City
Schools struggle to keep teachers
The article highlights a kindergarten teacher who quit 6 days in
to the school year, and goes on to say that more than fifty teachers have
resigned from St. Louis Public Schools in the last ten weeks. Half of
those quit after the first day of school. Mary Armstrong, president of
the St. Louis American Federation of Teachers Local 420, says “There are a lot
of people coming to the district who can’t cut it.”
As someone who has a small amount of experience teaching
kindergarten, I can say that it’s not an easy job. And given the low pay
the city schools are able to offer, they are usually only able to hire new
teachers who don’t have the years of experience to be able to address the
problems they encounter. The problems that Laura Sahaida mentioned were
computers and smartboards that weren’t hooked up and children who had never
been to preschool, so weren’t prepared socially. Those are things that an
experienced teacher can overcome. This year at the high school where I work,
there was a miscommunication with textbooks and they had to order 70 Algebra 2
textbooks two weeks into the year. The teachers juggled lesson plans and
copied some pages as necessary to get through the weeks until the new books
arrived. But a new teacher, without support and faced with a room full of
five-year-olds who have no concept of ‘school’, can feel overwhelmed and that
she has no other option than to leave the job.
So
what’s the answer? I like to throw money at the problem. Surely
with more teachers hired and thus fewer children in a class, even the
inexperienced teacher could adapt and not feel overwhelmed by her problems. The
article mentions better preparation of new teachers and that they are attempting
to match newly hired teachers with master teachers, but admits that money is
definitely an issue.
This related article from July explains the mentoring system they
have put in place to help struggling teachers. “Terrance
Howell, a first-year teacher at Hamilton Elementary, said the mentoring he
received through the St. Louis Plan gave him feedback he needed .” It
sounds wonderful, but must not be universal, or Miss Sahaida would not have
felt the need to leave the district.
And Project Appleseed puts responsibility for school reform back
squarely on the parents. “But the real key to
school reform, Walker said, lies with those who have the most at stake. If you
want to improve schools, you have to think about the customer. In public
education, there is one customer and that is parents, he said.” Children
better prepared for school and with great family support certainly make a
teacher’s job easier.
Wow...I had no idea that that many teachers resigned this early into the school year, that is so sad :( What happens to the kids whose teachers have resigned?
ReplyDeleteI know - I'm going to sound like the crotchety old lady and ask about work ethic! I can't imagine just walking out on a group of children. And then what happens to the community if they can't keep a teacher in that classroom consistently for the entire school year? Those kids lose out on an entire year and that has repercussions for the school in years to come. (which in turn has repercussions for the community if they ultimately lose their school)
ReplyDeleteI have to think that many new teachers are not prepared to go into certain schools and establish a learning environment. It takes a certain type of person to be effective in a setting such as St. Louis Public Schools.
ReplyDeleteScott is right in that many people are not prepared for the reality of teaching (and this does not necessarily apply just to the public city schools). It can be terribly overwhelming. However, while I understand the urge to leave, I do not stand behind the teacher's position of quitting just six days in to the job. You don't leave because it's hard. You leave because you have no other option. Could a teacher really have tapped all of her resources in less than two weeks?
ReplyDeleteAs far as the kids' behavior goes, six days is not enough time for high schoolers to establish routine, let alone a room full of five year olds who have not yet been in a school setting. This teacher made a poor decision, I feel, but one that could have been remedied if she'd gone into the situation better educated. Tossing a teacher who'd never been full time and had only ever worked in "affluent" schools in Kirkwood and Ladue sounds like a desperate move by the school to fill the space. Now we have a room full of little children who have already had someone just give up on them. What a great start to their education.
This article really hit close to home for me. I used to think about my first grade classroom that I left on a daily basis. Although I believe the inexperienced teacher in the article threw the towel in too soon, I also quit teaching during the school year last year. I taught at Confluence Academy in Walnut Park for all of just three months. Of course I did not want to leave my students but I feel that I explored all of my other options before quitting. It was severely affecting my health on a daily basis to the extent that I had to start getting medication in order to do my job. I did not receive any support from administration and was no beginning teachers assistance program implemented. I was also that inexperienced, first year teacher that was in way over her head. Don't believe for one second that I didn't love my students. I even went back to visit them and it was one of the hardest decisions of my life when I put in my notice. However, I feel like it was one of the best learning experiences and one of the major forces that pulled me in the direction of social work. These kids didn't want to learn. They wanted someone to pay attention to them and nurture them. They didn't stop at anything to attempt to get those needs met. It starts within the home environment.
ReplyDeleteFifty teachers? That is a large number! Kellee, thank you for sharing. I am sure that was a hard decision for you too make. It is unfortunate support was not available for you. I think every school should have a mentoring program set up, especially for new teachers.
ReplyDeleteI would first like to start out that I have little-to-no experience in the field of education, save for being a Graduate TA.
ReplyDeleteI would not place blame on the teachers, the children, or the parents, but on the structure, or relationship of institutions in our society. The St. Louis City public schools are horribly underfunded as quite a bit of our federal, state, and city taxes go to more commodifiable areas, such as “defense.” This positions greatly what we value in a society, and equal opportunity for quality education is certainly not one of them. Now how can we expect a teacher who is underpaid, is given little to no efficacy in the workplace, is responsible for too many students with no assistance in the classroom, to continue to enter a scenario where they are set up to fail, not only themselves, but children?
I also do not blame the parents. Our expectations of parents seem to overlook the economic realities that many in our society face today, which is we, as Americans, are just overworked. Many parents work, 8, 10, 12 hour days, some second shift, some work two jobs, and this does not even include commuting time, which for some is hours a day. Given this reality for many Americans, I see a population that, by the end of the day/night, is perhaps too exhausted to take time out to help kids with homework. Is this a pretty picture? No. After all I think many in our society would just claim that these parents should “suck it up,” but the negative moral judgment placed on these parents has done nothing to increase parent involvement in their children’s education. If we want that to change then perhaps we need to rethink the structure of our society and (re)create institutions that allow parents to spend more time with their kids, rather than stigmatizing these parents in how they spend the few hours each day they have with them.
Doc Luecke
I blame them all. As a government employee, we are being forced to do more with less, which requires a great deal of creativity. How much creativity can you muster when you don't have a lot of institutional support and little funding? My parents were teachers in the St. Louis City Public School District and they made a lot of out of pocket concessions.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that a teacher would quit so soon into the school year, but working in the School District requires stay power, so maybe it was for the best. Had there been some sort of mentoring system in place, an orientation for teachers, it probably would have curtailed some of the emotion behind such a rash decision.
Loss of so much staff so soon should put the Board on alert so they can put a system in place to attract, retain, train and retrain current staff.
However, I also think there should be a mandatory orientation for students, which involves parents. The message should be sent before the start of the school year that parental involvement is required on a regular basis throughout the school year, to get parents and students acclimated to school.