Not sure if you mean "What can we do?" rhetorically or actually...

But either way, I admit there isn't much. DCPS is honestly too big to be totally effective in managing the existing problems. With roughly 90k students in DCPS schools, all of whom have different needs and honestly even neighborhood to neighborhood schools have wildly different needs, one central office/system/way of doing things just doesn't work in a school system that is this needy.

I spent a lot of time with my students giving them the space to talk about issues they were facing, including using my art class to let them either work on the assignment I made or make posters to bring to March for Our Lives-- I gave them the full credit no matter their choice. I made sure my students knew that their voices were valued and that I would do my best to be there for them in whatever capacity they needed. Maybe not always the most appropriate professionally, but it definitely established a relationship with my students where they knew I was going to take their concerns seriously. I left feedback boxes all over my classroom. I asked for feedback on lessons to make them better. My kids knew they deserved better than what they were getting 90% of the time. And my students ended up being incredibly successful in my classes, some of them literally showed up for my class only and ditched the rest of their classes. I loved watching my students succeed and was constantly furious about teachers who couldn't recognize that each student had individual needs and couldn't figure out how to meet them because they were too worried about being fired if they couldn't raise test scores.

But what I really wish is that parents were being vocal about their kids needs too. And some are, but a lot aren't. I'd love to see a day where teachers and parents are united about what kids need and put pressure on DCPS to make the changes, because I think that's frankly the only way things will begin to change. DCPS doesn't care what we as teachers have to say, but they do seem to care more about pressure from parents/the community at large. I also think older students (high school) should be vocal about their needs and experiences.

At the end of the day, maybe nothing works. I left feeling hopeless about education in DCPS schools. But I do hope things get better for the sake of the students.