U-Talk: Do you think there’s room for improvement in the public education system?

By Staff | Jan 30, 2023

: Cole Delgado

: Lori Johnson

: Shane Richards

: Andrea Chun

: Heather Nelson

Tiana Lao, Special to the Daily Herald

Cole Delgado

“We need to pay teachers more. That’s my humble opinion. The reason why I start with money is because I believe that if we pay teachers more, it keeps our best teachers in the classrooms and it gives our teachers more of a chance to learn from better individuals. Right now, I feel like most teachers don’t feel valued with the hard work that they’re constantly doing on a daily basis, and, so, our hardest workers will be able to find higher paying jobs in other sectors doing half of the amount of work.” — Cole Delgado, Pleasant Grove

“I’m not exactly sure. I think more involvement with the counselors with the students instead of letting the students do their own thing. I think they need to be a little bit more involved in getting the kids graduated. … They need to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Instead of doing this, we should work on this to get you graduated,’ and not rely on online schooling to get those classes they need. Although, it is a good thing, it helps these students do what they need to do.” — Lori Johnson, Orem

“More hands-on learning. When I was growing up, there was one (teacher) that would just tell me how to learn. The way I learn is by doing it, so if you were to just stand behind me and tell me how to do something, you would only have to tell me to do it once. … I think the teachers or the staff should be the ones to be able to acknowledge or notice how a student learns.” — Shane Richards, Provo

“There’s definitely room for improvement. I would say maybe the coordination between parents and administration, parents and teachers, that’s where I would start. I just think sometimes the communication channels are not the best, and so it’s hard to, maybe as a parent, sometimes know what exactly the plans are, or if we’re on the same page as the administration of the school, but in general, I am for public education.” — Andrea Chun, Orem

“I feel like there’s federal government control over our education system right now, and I feel like if we brought it home to more individualized, like, even just city-by-city basis — I feel like we know what our kids need. We know that the specific things in our city looks different than another city, so that’s kind of my frustration right now. … I had the opportunity to go to two different elementary schools for my children. One of them, there was more parental support than the other, and there’s definitely more money than the other, and this other school has way more programs and opportunities for kids, and it was interesting to see that dynamic and also sad that one school had more money.” — Heather Nelson, Lindon