I just finished my first day of substitute teaching since I left my full-time teaching job after being elected and I have a lot to say.

1. I cannot believe how much the job has changed since my last day in June. That speaks not just to the pandemic, but to how much teachers have to adapt on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

2. If you’re making policy about classrooms, you should be in classrooms. Not just for 15 minutes, but for a whole damn day. A whole week. A whole month. Years. You get the point.

3. If you’re making policy about classrooms, you need to LISTEN to the individuals in those classrooms. You don’t know better than them.

4. People in schools don’t get paid enough (I knew this one before I just felt like it needs to be restated every single day).

5. If you think you know what a teacher does in a daily basis, times that by 1,000 and you’re still not even close.

6. Kids are awesome.

7. We are asking for things from both our kids and our educators that are completely unrealistic right now and the impact of that is going to be very heavy.