Safety Concerns Over COVID-19 Driving Some Educators Out the Profession
When school starts in Rutherford County, Tennessee, this month, and hundreds of teachers return to their physical classrooms, armed with surgical face coverings, Plexiglas shields, and stores of sanitizing supplies, AP English teacher Cassie Piggott will not be among them.
Forced to choose between the career she loves and the health of the child she loves even more, Piggott resigned. She hopes to teach again in the district, after the pandemic ends. For now, she says, she just can’t risk the life of her 9-year-old son, who five years ago received a bone marrow transplant because of a rare immune disorder he still has.
And Piggott isn’t the only one. Across the U.S., in school districts where educators and students are required to return to their physical classrooms, hundreds of educators are reluctantly opting out. When eligible, they’re taking early retirements, or using new options for extended leaves that some local NEA-affiliated unions have negotiated for their members. Others are simply walking away.
In a nationwide poll of educators, NEA found that 28 percent said the COVID-19 pandemic has made them more likely to retire early or leave the profession, a rate that could far worsen the U.S.’s shortage of qualified teachers. That number includes a significant number of new or young teachers—one in five teachers with less than 10 years’ experience. It also includes 40 percent of teachers with 21 to 30 years’ experience, who are presumably leaders and mentors on their school campuses, and 55 percent of those with more than 30 years.
Cassie Piggott (left) hopes to teach again, after the pandemic ends. Until then, the risk of returning to in-person school is too great a risk to her and her family. (photo courtesy Cassie Piggott)
Even more significantly, as the U.S. continues to struggle to diversify its teaching workforce for the benefit of all students, 43 percent of Black teachers say they’re now more likely to retire to leave early. Since the pandemic began, Black and Hispanic people have died at disproportionate rates of COVID-19.
This is why NEA leaders have been pushing—since the beginning of the pandemic—to reopen schools and
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