American public schools are facing nationwide staffing shortages leading to teacher burnout and an increase in early retriement.
As of Aug. 10, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there are at least 280,000 fewer teachers in the public school system than before the coronavirus pandemic.
National Education Association President Becky Pringle stated in a Feb. 1 National Education Association news release that the shortage is an unprecedented staffing crisis.
“It is forcing [educators] to give up their class planning and lunch time to fill in for colleagues,” Pringle said.
The National Education Association is the largest labor union in the U.S., representing school faculty, public school teachers and university professors, according to its webpage.
Sara Berg, a former San Jose High School math teacher, said she experienced burnout from taking on more than her capacity.
“As a math teacher, you're kind of overworked in the fact that I was given so many different subjects and only one prep period,” Berg said. “And then [during] your prep period, they'll ask you to support a different teacher, so it was really tiring.”
Berg said she transitioned from her teaching career to the insurance business in 2019.
“I get paid in a month what I get paid a whole year in teaching,” she said.
Katya Aguilar, San Jose State professor of teacher education, said many of her student interns are being asked to give up their preparation time.
“I have seen [burnout] more now,” Aguilar said. “Some of our interns have even been asked to [give up their prep] and I've had to talk with the districts and say, ‘They should, say [the interns] shouldn't be asked to do that.’ ”
Research company GBAO Strategies conducted a survey between January 14-24, which indicated that nearly 80% of faculty members were tackling tasks outside of their obligations because of unfilled job openings.
Among those asked, 90% of members listed burnout as a serious concern with more than half recognizing it as “very serious,” according to the survey.
According to a January poll of 3,621 educators, who are also members of the National Education Association, more than half elicited the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason to leave their positions earlier than anticipated.
An anonymous source, who wished to go by John because of privacy concerns, emphasized that sentiment.
“There were a lot of teachers throughout the district that [left],” John said. “Once they found out [they] were teaching online, they were like, ‘You know maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks, but I'm not here to find out,’ so they left.”
The pandemic proved to be a general stressor leading to “student absences and unfilled job openings,” which increased the pressure for currently employed educators, according to the poll.
Louise Bernbaum, SJSU supervisor to Phase Two student teachers in the English department, said the high job demand for teachers has been beneficial for her students.
“[It’s] kind of worked in the opposite direction for them,” Bernbaum said. “The school districts that are facing the shortage are asking the student teachers to be interns rather than student teachers.”
She said that is favorable for students financially, but they’re in a position without experience and they are excluded from being mentees to experienced teachers.
Though a majority of educators reported they have returned to in-person learning, nearly half estimated that about 10% of teachers were absent because of COVID-19 exposure, according to the GBAO Strategies poll.
The National Education Association survey also polled possible solutions to teacher burnout with 96% of educators, agreeing that raising salaries would address that concern.
John Bruce, teacher at Rancho San Juan High School in Salinas, California, said a teacher’s salary should be indicative of the community in which they live.
“A teacher’s salary . . . should be a gauge of the health of the middle class in a community,” Bruce said. “If you see that a teacher is making a gross salary of $55,000 per year and their cost of rent is $3,000 per month, groceries are $900 per month and they have monthly student loan payments, then their income needs to be adjusted.”
Bruce said he and his wife made the decision to move away from San Jose because raising a family was not economically feasible.
“Teachers that I know don't expect to be rich or live extravagantly,” Bruce said. “They do, however, expect to meet their monthly obligations and save toward modest goals. Owning a home and traveling once in a while should not be out of reach for a teacher.”
John also highlighted that point.
“I’m living in a situation where I'm able to save a significant amount of money [because] I live at home. I can't afford to buy a condo and this is going to be my fourth year, full time,” John said. “So it's one of those situations where the housing for teachers is largely becoming unattainable in the Bay Area.”
Katya Aguilar, supervisor of Phase One student teachers and coordinator of the single subject intern program, said the monetary and resource demand supersedes an everyday teacher’s capacity.
“They have very large class sizes and then within those classes, [they have] multiple groups or individual students who need extra support,” Aguilar said. “They're often expected to differentiate and support students, but with all of the other demands, [they] just don't have the capacity.”
Educators featured in the National Education Association survey also noted that other ways to address burnout would include increasing student mental health support, hiring more teachers and more support staff and doing less paperwork.
