Schools Superintendent Homer Kearns reminded his staff last week that the biggest problems teachers faced in the 1940s were students talking out of turn, chewing gum, making noise and running in the halls.
Today, said the superintendent in Salem-Keizer, Ore., schools are contending with teenage drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancy, rape, suicide, robbery and assault."It's just an incredible reminder that things have changed," Kearns said. "Sometimes in some of our schools it's hard to think of when you're going to have time for the multiplication tables."
Educators in the 1990s are facing the start of the new school year contending with new social problems, budget cuts, contract negotiations, and crime inside schools.
"It's been a long time since what people did before the start of school was just stack books and polish desks. It has to do with who's coming to school and what kinds of social and economic problems they bring with them," said Susan Moore Johnson, a Harvard School of Education professor and a former high school teacher and administrator.
Even the spoken tongue will be different this year at Boston's Dorchester High School.
In three languages - English, Spanish and French creole - students will hear not just how to find their homeroom, but where to go for pregnancy counseling, psychological advice and health insurance.
"These are things we're now expected to provide," said Curt Warner, headmaster of the inner-city high school, which reopened Wednesday.
Budget problems in some states have added a new category to the job definition of some educators: lobbyist. "I spend a great deal of time testifying before committees," said Richard Warner, principal of Fargo South High School in Fargo, N.D.
"The political process of today is 100 percent different than it was 20 years ago," said John Duncan, superintendent of the San Roman Valley, Calif., Unified School District. The state's protracted budget impasse, not settled until last week, created uncertainty on local school budgets.
"It finally got down to simply making some decisions on faith and issuing contracts so I'd have teachers in the classrooms when the kids come back," said Duncan.
Budget cuts also have worsened other problems, said Gary Marks, spokesman for the American Association of School Administrators.
"You're seeing schools coming back into session facing skyrocketing expectations at the very time when the social and economic conditions affecting children are getting worse and states are floating in a sea of red ink and budgets are drying up," Marks said.
There also are security considerations. "In the old days, if somebody was picking on you, you'd get your big brother. Now it's `I have a friend who has a friend in a gang,' " said Dean Huber, principal of Carl Zerger Elementary School in Westminster, Colo., near Denver.
"These kids at an early age are hearing so much about this that it raises questions in their minds about are they safe," he said.
The back-to-school teacher orientation in the neighboring Cherry Creek School District included a presentation by police about how problem students spent their summer vacation.
Kindergarteners through third-graders entering the Dunbar-Erwin Elementary School in Newport News, Va., on Tuesday faced a sign reminding them that weapons are prohibited.
"The problems are different today," said Nancy Dunn, the school's assistant principal. "We're teachers, parents, nurses, doctors, lawyers.
"When I started 16 years ago, I didn't have to do that. I was primarily a teacher. We can't only do that now."