This Changes Everything Season 3 was all about public education. So we wanted to share an episode from another podcast that you might be interested in.

This spring, This Changes Everything won a first place award in Audio Storytelling from the Best of the West journalism contest — specifically for the second episode of Season 3, The Kids Are Not All Right, which was about the mental health crisis facing young people today, its relationship to the pandemic and the effect that all this is having on teachers, too.

Because of that award, a high school teacher from Wyoming named Charles Fournier asked us to do an episode swap with his podcast, Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore. His podcast also won a first place award: a Top of the Rockies award from the Society of Professional Journalists. It explores why teachers are leaving education right now and what can be done to stop the exodus.

We wanted to share the first episode of that podcast right here. It’s called “Fight, Flight, or Apathy.” It chronicles this mass exodus of teachers, one of whom includes Charles’ wife, Jennie. Jennie and two other teachers who recently left the profession talk about why they left, offering some key insight into what’s going on — and going wrong — for teachers in public schools right now.

And if you want to hear more podcasts from the Crosscut newsroom, check out Crosscut Reports, which comes out a lot more frequently, and showcases reporting from our colleagues here. Topics range from efforts to change the culture inside Washington’s prisons to how reproductive health care has changed in Washington after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Enjoy this short excerpt of Crosscut's newest podcast title, which features host Brooklyn Jamerson-Flowers touring the places that have fostered Seattle’s Black artists.

Every episode of the Black Arts Legacies podcast explores the history and ongoing impact of an art spaces in Seattle, the stories of each built around the voices of the artists who claim these places as critical to their development and experts who understand their deep history.

The podcast is part of Black Arts Legacies, a major multimedia project from Crosscut also featuring profiles, original photography, and videos all about Black arts and artists in Seattle.

Subscribe to the Black Arts Legacies podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Play.

For some families, the shutdowns provided an opportunity to understand how to become better advocates for their kids.

Of all the educational challenges created by the pandemic, none is likely as great as the requirement that public schools continue to provide “free and appropriate” education for students with special needs.

For many students and families involved in special education, the shutdowns were a nightmare. So many crucial learning accommodations seemed to vanish overnight. Local and national media decried the many failures, lawsuits were filed, and state investigations into districts, including Seattle Public Schools, found violations of the federal law that requires public schools to serve these students.

Many of these students continue to face considerable challenges. But for some students and parents served by special education, the shutdowns provided a kind of silver lining: the opportunity to better understand how their kids learn and become better advocates for them.

For this, the final episode of this season of This Changes Everything, host Sara Bernard speaks with some of these parents about what they’ve learned about their children in these difficult days and how it has actually made their experience with education better.

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Credits

Host/Producer: Sara Bernard

Reporters: Venice Buhain, Claudia Rowe

Editorial assistant: Brooklyn Jamerson-Flowers

Consulting editor: Donna Blankinship

Executive producer/story editor: Mark Baumgarten

Audio support: Jonah Cohen