Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School uses this weather-damaged trailer for classrooms. The main building is awaiting renovation and cannot accommodate all the school’s students. This is one of more than 30 photos shown during testimony from Lancaster witnesses.
Wrapping up a series of petitioner witnesses from the School District of Lancaster, Amanda Aikens, a teacher at Martin Luther King Elementary, testified Monday and Tuesday about the challenges of teaching in a school that does not have enough resources to adequately support its population of students living in poverty and English learners.
Court also heard Tuesday from Matthew Splain, president of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, one of the petitioners in the case. His testimony will conclude on Wednesday, and we will provide highlights.
Aikens, who became an instructional coach at King last spring, was previously a classroom teacher there for 11 years and has served significant numbers of English learner students. “I’m here today to be a voice for my students and an advocate for them,” she said.
Aikens testified that 99% to 100% of King students are economically disadvantaged and that her students often face trauma and challenges that require individualized attention to address. Aikens said she had up to 28 students in her classroom and never had fewer than 20.
She sees a need for interventionists to work with students individually and in small groups, as well as another school counselor, a school psychologist, a social worker, and more English language development teachers.
“The demand that is put on a single classroom teacher is just too much, and [students] are not receiving the interventions and support that they need in order to achieve at these high levels,” she said at the close of her testimony. “They're going to need a little extra.”
In her current role, Aikens provides coaching support and professional development for the school’s teachers and guides the school’s multi-tiered interventions with students who need extra help.
“If we had specially trained interventionists that could meet with small groups and start to fill those gaps, I believe you would see a large change,” she said.
Conditions for teaching and learning at King are not ideal. The school building is awaiting a renovation as part of the final phase of a four-phase renovation project of Lancaster’s schools, but it is not scheduled yet.
The school’s speech pathologist and counselor each work in a closet. A special education room has no windows.
“Often we have very inconsistent air conditioning and heat,” Aikens said. “You'll often find kids in the classroom in their winter coats.”
Rust like this is a problem in King’s bathrooms, according to Aikens.
Other problems include rust and mold, rodents and roaches. Aikens said there were unresolved asbestos issues in the building.
The building is also lacking on the technology front: “In every classroom there are only two outlets, one in the front and one into the back.” She said extension cords and outlet strips crisscross classroom floors. “They are overloaded on a daily basis,” she said.
While the district has acquired iPads for all its students, that was not the case when the school had to transition to remote teaching from March 2020 until January 2021. Not only did students have to share devices; they were also not used to learning on an iPad and so they had difficulty accessing instruction. Aikens said the school has seen a decline in reading levels – about one year of loss since the pandemic hit.
Aikens repeatedly highlighted the need for individualized attention and support that her school cannot provide.
She described one former student, a refugee and English learner, who was chronically absent – “missing weeks and weeks at a time.”
“Because we don't have the resources of a social worker or an extra school counselor, I ended up going to the hospital one day that he was in there,” Aikens said. “And come to find out, the student has sickle cell [disease] and was going into crisis many times throughout the year. And every time he was in crisis, he would miss at least a week of school.”
Once Aikens was aware of the problem, she said she was able to work with a social worker to get nursing support and other accommodations including a special transportation plan for the student.
“The unfortunate part is this student was at our school for a full year before we were able to figure these things out because it was left to the teacher,” she said. “We didn’t have the resources in order to help this student in a timely manner, and that student is now having to repeat 6th grade because of the learning loss every time he was out of school.”
Asked whether the school would be able to address more student needs if there were more resources, Aikens said, “Absolutely.”
Classrooms at King lack outlets. Extension cords running under student desks are common, Aikens said.