Recent headlines about Oregon’s education system are less than promising. After years of improvement, Oregon’s graduation rate has stalled around 81%. And the release of national test scores shows students in the state remain far from meeting benchmarks in math and reading.

Related: The teachers who shaped the Class of 2025

We’re a couple of months away from the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 shutting down schools — and in Oregon, schools were closed for longer than most. Since those years of distance learning, students have struggled to regularly return to school, with students’ lives outside of school only getting more complicated. This leaves teachers with a challenging job: preparing these students for life after graduation while trying not to burn out themselves.

OPB recently asked students in the Class of 2025 which teachers made an impact on them. We followed up by asking teachers what changes they want to see to the public education system they work in.

Teachers’ ideas ranged from starting school later to investing in music education. Unsurprisingly, several suggestions have to do with funding. Here are 7 changes the Class of 2025’s teachers want to see in education:

Idea #1: Spend money where it makes a difference

Funding schools is on many teachers’ minds, especially ahead of what will likely be a painful budget season, as superintendents and school boards figure out what to keep and what to cut.

“A lot of people are making decisions that aren’t teachers, that aren’t in the classroom,” Earl Boyles Elementary School teacher Vickie Saula said. “They don’t know, they’re not up on the current things and they’ve got high positions.”

David Douglas High School science teacher Scott Dossa worries about cuts to the non-academic resources schools provide, like access to mental health services.

“We see schools having to lay off teachers, we see bloated administrations, we need to figure out something that’s going to work for funding and truly educating students,” said David Douglas English teacher Michael Theofelis.

“Oregon spends a lot of money per student, and we don’t have the best results in terms of test scores, if that’s how we want to measure things, and graduation rate,” Theofelis said.

“We do need to make sure that we properly fund schools to make sure that kids are having a quality education and then figure out how do we measure a true quality education.”

Idea #2: Intervene early in math

The importance of building reading skills has been center stage in Oregon for years now. Literacy is a critical skill for later success. But math — in particular, ninth-grade math — is often a make-or-break class for students to pass in order to graduate from high school on time.

And David Douglas High School math teacher Heidi Willis says often, students are showing up to her freshman class very unprepared.

“We are not magic,” Willis said. She says she finds herself teaching students who come to high school four or five years below grade level in math.

“To teach high school level math to someone who’s at a fourth-grade level is an impossibility and it’s not fair to that kid.”

If students get the math help they need in elementary or middle school, Willis says that will save both students and teachers a lot of heartbreak — and time — in high school.

“We need to intervene and get kids support and help and do what we can to get them caught up before they get to us,” Willis said. “I think that would help us get a lot more kids across the stage.”

Idea #3: Spend money to keep class sizes reasonable

The kids in Heidi Willis’ math classes often need extra support and extra time.

“I feel like I’m trying to be a one-on-one tutor … checking in with kids, checking their work,” Willis said.

But that’s challenging when there are 30 or more students in a classroom. And this affects teachers in every subject.

“When I have 34, 35, 36 [students], it’s really hard to forge those meaningful connections,” David Douglas art teacher Maria Galati said.

Class sizes have been a sticking point in contract negotiations between teachers and districts across the state, especially class sizes for schools that receive additional money to serve low-income families under the federal Title I designation. All of David Douglas’ elementary and middle schools are Title I schools.

Teachers are also seeing more behavior problems from students, especially in early grades, which often require more adult help and attention. At the same time, schools are welcoming students who are new to the U.S. or new to English, who also need one-on-one attention and support.

Earl Boyles teacher Linda Long has spent more than 20 years in the classroom.

“I’ve had up to 33 students,” Long said. “All the different needs that students have — it can be quite challenging for one teacher to do that.”

Idea #4: Take politics out of education

This idea, from David Douglas theater teacher Michael Givler, is simple: take politics out of education.

“Nobody tries to score points with kids here, we’re just trying to teach them and care for them,” he said. “There’s no conspiracy.”

“I wish that people would get out of the teacher’s way and just let us teach.”

Former Earl Boyles learning specialist Jen Mazalook worries about President Trump’s desire to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, which provides invaluable support to students with disabilities.

“It frustrates me that the kids that need the most support don’t necessarily get the things they need,” she said.

Idea #5: Teach soft skills (in a more spontaneous way)

“Soft skills” like communicating and collaborating effectively are at the top of the list of what employers and colleges want to see from high school graduates.

David Douglas teacher Alana Harris agrees, and wants to see soft skills taught in less awkward ways.

“There’s some of that right now, and to me, it feels a little stiff and hard to connect to,” Harris said. “The lessons have good objectives, but I don’t think they are actually making a dent for kids.”

Say a teacher makes a mistake in class. Harris thinks students might respond well to that teacher explaining what happened and how they’re responding to that mistake.

Harris also sees a potential to teach a soft skill like conflict resolution by overhauling disciplinary systems and addressing punishment by looking at why a student acted out in the first place.

“So that there’s more understanding on both sides and more conversations and acknowledgement of factors that led to people making the choices they did and then discussion of how they might make different choices next time,” Harris said. “And an understanding that they’ll need 20 or more next times before they make a different choice.”

Another opportunity to build soft skills comes from Jen Mazalook: having students with more impactful disabilities to spend time with their peers.

“Letting kids interact with those kids as well so they can learn empathy, so they can learn to enjoy people who are different from themselves,” Mazalook said.

Idea #6: Spend money on what impacts students…

Linda Long, the Earl Boyles elementary teacher, said she’d love to have a full-time assistant in her classroom to help meet the needs of her students.

Jen DeFrances, a David Douglas High School librarian who used to teach with Long at Earl Boyles, would like a full-time librarian in every school. The decline in librarians both in David Douglas and statewide was recently highlighted in a story reported by Willamette Week. According to WW, Oregon has less than 200 certified librarians, compared to almost 900 in 1980.

Mari Schay, another former Earl Boyles teacher, wants to see music education prioritized in schools.

“In study after study, when kids get more music in schools, they don’t just thrive musically — they thrive academically, socially, and emotionally,” Schay said.

Schay also says teachers need more support.

“Teachers are burning out in part because they pour their heart and soul into what they do, but in return they get blamed for all of society’s ills,” Schay said.

Social studies teacher Scott Johnson says more financial support — higher pay — would help attract more high-quality teachers. He says better compensation would lead to “more talented people coming into the teaching profession that care,” and reduce their financial worries.

Idea #7: …and listen to them

David Douglas PE teacher Nathan Tew says school leaders need to listen to their students and take their voices and opinions into consideration.

Tew’s colleague, English teacher Chris Mathews, said schools should continue to make school relevant for all of its students, with more connections to careers and life after high school.

“Conventional school worked for me, ” Mathews said.

“For a lot of our students who want something different, who aren’t quite as into the academic part … I think we need to do more things to connect the high school and college world to what’s going to happen beyond that.”