by Jayne O\u2019Donnell\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zena Whitworth has taught school in Prince George\u2019s County, Maryland and Washington, D.C. for nearly 30 years. She rolled with increasingly large classrooms, low pay and a lack of resources that forced her to pay out of pocket or have students do without. But after the impact two years of Covid-19 restrictions had on her now-scared, angry and emotionally-scarred students, she\u2019s calling it quits – five years before qualifying for a full pension. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTeachers are depressed because they can\u2019t help the situation,\u201d said Whitworth. \u201cThe only thing I can do is teach and they don\u2019t want to learn because they\u2019re more concerned about the person sitting next to them so close they\u2019re touching. They\u2019re afraid they\u2019re going to catch Covid and die.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frustrations like Whitworth\u2019s notwithstanding, fears of a mass exodus from teaching so far seem overblown. Teacher departures actually declined right after Covid-19 hit in the spring of 2020. And they are pretty much back to the level they were at before the pandemic, data on five states and 19 large U.S. school districts analyzed by the Associated Press and the education news site Chalkbeat show. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This may be explained in part because schools are adopting creative workarounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSchools have resorted to using more teachers as well as non-teaching staff outside of their intended duties, increasing class sizes, sharing teachers and staff with other schools, and curtailing student transportation due to staff shortages,\u201d NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said in a February 2022 report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, she acknowledged, \u201cschools continue to face meaningful challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burnout and pandemic-related stress were top reasons 55% of teacher-members of the National Education Association told the group in January 2022 that they were<\/p>\n\n\n\n
thinking of leaving their profession earlier than planned. That was up from 37% of respondents queried in August 2021, according to the survey of 3,621 teachers and other school staff members released January 31. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When asked what to do about the problems, survey respondents suggested higher salaries, more student mental health support, stepped up hiring of teachers and support staff, and less paperwork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whitworth agrees some of that would help the system run better and lighten some of the load for teachers, but she still believes it\u2019s a no-win situation for her and many others. Teachers have to work with many students they don\u2019t know due to staff shortages while – as she was – struggling with their own mental health problems. She said she had students struggling to readjust to in-school learning after either being afraid – or not allowed – to leave their bedrooms because of the Covid-19 risks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After isolating for two years, \u201cthey don\u2019t want to be in a room with a lot of people,\u201d she said. Meanwhile, the number of in-school fights increased, said Whitworth, who felt like she wasn\u2019t able to teach because she needed to focus on keeping students – and herself – safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re just mad and don’t know any way to express themselves,\u201d said Whitworth. \u201cHow much can a teacher take?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n O\u2019Donnell, who was USA TODAY\u2019s health policy reporter until April 2013, is founder and CEO of Youthcast Media Group (YMG). Richard Willing, her husband and a former legal af airs and intelligence reporter for USA TODAY, contributed to this report. He is a YMG volunteer editor and instructor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Jayne O\u2019Donnell\u00a0 Zena Whitworth has taught school in Prince George\u2019s County, Maryland and Washington, D.C. for nearly 30 years. She rolled with increasingly large classrooms, low pay and a lack of resources that forced her to pay out of pocket or have students do without. But after the impact two years of Covid-19 restrictions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}