I would say for the past decade,
there's been a drop in teachers staying in the district.
Yet there's been an e increase in students charter schools,
charter school expansion,
racial disparities between students and teachers, teacher preparatory programs,
the cost of them salaries. Those are some of the things that in the pandemic,
I'd say that as one of my last reasons,
because it only exacerbated all the inequities that were already there.
Well, we've been predicting teacher shortages for many years now,
and a lot of teachers have stayed in the profession. And then when Covid hit,
uh, they became more like healthcare workers. Uh,
they were removed, you know,
from doing a lot of the things which brought them into teaching to begin with.
Some of the things that teachers were saying were, were drained,
were demoralized. We have an increased workload,
there's greater demand from parents.
There's new legislation and school district policies that are telling
us what to do.
The compensation is not on par with the kind of professional work and
expertise that, that we do, that we're prepared to do.
So all of these constraints, this lack of autonomy,
are also issues why people are leaving because they feel
like they're not respected as professionals.
I loved working there. I, you know, when I first came,
it's a small school and I love that feeling of a small school. Um,
it's in Philadelphia,
so the population is like really diverse and I get to like,
meet all kids from different walks of life and I love that. Um,
building relationships with them. I, I truly like,
put myself fully into the school and the building and the students and
everything. Um, and it progressed great for a while.
The pandemic definitely brought out a lot of voices, um, in education,
a lot of what teachers should do and shouldn't do. I've never had complaints,
you know, I, and, and suddenly, you know, I don't like this assignment.
I don't like that assignment. I, you know, I think you,
you ruined kids because you were lazy and you stayed at home.
Like I would've never chosen to go virtual . I don't think any teachers
would or most anyway.
And also we came back to our classrooms in a new
political climate as well, you know, this cultural fight.
After seeing that we were heroes in the beginning of the pandemic for like five
minutes. We were heroes and then we were lazy. You know,
we were indoctrinating kids. We were groomers. Like seeing all these,
all this rhetoric definitely makes you clam up a little bit and
like feel less authentic and start to wonder like,
what will I say that will get me in trouble now? You know,
to teachers don't feel safe in their classrooms, you know?
And then if you don't feel safe,
how can you provide that environment for your students as well?
So we came back to not a normal, like we didn't come back to normal.
We came back to a new way of life that wasn't
great for teaching and creating a safe environment for students.
And so I started thinking about leaving and
it was hard cause I loved it.
I loved it so much and it was like heartbreaking
to have to make the choice to leave.
You know, we're a humanistic profession, right?
Lifelong learning. We believe that, you know, everyone can make it.
Policy makers really don't understand a lot of what
we do, how we do it, what our philosophies are.
And we probably need maybe more teachers to run
to be on school boards because they're not in the weeds.
They don't know what's happening at the level of what a teacher is doing.
Well, I'm definitely, um, optimist and, um,
I think I see things mobilizing in many different ways,
on many different levels. And I think it's going to get better. I really do.
Um,
I think there's going to be better pr about teachers based on the national
organizations that I belong to, cuz they're working on that. Uh,
I think they're gonna be more incentives for teachers.
I think salaries are gonna rise, maybe not a lot,
but enough to maybe attract more. Uh, I'm hoping that, you know,
that we will be able to, uh, develop some better partnerships with schools.
This is my calling, this is my calling. This is what I do.
But at the same time,
it is at a great compromise to my personal life.
There's been many days where it just said, I can't, I,
I can't do it anymore. You know, where I felt like I'm,
It's been, it's been very difficult days when I, I've just felt, um,
like back to the wall, what am, what am I going to do?
But then your students do something for you,
like make you a video out of nowhere to tell you how much they love me, right?
These are things that happen to me. I don't wanna get emotional,
but these are things that keep me, you know, it's,
it's my work, you know, that, um,
that I want to be judged by when I'm no longer here. You know,
the things that I've been able to do as an educator and the people
I've been able to impact the families,
I've been able to make a difference in their lives. I just, I know, um,
my efforts are far reaching.