Paint and Pages

In January of 2018, my husband and I visited Western Ireland and witnessed the destruction of Storm Eleanor. The streets filled with water and where cars once traveled boats led the way. The Connacht Tribune’s article titled, “Floody Hell” caught my eye. Floody hell indeed!

In June of 2024, torrential rains flooded many communities in Northwest Iowa and Southwest Minnesota. It happened suddenly and left many with little time to prepare or evacuate.

It’s a tale of two floods. The vast range of impact stems from having to take a different route to work each day to losing entire homes with everything inside. Some have gone without power for weeks. Some had to be rescued from their homes by boat. The most tragic lost their lives. It has been a challenging time for my community and the people I know and love.

My family is incredibly fortunate that the flooding impact was minimal. We have some shoreline damage and need to replace flooring in a couple basement rooms. Small potatoes. Our kitchen fridge stopped working and it took a month to get our new fridge. Spencer, Iowa is the location of our town’s appliance storehouse so it took some time before our fridge could be delivered. Again, small potatoes.

Our summer tourism has understandably struggled. Docks on East and West lake have been swept away. Entire lakeshore banks have slid into the lake. Getting to the lakes region is a challenge with so much flooding around us. When I drove to the Iowa Reading Conference in Ames, Iowa I had to adapt and travel further North and East to avoid the many roadways that were underwater.

An acquaintance in Milford, Iowa shared hearing an explosion around 10pm in her family home. They realized the stream of water running past their home had broken a basement window. Their basement was filling with broken glass, debris, and flood water as they frantically struggled to remove items and stop the flooding.

Our friends in Spencer were trapped in their homes without power for a week. Their workplaces were flooded. Their stores were flooded. They had to learn to slowly remove water from their basements to balance the change of pressure. They had to plan for when the river would crest. They had to consider flooding up North and learn the difference between a dam and a levee. There is an entire literacy with flooding that we’ve had to learn to navigate life in flood waters.

A colleague had to evacuate her elderly parents from their home in Rock Valley at 2:00am when the levees failed. Imagine the fear of sirens going off at 2:00am and having moments to escape your home. Fortunately, the elderly parents had moved their vehicles and camper to a family’s home earlier in the day. Knowing their home would likely be lost, they kayaked and returned a couple of days after the flooding to retrieve a couple of things. I asked what they retrieved. Family pictures. Love is everything.

A friend of my husband’s took his duck boat to Spencer, Iowa to help evacuate residents trapped in their homes. This kept him busy for quite some time. One person he picked up was an amputee. Come hell or high water, kind souls will always find a way to help others.

The DNR also helped evacuate residents trapped on the Iowa Great Lakes and in Spencer, Iowa. One picture they posted showed an infant in a car seat. I shed tears considering the desperation of having to put your baby in a boat because your home was overtaken by flooding.

My husband and I ran an errand in Spencer, Iowa last week. The high fencing around the skatepark had cornstalks at the very top. It’s hard to imagine the water being that high.

My husband didn’t have the heart to drive down any neighborhood streets. He shed tears just driving through town seeing all the loss. As small business owners and a family with young children ourselves, our hearts grieve for families that have lost everything they’ve spent their lifetimes working toward.

And as a teacher, my heart breaks for the teachers that have lost the personal items they’ve purchased for their classrooms. Teachers in Rock Valley and Spencer, Iowa have lost their entire classrooms and everything they’ve purchased to help their students. All that time and love, swept away and lost in the floods.

A huge equity problem in American public education is that teachers purchase a great deal of items for their classrooms. Talking to my dear friend and fellow veteran preschool teacher Anna Van Zee, we’ve estimated that we likely spend anywhere from $1,000-$5,000 on classroom materials every year. This might seem absurd to non educators, so allow me to break it down.

Before I taught in Minnesota, where all meals and snacks are thankfully provided by the public education system, I spent money every month on food. Kids cannot learn when they’re hungry. So I’d buy a basket of snacks that students could help themselves to as needed. When we went on field trips, I’d buy four to five Lunchables. It was safe to assume that at least a couple of these would be needed by students who did not have a lunch. Sometimes another classroom would need them as well. Sometimes I’d take three home and give them to my own children afterwards. Sometimes all would be eaten by hungry students.

This was my choice. I could have saved $50-$100 a month and let kids go hungry. I decided feeding kids was a priority.

Teachers of older students spend their money on deodorant, soap, clothing, and tampons. They’ve decided protecting the dignity of their students is a priority.

Schools do their best to provide learning materials and offer a small spending budget. The largest budget I’ve ever had is $250. The smallest is $0. More often than not, this budget is not enough. We buy dry erase markers, paper, art supplies, pencils because we’ve decided student learning is a priority.

Government-funded classrooms often provide nothing more than desks, chairs, and four concrete walls. This isn’t enough. We need containers to hold our materials. We need places for our students to gather. We need shelves to hold learning materials. So we purchase baskets, shelves, lights, rugs, and pillows. Having students feel safe and welcome at school is a priority.

And then there’s the extras. We want our students to experience the joy of making tortillas, so we buy supplies to fund this venture. We want our students to make music with rhythm sticks, so we buy the cheapest ones we can find. We want our student who has been talking about their birthday for months to have a treat to pass out, so when they come to school empty handed, we take our lunch break to run to the store and buy some Zebra Cakes. We want our students with allergies to be able to enjoy a treat with us, so we keep a stash of the safe treats they can eat on hand.

We want our students to have a lifelong love of literacy, so we purchase books that excite and entice our learners. We’ve decided literacy is a priority.

My vast collection of children’s books amassed from over a decade of public school teaching is my most expensive teacher purchase. Many teachers agree that books are the heart of their teaching and the most costly resource. Some of our old favorites are out of print and incredibly expensive to replace. Rising costs are exceeding salary increases and Scholastic’s $1 books are now $2 while many of our salaries remain stagnant. This makes adding to our library collections increasingly challenging and costly.

So I was heartbroken to learn that preschool teacher Anna Van Zee had lost her classroom library in the flooding. Anna has spent a decade teaching four to five year old children. She has introduced me to many engaging books, from “Raindrop Plop” to “The Runaway Injera”. She has materials that children adore and fellow teachers beg to borrow. Flower petals for counting. Puppets for social emotional learning. Themed dramatic play toys like camping materials and s’mores play food. Unfortunately, as her Hills, Minnesota basement filled with water, many of her classroom books and learning materials were lost.

I asked Anna if I could share her Venmo to help replace her materials. She said no. She said the teachers in Spencer and Rock Valley, who have lost everything deserve the support. Here are links to support these teachers:

Give | Scsf3

Amazon.com

Maybe someday teacher budgets will match what teachers actually spend. Until then, come hell or high water, teachers will continue doing their best to prioritize what really matters.

Torrential rains cannot wash away the confidence a student gained after reading a good book on a full belly. Waters cannot drown the joy a student felt the year they had a birthday treat to share. The love that teachers provide their students can keep them afloat in the deepest waters.

Because love is everything.