It’s been just shy of five years, and Che King is just one of the many teachers already thinking of leaving her once-beloved profession of teaching. Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the number of teachers leaving schools and switching careers is growing at an alarming rate. The latest studies show that due to the added stress of COVID-19, teachers are experiencing serious burnout and often feel unsupported as they try to navigate the unpredictableness of the pandemic. 

As of February 2022, the NEA (National Education Association) reports that more than half (55%) of the teachers surveyed last month will leave education earlier than they planned. And with fewer young adults planning to become educators in the future, that is going to create an even further gap between the job openings and available candidates for schools. 

The Life Currency decided to interview Che King, a 31-year-old former Spanish and history teacher from Savannah, GA. She made the difficult decision to hang up her ruler and pencils as of April 1st, just two months shy of completing the school year. Here’s what she had to say about why teachers are leaving their profession.

We need to change the value that our society places on education. For it to be such a vital piece of society, teachers are basically shitted on. —Che King

When did you start teaching?

I officially begin teaching as a certified teacher in August 2018. If I had completed this school year, it would have been my fourth year teaching. However, I resigned April 1, 2022, two months before the end of the school year. I'm not sure if I will get back into teaching. It depends on how or if the system itself changes. Because if it stays the same, I will not be teaching at public schools in the United States.

What made you want to get into that field in the first place?

I had always loved instructing people. I enjoyed helping them to understand a difficult concept, task, idea, and watching the moment that it clicked for them. And I loved seeing them proud of themselves. My brothers and I would play school and high school teachers would sometimes call on me to help others understand something. It was just something I enjoyed.

So you weren’t a teacher for very long, but in your opinion, how has the pandemic changed teaching?

I don't think that the pandemic has changed teaching as a whole, but it has changed a couple of aspects. For example, when a student is out, they can now access the work that they need online. And I know that in some schools, the thinking by the administration is going to be that school never needs to canceled because you can work virtually. Everybody has a computer, everybody has access to Wi-Fi, there's no need for us to miss days. So that's one of changes I have seen.

Another thing that has changed is the perspective that teachers have. They understand now that the job which they poured their heart into, which they love, does not love them back. It has changed the way people think about working. That this job is not as important as the time that I have with my family or physical and mental well-being. It has pushed me and other teachers to say I cannot sacrifice myself for a job. 

I don't think the pandemic has changed education that much. I think it just opened the eyes of many teachers and gave people a different perspective of education. It exposed some of the many cracks and holes that were already there.

Why do you think so many teachers are leaving the profession?

I guess to sum it all up, it would be that teachers saw what was willing to be done for them, which was nothing. Teachers weren't taken into account. I like to equate it to the phrase, if someone shows you who they are, believe them. They showed us that they don't care about this. They barely care about the students. They showed us that there are ways to change the system because we did it when it was virtual. But now that that's over, we're going back to this status quo of what we've done before. I think that's why so many teachers are leaving because there was a time when they could have shown that they cared and they didn’t.

How do you think teachers leaving now will affect the future of education?

I believe that it will affect education in the future because they're not going to have enough teachers. Before this, we already didn't have enough teachers. You had people coming into education and leaving after a couple of years. On the other hand, you also had those people who were willing to stay and stick it out because they loved teaching. They believed that even though they had to buy their own materials, even though they didn't have enough money to take kids on field trips, it was still worth it. Those people would probably retire and then become substitute teachers. Those are the people who were staying before. Now, those are the people who are leaving. 

You have people who have put in 17 years and resigned in the middle of the school year. You have people who are pushing themselves to work until retirement and not coming back. The people that are leaving now are the people who were in it for the long haul. They're the ones who had all the knowledge to pass down to those teachers who are just entering the career. So there's going to be a lack of teachers. And as many school districts do, they're going to scramble after the problem becomes serious. And at that point, you can't even do anything about it.

There might come a point in time where kids have to stay home for a week and work virtually and then come to school for another week because there aren't enough teachers. In some states, they've even had to get parents, police officers, and officials within a district to come sub classes.

When do you think we’ll see the larger effects of pandemic on the education system? As you said, it further exposed the cracks in the foundation that were already there, but when do you think the system will really begin to crumble?

I don't think we'll see the true effects of COVID for a couple of years, but I know it's gonna be bad. If all of these seasoned teachers are resigning, if seasoned teachers are telling others not to get into the field of education, if they’re saying “I'm trying to make it to my retirement,” then who's going to motivate those teachers who are coming in their first year? Who was going to teach them the system within the school or within the school district? Who's going to motivate them to stay longer? Who's going to show them the work-arounds, or what they need and what they don't need to do? So you have a system full of young teachers who are going to have very little guidance. That’s not good.

What about the system needs to change for teachers to stay or for people to even choose this as a profession?

It needs to be functional for teachers but as we've seen, the government is not willing to make the changes necessary for it to begin to be functional. There's no way that teachers can teach and have a life. Some people can do it, but they must be magicians. I think one of the big changes needed is going to be time.

A lot of people say pay, but for me, pay wasn't an issue. I mean, there were instances where I needed to make more money, but it was only because I spent so much time working that I needed to pay people to do the things in my house that I could have done myself. 

We also need more time within the school day itself. There's no reason that these kids should have to sit through an hour and a half class or our teachers should have to teach an hour and a half class. That's too long. An hour is fine. We also need to give the kids more than 25 minutes for lunch as they need time to decompress and get ready for the next class. 

The school week does not need to be five days, four is enough. We should be giving the students a day to make up for work they missed because they were sick, or a day for teachers to actually grade, contact parents, plan, make printouts and think about how their lessons are going and what they need to adjust. Give teachers time at the end of a marking period to reflect on the marking period and not just jump into the next one and actually see what they might need to do differently for the next one. And not just for the teachers, but the students as well. 

How did teaching during the pandemic affect your mental health?

My anxiety was so high that there were nights that I could not get to sleep days in a row, or I’d get three or four hours of sleep, come home and not be able to sleep. Of course, that also affected my physical health. I was nauseous, I was bloated, and I had headaches. I couldn't eat. I would forget to drink water during the day, which was already something teachers did. And I started to have horrible shin splints. I have had to take more medication this school year than I ever had. I've been taking SSRIs, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety medication. And I've had to take sleeping medication to help me sleep. These are all things I didn't have to do before. And I know that's the case for many teachers

Also, it definitely didn't help my self-esteem. Because I didn't realize many of the things I just talked about until like, into the first half of the fall semester. And I realized it through talking with other teachers. So I thought it was just me, and I wasn't doing enough. I thought I wasn't good enough. I thought I was too boring, just things like that. And even with all of that, I still wanted to push through for my students. It wasn't until I found myself almost yelling at my students that I decided to leave. When I was not able to be there for my students mentally. Like yes, it's time to go. I found my students annoying. It was hard for me to make myself sit through a class and teach, and I found myself sitting down more, and giving them more worksheets and handouts. And I guess cracks in my facade were showing because once you come into the building, you leave everything else outside, you put on your face or mask, and you get into character. I wasn't able to do that though. I knew it was time to go or I was going to blow up at one of my students. Or I was just not going to show up to work one day and not call them or give them any type of notification.

What’s next for you?

I have absolutely no idea. I have decided to take this month off to do things that I had been wanting to do since August of last year. And that is just to travel and just explore my own country. I want to explore the beauty and uniqueness that is within it. I will eventually try and get a job, but I'm at the point now where I just need enough money to live the lifestyle that I want. That's basically it. I don't need a whole lot of stuff. And I believe that this is the way many people are thinking since COVID happened. I know that I want to travel and I will need to work for money unless I have a sugar daddy. But that's something different. But I have no plans yet. I'm just going to be open to whatever life brings me.

RESOURCES:

Diliberti, Melissa Kay, Heather L. Schwartz, and David Grant, Stress Topped the Reasons Why Public School Teachers Quit, Even Before COVID-19. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1121-2.html.

NEA Survey: Massive staff shortages in schools leading to educator burnout; an alarming number of educators indicating they plan to leave the profession by Eric Jotkoff https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-survey-massive-staff-shortages-schools-leading-educator

More teachers consider leaving the classroom as shortages rise and demands grow by Arthur Jones lll  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teacher-shortages-leaving-school-education/