Celebrating Educators: Haley’s Story

Teachers & Principals | 05/8/2026

Jamayka Young National Digital Communications Manager

Meet Former Paraeducator, Classroom Teacher, and Lifelong Education Champion, Haley Sawyer

“Both of my parents are educators, so education is kind of the family business.”

Every day, educators show up and do the critical, and often difficult, work of helping to shape and guide our next generation. So often, this work goes without adequate thanks or support , which is why we wanted to sit down with former classroom educator and lifetime education and children’s advocate Haley Sawyer to get an insight into her journey in the education industry and uplift the amazing effort, care, and dedication of educators like her.

Asked about her path towards her current role as the Marketing and Communications Manager at Stand for Children Oregon, Haley explains that her passion for supporting children and young people has been a life-long endeavor.

“I’ve always worked with the disability community. So, I thought maybe I should try working in a school as a paraeducator. That’s where I got started in my own personal journey with education, working as a one-to-one paraeducator with a 17-year-old student with autism who’s nonverbal. I worked with him for several years because he was in the transitional program that keeps students until they’re 21. It was an amazing experience.”

Through her work as a paraeducator, Haley was able to support in creating integrated classroom spaces, something disability justice advocates, like Amy Waggoner, have pushed for as critical for both general education students as well as those with IEPs.

“I saw firsthand how children have different assets and strengths,” recalled Sawyer. “I worked closely with him, and other students, bringing him into the general education classroom and helping to find the right supports for him to access the content. He’s an amazing artist and he got to shine in ceramics and art.

One of my fondest memories from working at that high school was coaching the unified soccer team, which is a Special Olympics sponsored team at high schools where half the team is made up of disabled students and half is made up of neurotypical, able-bodied students. I think it’s really beneficial for everyone.

I actually don’t know the first thing about soccer. I’m a big fan, but in terms of coaching, I didn’t know what to do, so I recruited half the girls soccer team to join this group and they absolutely loved it. They built strong connections, developed better listening and communication skills. It taught them patience and empathy, and they eventually became advocates for disability justice in their own sense.

Through this paraeducator work, Haley was able to learn more about different ways of expressing intelligence and creativity for each child (and adult!)

“He (her student) would make his own puzzles. He could do puzzles from left to right, top to bottom in order. It was an amazing thing to see just how different kinds of intelligence work— and his was such strong spatial intelligence. We honed those skills and used those strengths to help him access other classes and connect with other students. That period of my life is really meaningful, and it led me to further pursue education as a career.”

Paraeducators are a critical part of the education landscape, providing much needed support to individual students and relief for classroom teachers. Yet, this pool of more than 800,000 paraeducators still face challenges and a lack of clear pathways when transitioning to full-time classroom education.

Still, Haley persevered and charted a path towards her goals of becoming an elementary school teacher.

“I loved my time at the high school, but I knew I wanted to do elementary school. So, I went to grad school and got my teaching license. And that’s how I ended up teaching 4th grade. I love 4^th graders — they’re developing such fun personalities, developing their own opinions, and start to grasp things like sarcasm and nuance. We had a ton of fun in class.”

While Sawyer thoroughly enjoyed nurturing young hearts and minds, like many educators, she also ran up against some of the major issues in our current education system that can act as barriers for educators.

“There were things that I felt frustrated by systemically. I’ve always stayed involved in politics, and I tracked a lot of the education policies that would move through the state.

Stand [for Children] championed the Early Literacy Success Initiative in 2023, and that’s how I first became familiar with the organization. I was passionate about that bill because when I started teaching, I noticed there was a huge range of literacy skills within my class.

My district did not offer a curriculum based on the science of reading. And so, I was left to my own devices to just try to make it work.”

This experience is, unfortunately, not unique to Haley. Many teachers report a lack of resources, including curriculum, and must spend many hours outside of their classroom work planning curriculum with little guidance. Like many other teachers, Haley had to rely on her own creativity and the support of her fellow educators to show up for her students and bridge major literacy gaps in her classroom.

“I had a class with a lot of academic needs, and many of my 4th graders really couldn’t read.

I worked with my colleagues, and we created something called the Reading Mountain. It was a traffic cone covered in butcher paper with a spiraling foam road. And along the foam road, there were different skills: short vowels, magic E, digraphs, these different phonics skills up the reading mountain.

We started by assessing students across the grade level, placing them into groups, and providing intervention about four days a week. Each student had a Lego figure with a pin at the bottom. They would stick their character in the foam road at their skill level and track their progress as they moved through the scope and sequence.

At the end of the year, we had a celebration where students reflected on their progress, visually showing the jump they made on the reading mountain by moving their figures from the bottom of the road to the top.

Then, the 5th graders who had gone through the intervention previously would come speak to the 4^th graders. They brought copies of the books they were reading at the beginning of 4^th grade and the books they are reading now. You could see the difference in complexity.

One of my colleagues students brought a picture book with short vowels, then from behind her back pulled out a mid-level chapter book. She was beaming with pride. Having an older student with status share her journey of struggle and resilience was so impactful.

It eliminated a ton of shame because a lot of students really feel ashamed when they’re struggling with reading, particularly in those upper elementary grades. That’s when social dynamics really start to change. We operated in a shame-free environment.

We operated in a shame-free environment, where the ethos was about working together. And there are no secrets. When you speak secretively about reading group, children feel that. And they assume that shame. So by sharing in the struggle, perseverance, and wins, we eliminated a lot of that.

This wouldn’t have been possible without my amazing colleagues. I loved working with them, and they were my lifeline. Troubleshooting and developing a practice together made me a stronger teacher.

I remember the times when I was creating resources and buying decodable books, and it’s a memory that I look back on fondly because I loved seeing my students succeed. I also think, wow, I wish I didn’t have to do that, and I hope in the future teachers are having to do that less and less.”

It was moments like these that spurred Haley on to working in education advocacy, so future teachers didn’t have to spend hours and their own money trying to patch holes in the education system themselves.

“I was having to make things up as I go to try to meet the needs of my kids who in 4^th grade were reading at a kindergarten level all the way to an eighth-grade level. There’s so much differentiation that needs to happen. And teachers need to be able to do that. But I knew that that gap wouldn’t have been as wide had my students received efficacious instruction with materials aligned to the research.

It led me to the realization that I wanted to focus more on this work with literacy. Then, an opportunity came up in Representative Kropf’s office. He was the chief sponsor of the Early Literacy Success Initiative and worked closely with Stand.

So, I spent a year in the state legislature and learned a lot about policy and process and made a lot of great connections along the way. After that year, I was hoping to move toward ed policy and continue to narrow my focus.

Then this opportunity came up with Stand. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect place for me to land that merged my interests and felt really impactful. And I work with a team of five other women that are the most competent, thoughtful, hardworking people I’ve ever met. We’re small but mighty, and I feel really lucky to have landed here.”

When asked about what drove her to be such a champion for children and education, she immediately gave credit to her parents, both of whom are educators.

“It was absolutely modeled for me. I mean, both of my parents are incredible, dedicated educators, but some of my earliest memories come from my dad. He was a teacher at Jefferson High School in Portland. He was a champion for his students at every level. I know times are different now, but if he knew Joe couldn’t make it to school unless he got a ride, my dad was there to pick him up.

When he knew his kids had unmet needs or some level of scarcity, my dad was there, not just as an educator, but as a human, providing them with access to basic things. So much so that after some of his students graduated, he kept in touch. Those students knew our family. He was an expert at forming these really strong relationships and he was particularly great at connecting with people who up until that point, hadn’t been successful in school, hadn’t had a teacher that they felt connected to.

Those moments were what made me realize that a teacher can make a difference in someone’s life.”

Watch Haley tell her story on Instagram:

The Pink Collar Penalty

Current Events & News | 03/2/2026

Jamayka Young Digital Communications Manager

The Pink Collar Penalty

How Educators and Other Workers in Women-Dominated Industries are Underpaid and Overworked

What Is A Pink-Collar Job?

In 1967, William Jack Baumol coined the term “pink-collar jobs” to highlight the discrepancies faced by those working in industries historically associated with women. Pink-collar roles include nurses and medical assistants, administrative workers, cosmetologists, social workers, retail and customer service workers, and teachers. These roles span from office (or “white collar”) work to more physically intensive (or “blue collar”) work, but share a few key traits:

They have historically (and presently) been primarily staffed by women.
They face significant wage disparities compared to their white and blue collar counterparts.
They typically involve a significant amount of emotional labor and/or service.

While some historically women-dominated jobs, such as tobacco manufacturing, are no longer primarily staffed by women, one of the pink-collar fields that has persisted for centuries is education.

From daycare workers to classroom teachers to language pathologists, those working in education do the critical work of preparing future generations, while being met with the obstacles and inequities that those in all pink-collar industries face.

Who Are Public School Teachers?

To give a quick layout of the education landscape, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 78% of public-school teachers are women.

That gender discrepancy skyrockets when you look at teachers of younger students. In 2022, 97% of all preschool and kindergarten teachers were women. With this stark gender imbalance in the field, it is frustrating but unsurprising that there is a massive pay gap between teachers and other comparable industries.

The Pink-Collar Penalty

Most public-school teachers (58%) have a master’s degree, but their median pay is nearly $20,000 lower than other workers with an advanced degree. They are also paid significantly less than other government workers with similar education requirements

In fact, teachers are paid less than the average employee in every state in the U.S. besides Hawaii. When we consider that 98% of teachers have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to just 38.7% of all U.S. workers, the below average pay for teachers is even more jarring.

While teachers are making less than most workers of comparable educational attainment, they are expected to do significant amounts of emotional labor that goes far beyond their job descriptions. Many adults can share stories of when a teacher has stepped in to support them in massive ways, from providing emotional support during difficult times, to providing food and helping to secure resources for students from low-income backgrounds.

This support is being provided to an ever-increasing number of students as classroom sizes balloon, without the teacher workforce being increased to match.

At the same time, they’ve been thrown under the bus by bad faith actors using classrooms for political games. Teachers have faced extreme harassment for teaching accurate accounts of history, or about the theory of evolution.

Teachers are not giving the training or resources to be doing this amount of psychological and social services support. It is no wonder that so many teachers report increased levels of anxiety and burnout—something that’s pushing many out of the field and further increasing the strain on those who stay.

As Connecticut teacher, Elsa Batista phrased it,

“Teaching has become mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting. We are strong, resilient, and creative, but we need support; we need help in our classrooms. Right now, that’s not happening, and we cannot afford to lose more teachers.”

Teachers deserve to be paid fairly for their work, which is essential to the functioning of any society. They also must be provided with significantly more support, from classroom resources to mental health services. Finally, our elected officials must work to increase the number of students graduating with teaching degrees and relieve the burden on already exhausted teachers.

What’s Scary About Teaching Black History?

Teachers & Principals | 02/16/2022

Jennifer Warner Executive, Organizing and Campaigns

Black History Month has always had its detractors. Since its widespread emergence in America’s schools in the 1970s, there have been people scattered across the country who despise that children in their communities have a designated opportunity to learn about the resistance, resilience and remarkable talents of Black Americans. But it was never a nationwide movement — until now.

From parents citing Black History Month as “critical race theory” to school districts banning books about racism — including a book by Ruby Bridges, who at 6 years old became the first Black child to integrate an elementary school in the South — it is clear that there’s an outspoken and determined movement afoot to erase the profound impact of Black Americans in U.S. history.

PEN America has laid out the numerous educational gag orders being pushed forth by state legislatures and school boards in this excellent op-ed that highlights how Black History Month is under attack.

As someone who can still remember how validating and inspiring it felt to finally see myself represented among the historical heroes and story book characters we covered in class, I worry how today’s students must feel: “What’s scary about learning about people who look like me?”

I ask that those of you who support the celebration of Black History Month speak up.

Don’t allow a loud, radical minority dictate what is taught in our nation’s public schools. If you value public education and believe a quality public education includes learning the truth about our country’s history of racism, slavery, and the civil rights movement — and not just during Black History Month, speak up.

What I always loved most about Black History Month was how it wasn’t just the history of violence and struggle. It was about celebrating art, scientific advancements, music, literature, and telling the full history of people who looked like me. All students benefit from that.

3 in 10 Teachers Say They May Quit This Year

Teachers & Principals | 01/18/2022

Stand For Children

With all that public school teachers have endured these past two years, you would hope that politicians would be doing whatever possible to provide more support and encouragement. Instead, in many places across the U.S., teachers are under attack.

Recent public opinion research conducted by SurveyUSA, an independent research firm, and commissioned by Stand for Children, shows how the onslaught of partisan political attacks against educators threatens to push many out of the profession and worsen our nation’s teacher shortage.

pie graph title reads "nearly 3 in 10 teachers say they may leave the profession in the next year" graph highlights 29% of the pie graph in yellow with a key that reads "likely or very likely"

Among the findings in the SurveyUSA national teacher survey:

37% of teachers say a push for laws that prevent honest teaching and conversations in their classrooms would make them more likely to leave teaching at the end of this school year.
92% say students should be able to learn about historical truths, even when they are uncomfortable.
94% say schools should ensure that no students feel unsafe, invisible, or unheard.

Make no mistake: This calculated effort to silence, vilify and demoralize public school teachers has an endgame: to decimate public education as we know it. To block certain students from gaining access to knowledge, and thus, to upward mobility. To destroy long-standing, trusted relationships between home and school.

We are not backing down from this fight because we understand the immeasurable value of public education. We hope you will continue standing with us.

Please take a moment to read the survey findings to hear more about how America’s teachers are feeling right now.

I’m Glad Things Have Changed

Teachers & Principals | 12/29/2021

Stand for Children

I go to a small high school in a rural town in Washington. Most of my peers — about 85% — are white. When I get the opportunity to learn about Black history — when I hear about Maya Angelou or Zora Neale Hurston – I genuinely get excited. It’s my chance to learn about role models who look like me and have gone through similar experiences to me.

All students deserve to see themselves reflected in their schools and their curriculum. That’s why Stand for Children is striving to make racial equity a reality in public education by ensuring that students have access to an accurate, fact-based account of U.S. history and diverse perspectives in their classrooms.

Please consider donating to Stand today to support this important work.

It was only a few years ago when people didn’t really speak about racism and historical injustices very openly. I wasn’t being exposed to Black authors in school, but fortunately, things have changed. I can’t imagine not being able to talk about these issues, or read Black authors, or learn about the experiences of other cultures in the U.S. It would just be so one-sided. It would just be fake.

This censorship sounds dystopian, but it’s crazy because that’s what’s happening in certain states in the U.S. What’s the point of getting an education if you’re only getting one small fraction of it?

All students benefit when they have access to an accurate representation of history and how it manifests today. If you agree, please consider supporting Stand for Children this giving season and be part of the movement for racial equity in public education.

Filling in the Missing Pieces

Access to High-Quality Schools | 10/29/2021

Stand for Children

As a student in the 1980s, I never imagined that the history lessons I received at my well-regarded high school omitted important portions of our country’s past. But that is indeed what happened.

Filling in these missing pieces decades later as an adult left me feeling disappointed in my history education and with the realization that I had been making assumptions about the world around me from a historical knowledge base with gaping holes.

Now as a parent and community member, I understand two things: First that teaching an honest and complete account of our country’s history is essential. It’s essential to achieving our goals of helping children become adults who can think critically and who won’t repeat the mistakes of the past. And second, we can’t assume that our local schools are teaching a full and truthful history. It’s up to us as parents and community members to tell our local school boards and superintendents that we do not want our children to receive a partial or cherry-picked history of our country.

That’s why I am grateful for the Learn from History Coalition. I appreciate knowing I’m not alone, that people and groups from across Illinois and across the country are working together and sharing ideas to support our schools in teaching the kind of history that will prepare our students for the world they will enter and one day lead.

I will keep doing this work because I don’t want today’s students to become adults and wonder what they are missing, as I did.

I hope you will join us.

Learn more about the Learn From History Coalition, including how you can get involved, at learnfromhistory.org.

It’s About What’s Best for Students

Access to High-Quality Schools | 09/22/2021

Stand for Children

As a school trustee, I participate in the governance of an incredibly diverse district in San Antonio, Texas – rich with tremendous cultural wealth. I appreciate Learn from History’s work to ensure that all students are taught an accurate and thorough history to ensure we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. And that requires that we teach all of our history, both the triumphs and the tragedies.

While serving, I have engaged with parents and guardians on both sides of the discussion who have bonafide concerns and fears. I can relate as a parent to three exceptional children. Unfortunately, we have been put in these challenging positions by policymakers who focus more on the outcomes of their elections rather than the outcomes of students. It should go without saying, but all students deserve a rich academic experience.

I am also a firm believer in educating parents and guardians to ensure issue distortion and misinformation don’t blind them to the realities of what balanced, responsible, and age-appropriate classroom discussions can be when talking about fact-based history with our children. I think one of the best ways to do that is through sharing your story so we can get past the rhetoric and be reminded of what we have in common — that we all want what is best for students.

That’s why I’m sharing my story and am asking you to share your story too.

Having support from the Learn from History coalition has motivated me to be more proactive as an advocate for this issue and help bring others along. Dozens of teachers, students, and parents have spoken up about how this issue is affecting them. But we know they aren’t the only ones out there.

I hope you’ll share your story today and take a stand for students’ right to a high-quality education.

How We Achieve An Antiracist Future

Teachers & Principals | 06/28/2021

Stand for Children

Recently, loud and powerful voices have claimed that teaching about race, racism, and antiracism in schools is divisive. We have found the opposite to be true.

Honest conversations about our country’s history and present are the best way to heal, foster understanding and create the future all students deserve. Now, more than ever, we need to remain connected to one another as we press forward on our antiracist educator journey.

We developed the Summer Conversations experience to help you and your professional learning community understand what it means to be an antiracist educator and how to move forward. We know our antiracist future depends on what and how students learn today.

Please check it out, gather your people, and register today to receive all the materials you need.

Home Visits Boost Attendance, Engagement

Parent & Family Engagement | 06/22/2021

Stand for Children

A research analysis released this week by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University speaks to the positive impact the Home Visit Project (recently renamed as Home Visit Partnerships) has on student attendance, educator-family communication, and student engagement. Home visits are a family engagement strategy that typically involve teachers visiting students at their homes and creating open channels of communication between educators, families, and students. This study observed the outcomes of visits by teachers to the homes of their students during the 2019-2020 academic year, and was made possible by a generous grant from the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Fund – Communities Foundation of Texas.

The study involved 580 teachers in five Texas school districts – the Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Dallas, Fort Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, and Richardson Independent School Districts. Researchers identified these key findings:

Participation in the Home Visit Project reduced students’ chronic absenteeism, particularly among early elementary students.
Participation in the Home Visit Project improved teachers’ connections with their students and students’ families.
Teachers feel home visits improved students’ engagement and achievement.
Participation in the Home Visit Project made teachers feel more confident in the ability of students to grow.
Parents and students who participated in the Home Visit Project had overwhelmingly positive experiences.

Researchers conducting the study underscored the particular impact that home visits had on students and their families in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: “We also found that despite the interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic on home visit implementation during the spring of 2020, that early elementary school students receiving home visits were significantly less likely to be chronically absent than their non-visited peers. The disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic has left many students disconnected from school and has resulted in higher rates of chronic absenteeism across the country; this study suggests home visits could be an impactful approach to improve student-school relationships and engagement in the coming recovery years.”

The Home Visit Project began in 2015 when a group of Stand for Children Texas educator fellows identified authentic family engagement as their top need to better support students. After much observation, listening, and learning within the program, especially while navigating the past year, it was clear how important partnerships are between educators and families and how success is based on those partnerships. The Home Visit Project team therefore made the decision to officially change the program’s name to Home Visit Partnerships.

Thank A Teacher Today

Teachers & Principals | 05/3/2021

Stand for Children

May is Teacher Appreciation Month, and after all the sacrifices and ever-evolving adjustments teachers have made to ensure their students keep learning during the pandemic, I hope everyone will take a moment to reflect and say thank you.

If there’s an educator you want to acknowledge, write a short thank you note with this form and Stand for Children will share it on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

I see what the educators with Home Visit Project have done this past year, taking time outside of their workday to make sure their students and students’ families have food and access to information about medical care and vaccines. As a former educator myself, let me assure you this: Teachers care.

The people who choose this profession — and those who have stuck with it during this pandemic — want the very best for their students. It’s why they quickly modified all their lesson plans to be suitable for video conferences. It’s why some ventured back into the classroom, even before vaccines were widely available, to serve students who needed in-person instruction. It’s why they are texting, calling and emailing families every day to ask how they’re really holding up through all this and if they need anything.

Please take the opportunity today to thank an educator, either someone currently teaching or someone who influenced you in your past.