path for the child, or do you prepare the child for the path?

Maya is 6. She’s old enough to begin to navigate the path. She has a tendency to deeply internalize what others say, including broad whole-class announcements about discipline. We can help her manage her feelings and advocate for herself. Did I mention she’s 6? So she’s pretty young, and she deserves a classroom full of joy, fun, and a discipline style that focuses more on teaching and restoration than punishment. Both of these things are true.

In other words, if I want my kid to have the perfect tart, should I make it myself? No one understands her flavor palette like I do. I pay more attention to her than someone in a room of 20+ kids ever could. My analogy is getting pretty wobbly (is it half-baked?) at this point, but you’re almost done reading, so hang in there.

The reason I’m not committed to making homemade tarts is because I’m doing all the other things. Someone has to order the flour, stock the sugar on the shelves, keep the store open, arrange the fruit, and so on. Being a full-time caregiver is less about playing with your kids and more about getting the car inspected and negotiating medical bills. One of my wisest friends once told me that my job wasn’t to entertain my kids. She said, “My job is to make a peaceful home.”

Regrettably, that means making myself peaceful too, which is its own job.

If I send off my kid to school every day, then the price is that I know it’s not as good as homemade. This analogy gets very literal now, because she is eating sugary cereal every day for breakfast. She’s building a base of unhealthy nutritional habits that could affect her for years.

She also came home with the ability to use, perfectly in pitch and tone, a well-placed “bruh”. It’s the first of many words she’ll acquire at school. She will learn all sorts of things that don’t align with our values. Kids will have phones very early in life. They’ll curse. All of this is the price of letting go.

If I keep her home, I can laser focus on preparing a path for my child. It will be tailored to her, without cursing and with outdoor time. She will be a nice hothouse flower, grown in only the right climate. So instead I will send her to school, preparing her for the path, and I hope that it’s the right decision. Whether she has a teacher in August or not, whether she gets cavities from the twice-daily chocolate milk (and embarrassing lack of tooth brushing at home), all of these are challenges our family will navigate together.

A gentle note: This is not a post knocking on the choice to homeschool. I trust that you made the right choice for your kids; this post addresses my wrestling to make the right choice for mine.

Public education will never feed my kid fresh vegetables. It won’t provide the exact learning environment where she thrives. It isn’t even growing her much academically. What it does is provide a chance for her to experience life beyond our home, in a structured and consistent environment. For us, this year, the right choice is to send her to school and to keep exposing her to life beyond our control, which is also full of discomforts, adjustments, and learning to live in ways that aren’t tailored exactly to her.

Since her school just texted that there’s lead in the water, and there are still three TBD first-grade teachers, I’m not sure she’ll go back there yet. But she’s going to some public school in four weeks. In brief: I live in a segregated city and actively contribute to its gentrification, I still have an overblown sense of my own importance in the education consulting landscape, and I’m (mostly) done being judgy toward people who don’t choose the neighborhood school for their kids. God bless us every one, especially the educators who will return in August or get hired as late as October. My kid’s in your hands.

This post is dedicated to Grace, Emily, Jill, Barb, and anyone else who was part of Team Tulsa. We made some incredible things happen there. It felt like a bunch of meetings and persuading and spreadsheets at the time, but more kids started the school year with teachers because of us. It was real deal change, in a way that had a huge and obvious positive impact. I’m still proud of us.