Both 2020 and 2021 were brutal for public schools in Minnesota, but 2022 is shaping up to be worse.
As we struggle through the havoc unleashed by the omicron surge, there’s a related issue putting schools, communities and families at longer-term risk: Teachers are lining up at the exits.
As a mother of two children in St. Paul public schools, the thought of the Great Resignation hitting my kids’ schools is chilling. Worse, as an educational researcher, I’m seeing early evidence that it’s our expert teachers who are rushing for the doors.
Colleagues and I have been following area teachers’ experiences throughout the pandemic. We’ve watched it go from bad to worse in hundreds of surveys, focus groups and interviews over the past 22 months. This fall, a survey of nearly 400 Minnesota teachers revealed a startling finding: Teachers who report the highest levels of confidence are the very same teachers reporting the highest levels of overwhelm.
Teachers in Minnesota are contending with ongoing COVID-19 waves, political polarization, reckonings with racism, anxieties over learning loss, school violence, acute staffing shortages, widening opportunity gaps, mask melees, curriculum kerfuffles and social media scandals, all in addition to everyday work of teaching students, many of whom are struggling.
Confident, veteran teachers tell us how these compounding challenges result in situations like nothing they’ve ever experienced. From an angry parent threatening the seasoned kindergarten teacher with violence, to the veteran fifth-grade teacher trying to manage teaching nine different levels of math at once, even expert educators — our research suggests especially expert educators — are being pushed to the brink.
These experienced teachers already have all the knowledge, strategies and dedication to meet student needs. Yet the burgeoning needs of exhausted and traumatized students and families — combined with the stretched-thin, worn-out resources of the third pandemic-affected academic year — now far exceed what any one person, no matter how skilled, can realistically meet.
[image_caption]Laura Wangsness Willemsen[/image_caption]
Thankfully parents aren’t stuck on the sidelines. Although we are overwhelmed and exhausted ourselves, there are still small but impactful ways we can partner with teachers without even entering a classroom.
Here are four simple things parents can do right now to support teachers and steady Minnesota’s public schools.
Acknowledge, with empathy, how hard this is
Let your children and their teachers know you understand how tumultuous a time this is. Listen wholeheartedly when they express their frustrations, and empathize by telling them how you see them doing their best even when it’s exhausting.
Express appreciation
Take time to thank your child’s teachers. Recently, a teacher tearfully recounted how close she was to quitting when a thank you note from a parent appeared in her inbox, lighting a spark of hope that kept her going to winter break. This gesture took mere moments for the parent, but had an outsized impact for everyone.
Maintain perspective and patience
Most things are topsy turvy now. When things don’t go well, pause and ask yourself how much an issue will matter in the long term. Consider your whole child now, and remind yourself how they are so much more than any single test score or assignment. Keep in mind the expanding needs and severe shortages schools are contending with when considering how urgent an issue is. While the late bus or missed homework grade is frustrating, it’s likely unintentional, temporary and already causing stress.
Build on the positive
Notice and emphasize whatever good you can. When days are tough, express confidence that they will get better — then celebrate when they do. Our children are watching how we respond to this chaos, and they depend on us to muster any hopeful positivity we can. Teachers, even expert teachers, need this as well.
If Minnesota’s kids are going to weather ongoing uncertainty and thrive in the days and years ahead, we need confident, skilled educators staying in our classrooms. It is these teachers who, alongside parents, play the critical societal role of being caring adults in children’s daily lives.
We need their expertise now more than ever. It’s time for parents — and all Minnesotans — to step in with empathy, appreciation, perspective and positivity to help Minnesota teachers hang on in 2022 and beyond.
Laura Wangsness Willemsen is an associate professor of education at Concordia University in St. Paul.
A tenured teacher is virtually unfireable. That’s more than the rest of us can say, and all the help I’m inclined to give them. I’m sure they have a tough job, sweating it out til June and their summer off. But the rest of us have tough jobs, too. And if the economy slows down we’re on the street. So boo hoo.
It is such a cushy job, Audrey, that I think you should leave your own job and apply to become a teacher. They certainly need more qualified, dedicated staff. Somehow I don’t think that will happen.
Tenured teachers can certainly be fired. I have seen it happen more than once.
From my own experience, I will tell you that public school teachers have worked enormously hard to be flexible and offer the best possible learning experience to ALL of their students through the 2+ years of Covid. For my district, the vast majority of that time has been in-person learning. All last year we were in-person and masked. This year we are in-person and unmasked. Covid has taken a heavy toll on all staff. leading to days where staff covering for other staff is almost unworkable. Staffing for everything (paras and cooks and bus drivers and custodians and everybody) is stretched way too thin.
Earlier this year, in the rural district where I work, I taught a schedule that included teaching all of the district’s 6th through 8th graders in math, plus a nine grade math class, plus a college credit math class for seniors. This is considered a ‘double overload’ schedule. Technically, not really legal. In the end, it proved to be too much for me to handle at age 68 and I had to withdraw from most of it. This left the district in dire straits to find people to teach those classes. I hated to do it, but it was an issue of self-preservation.
So keep on hating on all those folks who work in public education, you conservatives. I just don’t see what your end game is. Do you really hate education that much?
My end game would hire more teachers and have them work year round. A day shift and evening shift. Turn schools into community centers.
The author of this post boldly suggests that, in these unusual times, teachers might benefit from 1) empathy, 2) appreciation, 3) patience/perspective, and 4) positivity. Ms. Wicklow, however, will hear none of it. With a sneer toward “tenure” and “summer off” she washes her hands of any sort of pleasantries. She manages to offer exactly the opposite of all four requests, and then literally writes, “So boo hoo.”
Perhaps Ms. Wicklow has an an axe to grind, and we best not try to convince her that teachers are anything but coddled and overpaid slouchers. She has made up her mind, and seems unlikely to reconsider.
So, in her honor, I have made a point of thanking some of the teachers in my life for their dedication, hard work, and genuine caring about my teenage sons. I see examples of these qualities all the time and, in my observation, the vast majority of teachers work very hard, and are woefully underpaid relative to the importance of what they do.
And guess what? It cost me nothing.
There are two appropriate responses to a teacher struggling through a pandemic. First, saying thank you. That is easy. It doesn’t cost a dime. Second, what can I do to help? If they suggest something, give it a go.
You focus on tenure. Let me point out another group that had tenure. Plantation slaves. Having a lifetime job where people think they own you and have the power to tell you what to do is no picnic. Teachers report to administrators who are hired by school boards, voted in by citizens, most who do not have students in school. You have one vote.
Have the summers off? Maybe, or maybe they are working at summer school, getting more education or doing a summer job to pay for their kid’s college. One thing they are doing is working lots of hours during the school year and paying for classroom supplies, something few do for their workplace. They also grade homework outside of school hours, have bus duty and do so much else most are totally unaware of. Face it, you have no idea what goes on in schools unless you work there. You think kids tell parents what is really going on?
Unfortunately those who are leaving our the true believers in the profession; those who really believe in the power of free, public education and who are beaten down by the double message of how important and how unimportant we are as teachers. Personally I know my value and love the job so am willing to put up with a lot. However, If you care about democracy you should care about public education and the chorus of “teachers having the summers off” only feeds the fodder of those who seek to tear down the middle class.
On a side note, as a teacher, my work weeks are about 50-60 hours, so I figure it all works out for the year of work. Just saying.
I worked in a public middle school, so reign it in. It’s a good gig, and you know it. Walk small, be thankful, and self-police. Unfortunately, that’s not what you’re told, and if I were your union, I’d tell you the same thing. If anyone asks, it’s awful. We’re saints. I don’t know how anyone can do it.
BTW, you work 50-60 hours per week? Teachers put in 32 hours per week of classroom instruction. A few dedicated teachers (who are actual saints) hang around supervising or helping students, but the vast majority are outta there by 3 pm. I know you have a lot of papers to grade, but that just isn’t adding up.
If a high school English teacher, for instance, spends 15 minutes reading and providing feedback on a single essay and there are 130 essays, that certainly adds up to about 32 hours. That same teacher might have to re-read the 20-25 pages assigned for each novel they are teaching for the next day. There are also the daily assignments that need to be graded and the lesson plans that need to be created or adjusted, presentations to be made, and PD work that needs to get completed.
It would seem it adds up and then some. I imagine that many do leave at 3pm, but take the work home with them. What they also take home is the stress from parents and the general public who belittle them, and most importantly, dealing with the myriad problems of society.
It does not seem that your lecturing is doing anything for teacher retention. So, the advice to reign it in seems apt.
I agree, but only if that English teacher is assigning a novel and essay week in and week out. That would be some English teacher.
Teachers aren’t putting in five hours of additional work, day in and day out, outside the classroom. At least none I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot. If they were it would be scandalous. No one could do a good job with that kind of workload.
They are not assigning a novel every week. But, you are forgetting, that a high school English teacher might teach 2 or 3 different courses and plan for each everyday. An essay every couple of weeks, of course it happens.
“At least none that I have seen”
And therein lies the problem. You simply haven’t seen it.
So you want your teacher working 5-6 hours every night? I know I don’t.
No! But, according to you, they don’t work that hard.