This right here is the humongous collar flip. I'm giving you $5.2 million in scholarships. I don't think all of y'all heard me, though. We are giving you $5.2 million in scholarships. 50,000 apiece for all of you. Dollars. U.

That was a beautiful moment. Today on ABC's GMA, three rapper Tech Nine and the nonprofit Great Jobs Casey announcing that they were awarding $50,000 scholarships to over 100 students live on ABC. So amazing to get a head start on financing their higher education, turning out from students to the teachers. Perhaps workers are more scrutinized. Those teachers are more scrutinized these days than our nation's teachers. The Department of Education survey of public schools in October revealed that 86% of districts struggled to hire teachers heading into the school year. Issues like low pay, teacher burnout, and the politicization of curricula and school safety are all top of mind for so many teachers. In fact, there have been 306 school shootings so far in 2023, according to the K through Twelve school shooting database. Our next guest, Sari Beth Rosenberg, has been teaching us. History, including AP us. History, at a New York City public school high school for over 22 years. Sari, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Let's start with those safety concerns we just laid out. You're one of the co founders of Teachers Unified to End Gun violence. Can you talk about the concerns over safety and how they affect your day to day at school?

So whether gun violence is directly or indirectly affecting kids, teachers, and parents in our communities, it seeps into the classroom because it is just pervasive in our country right now. It is a pandemic. It's an epidemic. And teachers are on the front lines.

Of all of this, on the front lines, as are you. And we talk about so much what the fear is. Do you feel like there is enough action being taken to make you feel more safe or secure at schools? Anything being done on that?

Well, I think the first step right now is for us to start framing the gun violence epidemic as a public health concern. It's become politicized. But this is a public health issue, as everyone knows, including you. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in this country today, and we see it in the headlines about school shootings all the time. But the majority of the gun violence that our people in this nation are contending with happen outside of schools, in communities. Unintentional shootings, domestic violence. So that's the biggest threat right now.

Sarah, I want to talk about another topic that is encroaching into the classroom, which is politics. You wrote after October 7, after the Hamas terrorist attack, that one of your students asked if you were Team Israel or Team Palestinian. What did you tell them?

I told them I was team humanity, and I stand by that. And one thing I really want to stress to everyone watching is that speaking of politics, there's been so much talk in our nation that teachers are indoctrinating young people, that we're bringing our personal politics into the classroom. But I have to tell you that I know so many educators across this country and I hear from them online and offline. Our number one priority is educating young people and making them feel safe in school, whether it be safe from gun violence, safe from discussions that make them feel unsafe and unheard. And so the reason I wrote that article was first to just model how we should be talking about these issues and also to stress the importance of it and to remind people that teachers are here to make kids feel safe and comfortable and address the stuff that they're seeing online and also offline at the same time.

Certain states, like Florida school districts have been told basically telling teachers not to talk about certain subjects like slavery and critical race theory. How do you navigate that environment where politicians, both at the local and national level, are basically mandating what you can and cannot or should and should not teach in history class?

Thank you for asking that. I'm lucky enough to teach in a district where it's encouraged to discuss topics that might be uncomfortable for the greater good, which is making young people better understand what's going on in the world around them and feel better equipped at navigating uncomfortable conversations that might come up later in life when they're not in the K through twelve classroom. And I understand that. I hope that the people passing these laws have the best intentions. Whether they do or not, they are doing a great disservice to America's youth. American youth need to be in safe spaces when they are young to discuss uncomfortable topics so we don't repeat the mistakes that we've made in this nation and on this planet, to be honest.

Sarah Beth Rosenberg, thanks so much for your insight and time tonight.

Thank you so much for having me.

Elizabeth hi, everyone. George Stephanopoulos here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news as alerts. Thanks for watching.