Between long hours, financial burden, student teachers look to College of Education for relief

With COVID-19 changing the way students learn, the hands-on experience has taken a hit for student teachers this year.

At Illinois State University, those who are majoring in education are required to student teach for at least one semester.

Student teachers are paired with a mentor in a classroom and are in charge of helping run a classroom, taking the time to plan weekly curriculum, activities, assessments and learning accommodations on top of juggling their own schoolwork.

“I’m at school from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and then I come home, give myself a little bit of a break and then I am typically in front of my computer, from about 6 until 11 and that’s a daily thing,” senior middle level education major Hailey Prefontaine said. “[It can be] grading, planning for the next day, working on anything that has to do with the student teaching class itself.”

Prefontaine has been with the same class since August but spent her first semester teaching over Zoom since some schools felt that ISU students were spreading COVID-19.

“First semester, we were not allowed inside the building. So, I was teaching everything from my apartment. Even when the kids were in the school because they were under the impression that ISU students were the ones spreading COVID,” Prefontaine said.

This semester, Prefontaine is in the building getting an in-person and hands-on experience of student teaching.

When it comes to student teaching, especially during a pandemic, each student’s experience will be different depending on the school they are placed in and the type of program they plan on teaching.

Senior elementary education major Victoria Alper was lucky enough to be placed to fulfill her requirement.

She was supposed to be in the professional development program, which requires a full year of teaching. However, Alper felt that ISU was not taking enough precautions against COVID-19, removed herself from the PDS program and opted to live at home since her mother is at a higher risk for the virus.

“I took myself out of the program because of COVID and I didn’t feel comfortable going to school,” Alper said. “I tried to get one closer to home and [ISU] kind of wouldn’t budge with me.”

For the fall semester, Alper was lucky enough to get a placement by getting her hours through tutoring students via Zoom. When it came to getting a placement for this semester, Alper heard two to three weeks before her placement began where she would be teaching.

“I felt like we were just kind of all just dropped into this district,” Alper said.

Due to the ongoing situation with COVID-19, schools seemed to be hesitant when it came to accommodating student teachers, leaving students frustrated and the College of Education trying to find alternatives.

Not only were the students frustrated with the lack of placements and options to fulfill requirements, but also with the lack of income since most still had rent, groceries or gas to pay for.

Found in the Student Teaching Handbook under Outside Activities for Student Teachers, it states “student teachers are strongly urged to not have out-of-school employment or enroll in additional coursework during the student teaching semester. Participation in extracurricular activities is discouraged.”

If the student is found to be in violation of the policy, the student could potentially be at risk of removal from the program.

“[Most people have] saved enough money beforehand, or are being supported elsewhere but either way, they are working so hard just to be able to make ends meet and some people physically can not do that,” junior education major Dylan Toth said.

In an already difficult year, Toth took it upon himself to take action when it came to the financial impact of being a student teacher.

As vice president of the assembly in the Student Government Association, Toth co-sponsored legislation that called on the College of Education and the Cecilia J. Lauby Teacher Education Center to make it a priority to eliminate the financial burden of student teaching.

In December, SGA unanimously voted to pass the resolution in hopes the College of Education would reconsider the financial burden student teachers face without some type of steady income.

While it is a far reach, Toth believes even a recruitment tactic would help relieve the financial burden of being a student teacher.

“Imagine if we had that little recruitment tactic to say we are supporting you, we understand your financial burden, we understand this and that we’re going to give you this monthly stipend or we’re going to give you this semester stipend just to make sure that you’re supported during this time,” Toth said.

Toth also started a petition on Change.org after hearing from a former education major who had to drop their education credentials a semester before graduating since the individual could not afford to teach without having a steady income.

“I hope they listen to us, that they understand the petition, they understand these real-life stories,” Toth said.

Though students are still grateful to get some sort of student-teaching experience, the financial burden for student teachers is still there with or without a pandemic.

“Especially this year, a lot of people’s families took a hit. I think every person was affected from COVID,” Alper said. “Whether that was socially, academically, financially, there was some area of someone’s life that was affected or multiple [areas] that was affected by COVID. I mean, there’s no way that you can escape it, it’s been around for almost a year.”

Even given the situation, student teachers are happy too safely be in a classroom doing something they love and help make a difference.