'I'm never going back.' Philly teachers on why there's a surge in midyear resignations

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-teacher-shortage-turnover-burnout-quitting-20220304.html#loaded

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https://archive.ph/zQ2SW

The kindergarten teacher loved her students: the ones whose hands shot up to answer questions, and the ones who struggled with sitting in their seats. She relished the off-the-cuff lessons, the spontaneous laughter that comes from being in a room of 5-year-olds.

But the new teacher quit after winter break, when her job in a Philadelphia public school became too much, when the heart palpitations, anxiety, and nightmares made her say enough. She was tired of working nearly every waking moment, tired from working a job without the necessary tools to survive circumstances that would make even a veteran teacher shudder.

“I knew it would be tough, but this was impossible,” the kindergarten teacher, who asked not to be identified, said of being a Philadelphia educator in a pandemic. “I would come to work and cry.”

Her frustration is reflected in the large exodus of Philadelphia educators quitting midyear: Between Dec. 1 and Feb. 15, 169 of 9,000 school district teachers resigned, a 200% increase in resignations from the same time period the prior year, when teachers were still working from home, and a 93% increase compared to 2019-20, the last pre-COVID school year. In addition, there’s also been a 20% turnover in the district’s central office, meaning fewer people on hand to support schools.

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. acknowledged the rise in departures Wednesday, saying it’s been “an extremely tough year” after two already challenging school years.

*snip*

[CrispyQ]

1. Destroying the public education system has been a goal of the GOP for a long time.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." ~Karl Rove

[underpants]

2. Is that an actual quote?

[CrispyQ]

4. It's attributed to him all over the web, including BBC.

I can't find the time or place when he said it, but I recall it from the Bush years.

[PatSeg]

3. Damn

Did he really say the quiet part out loud?

[Coventina]

5. Gee, you mean there's a downside to the "cushy" job of being a teacher?

You know, those slackers who get "full-time pay for part-time work?"

[dsc]

6. Not sure the extent to which it is correlation and the extent to which it is causaton

But I have had a series of medical issues starting in December. School is tougher this year, no doubt. I had kidney stones in Dec, a heart attack in Feb and various virus issues in both Jan and later Feb.

[PatSeg]

7. What a total nightmare

Really makes me appreciate the education I got as a child. What on earth can these kids be learning in such an environment? I really feel for the teachers who only wanted to teach.

[Javaman]

8. this is how the dark ages return...

not supporting our teachers and public schools will be the death of society.

[pinkstarburst]

9. There was just an article like this

here in Central Texas where lots of teachers also quit mid-year and more are expected to quit at the end of the school year.

https://www.kxan.com/investigations/some-school-districts-are-sanctioning-teachers-because-too-many-are-quitting-mid-school-year/

“Instead, they find a lot of bureaucratic ways to preoccupy us. We do endless progress monitoring, endless standardized testing, endless paperwork, endless meetings. We have nothing but busy work to force upon the students.”

This was my experience in teaching, unfortunately. Though I loved my students and I loved actually teaching, with every year I taught, there was more bureaucratic nonsense piled on that took away from the time I needed to instruct, plan and be in a good mental place for my students. Most of the bureaucratic "things" that came down from the district or state served little purpose.

This idea Texas has implemented that teachers must document 30 hours of tutoring spent with every child who failed STAAR is shooting themselves in the foot.

Teachers are exhausted from covid and the havoc it has wreaked on classrooms. They don't have the energy to stay after school every day, which is what this amounts to since so many kids are behind because of missing a year and a half due to covid. They're going to see a huge percentage of their teaching force quit and then where will that leave them?

[marybourg]

10. Just where they want to be. With a decimated,

non-functioning public school system turning out low level drone workers and middle class, largely white families sending their kids to higher functioning private “academies.

[callous taoboy]

11. I can definitely relate.

I wasn't sure I was going to make my last few years before retiring from teaching.

[MichMan]

12. According to one of the teachers quoted, they are now paying the price for remote learning

IMO, Remote learning was very poorly executed and did real damage to students, setting them back for years. Just promoted them to the next grade regardless of what they may have learned.

" Her new students — whose last uninterrupted school year came when they were seventh graders — were behind. So many students were not engaged last year, when school happened on a computer screen.

“Last year, we had to pass all those students who didn’t come in or didn’t turn in work,” said McFadden. “We passed a group of struggling kids to continue struggling. That was a disservice.”


McFadden’s classes are large, in a windowless room that is perpetually 80 degrees. Students use Chromebooks in class and write in Google documents, but many of her pupils have been unprepared for the kind of typing they’re asked to do.


“We’ve got them on a computer all day, they’re staring at their screens or they’re staring at their phones,” said McFadden, who prided herself on being the kind of teacher who cared about students, called parents, ushered kids to class when they lingered in the hallways too long. “The phones win, I quit.”

[Initech]

13. The pandemic has been absolutely miserable.

We just haven't been able to interact the way we used to for 100 years or so. And we're all sick of looking at screens and monitors at that. I know I am.

[XanaDUer2]

14. I walked away from my job due to my health

Sometimes, you gotta