Editor’s note: The Star first interviewed Stacey Recker in September. Her experience as a first-year teacher is being chronicled throughout the school year.

Students in Stacey Recker’s first grade class at Brandywine’s Merritt Elementary School are catching up after a snow day with a special reading selection and lesson about Groundhog Day.

The students gather in front of Recker, hands shooting up in the air every so often, students eager when they know an answer to a question.

This is an example of the hunger for learning that Recker recognizes in her students and it is part of what feeds her passion for being an educator.

“What drew me to first grade,” Recker said, “is how they can learn so quickly … their appetite for learning.”

Teaching first-graders at Merritt was Recker’s dream job, and well into her first year she says it still feels like the dream job.

“It does,” she said. “I was just telling my husband last night just about how much I love these kids.”

Following Recker through her year provides a unique look at how some issues impacting education on a district and state level impact teachers like her on the front lines.

Districts all across the state, just like Brandywine and neighboring Niles Community Schools, are awaiting an initial clue of just how much less state funding per student will be for the coming year.

With numerous rounds of cuts handed down to districts year after year, forcing cutbacks, layoffs and putting pressure on district officials to do more with less, another cut in state funding would lead school officials down what is becoming an all too familiar path.

When it comes to the budget, officials still don’t know what to expect. Neither do state legislators.

“Right now the governor will not present his budget until Feb. 17, so we don’t know what he’s going to present,” said state Rep. Sharon Tyler, who sat on the House Education Committee last term.

Though she’s not seen a budget presentation, the local lawmaker said, “with a $1.8 million deficit, there will probably be cost savings measures as we did last year.”

In addition to budget woes, districts are also beginning or preparing for contract negotiations. Niles has already begun its negotiations with teachers and Brandywine Superintendent John Jarpe said he and the Brandywine Community Schools Board of Education will soon begin contract negotiations with teachers.

What does all this mean for teachers like Recker?

State cuts in funding means officials have to take a look at costs, the majority of which goes into staffing.

Last year, Brandywine couldn’t avoid the need to layoff teachers. A number of retiring teachers opened the door to call many laid-off educators back to work. Still, for fresh-faced, young and energetic teachers like Recker, is the looming possibility of a pink slip for the dream job something she thinks about?

“I do,” she said. “I think everybody does. As a teacher it’s really a job that you love and it’s your passion.”

Teaching is a “unique profession” that provides a certain amount of support through things like teacher contracts, seniority and in certain aspects, tenure. For new teachers, there’s a limit to that support, however, as seniority does play a role when it comes to layoffs.

“Of course I want to keep the very best teachers on hand,” Jarpe said. “But no, that’s a reality that the seniority system does prevail and that’s to protect teachers, too.”

Though the subject can often create a wave of concern through the education community, no district in the Niles area has announced the need for any layoffs so early in the year.

“I look at it as any job,” Recker said. “There’s a risk you could lose it,” as in any profession.

Recker said she has somewhat of an expectation to be “pink-slipped” should the situation occur, but she added, “hopefully the budget will allow for everyone to come back.”

“You’ve got to take each year and just do your best,” she said. “That way you know you’re giving the job your best.”

As a student at Central Michigan University, Recker said she got an education in the aspect of tenure, budget and contracts as well as in recent programs such as Race to the Top while being a student.

While the educational world awaits a look at the state’s budget, what does affect teachers like Recker now are tight budgets at the district level, which can make it tough in some cases to get certain materials for class.

Recker said she was lucky, coming into a classroom that had been left by a retiring educator who left plenty of materials behind for her to use.

One example of where she has found a need, however, is when it comes to books.

A program at her school encourages students to pick books from the classroom library each week. The students then read from their own mini-library every week as part of the special reading program. To do that, a teacher needs an ample amount of books. That can be tough for some teachers and mean making trips for used books.

“Especially as a first year teacher,” Recker said, “I think a lot of teachers that have done this five, 10 years-plus, they have the classroom libraries built up.”

It can take time, she said, “to build up your supplies, build up your library things.”
“I try to be creative to where I don’t have to buy things,” she said, “but I do know several teachers that do.”

She added that from talking to other teachers, she knows it can be easy to spend an estimated $100 for classroom supplies and materials.

For now, however, Recker’s students are focused on the book she’s reading to them about Groundhog Day and the lesson she’s giving them on Puxatawny Phil.

While officials grapple with budget cuts and contract negotiations, teachers like Recker stand at the forefront of debate. Only at the forefront, there is no debating — only teaching going on.

And for teachers like Recker, that’s what matters most.

“It is fun,” Recker said. “Still at the end of the day before I go to bed, I like my job. I wouldn’t trade it.”