A simple proposal. Give public school teachers an extra year of retirement service credit for the pandemic year. – Fred Klonsky

A simple proposal. Give public school teachers an extra year of retirement service credit for the pandemic year. – Fred Klonsky

A SIMPLE PROPOSAL. GIVE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS AN EXTRA YEAR OF RETIREMENT SERVICE CREDIT FOR THE PANDEMIC YEAR

I’ve been out of the classroom for nearly a decade.

But as I speak to my colleagues who have taught this year it is mind boggling.

That is true whether they taught remotely, in-person or hybrid.

I have a simple proposal. It doesn’t begin to demonstrate what should be our profound thanks.

The Illinois legislature can act to give every public school teacher an extra year of creditable service.

Now some Republican state representative has introduced a bill that offers that up, CONTINUE READING: A simple proposal. Give public school teachers an extra year of retirement service credit for the pandemic year. – Fred Klonsky

In the Absence of COVID Safety Plans, Teachers Are Resigning and Retiring Early

In the Absence of COVID Safety Plans, Teachers Are Resigning and Retiring Early

In the Absence of COVID Safety Plans, Teachers Are Resigning and Retiring Early

This should have been Cheryl Dubberly’s 40th year as a music teacher, but in August 2020, she resigned from her position with the Duval County Board of Education in Jacksonville, Florida.

“It was dreadful to think about continuing,” Dubberly told Truthout. “I would not have been able to stay safe because I was responsible for teaching music to the entire school — 500 to 600 kids.” The job, she says, required her to go from classroom to classroom even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that singing with others can spread COVID-19.

“The job was not worth my life,” she says.

Like Dubberly, Christine Vehar, also a music teacher, left her position in the metro Atlanta area this fall. She had taught for just three and a half years. “When the schools closed in March, I had a great remote teaching experience,” she says. “The students were very engaged and despite some initial disorganization, it worked well, and I ended up loving teaching from home.” But when Vehar’s district decided to move to a hybrid schedule in October — holding in-person classes from 7:15 am to 2:15 pm four days a week, with Wednesdays as a remote teaching and learning day — she resigned.

The reason was fear of catching and spreading the virus.

“My mom is 63, and she lives with me,” Vehar told Truthout. “She is a three-time cancer survivor and an amputee with a compromised immune system, so there was absolutely no way for me to give her the care she deserves and continue to teach in-person.”

A fall 2020 survey conducted by the National Education Association (NEA) confirms that neither Dubberly nor Vehar are unusual. “Teachers with less than 10 years in are leaving the profession,” NEA President Becky Pringle told Truthout. “And 40 percent of mid-range teachers — CONTINUE READING: In the Absence of COVID Safety Plans, Teachers Are Resigning and Retiring Early

Newsweek: Teachers Resigning to Avoid COVID | Diane Ravitch's blog

Newsweek: Teachers Resigning to Avoid COVID | Diane Ravitch's blog

Newsweek: Teachers Resigning to Avoid COVID

The most important concern about reopening schools is the health and safety of students and staff. The Trump administration has adamantly refused to provide funding to states and cities to enable them to make schools as safe as they should be.

As a result, Newsweek reports, significant numbers of teachers are quitting. This is a blow to students and schools across the nation.

It was hard to recruit teachers before the pandemic. How will these teachers be replaced?

Veteran K-12 teachers in states across the U.S. are resigning and retiring at higher rates as schools begin reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic this fall, with educators citing the stress tied to remote learning, technical difficulties and COVID-19 health concerns.

Several teachers who recently resigned, retired or opted out of their jobs ahead of pandemic reopening efforts say leaving their kids has been hard, but remote learning has CONTINUE READING: Newsweek: Teachers Resigning to Avoid COVID | Diane Ravitch's blog

Safety Concerns Driving Some Educators Out the Profession - NEA Today

Safety Concerns Driving Some Educators Out the Profession - NEA Today

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

CONTINUE READING: Safety Concerns Driving Some Educators Out the Profession - NEA Today

CURMUDGUCATION: To Teachers Contemplating Retirement

 CURMUDGUCATION: To Teachers Contemplating Retirement

CURMUDGUCATION: To Teachers Contemplating Retirement

This fall marks the beginning of my third go round of starting the school year as a retiree. Thanks to the pandemic, it's in some ways the hardest year so far. I get that the pandemic is also giving many teachers pause to consider whether or not to go back. Here (expanded from a twitter thread) are my thoughts.

One of the hard parts of retirement is managing the guilt. You're leaving your friends and colleagues to continue the work. And it's important work, work you value. And they're going to keep doing it while you walk away.

This is unavoidable, because the work in schools is never done, ever. Every year some stories end, and some other stories begin, and most of the stories continue somewhere in the middle. There will never be a moment when you can brush your hands together and declare, "Okay, everything's wrapped up, so this is the perfect moment for me to peace out." Never going to happen.

So to retire, you have to shake the notion that you should really stick around and help (it took me months to shake the notion that I should run for school board). You know, intellectually, that you are not indispensable or irreplaceable. You moved into someone's spot, and someone will move into yours. In the meantime, your actual legacy is out in the world. You taught a bunch of CONTINUE READING:  CURMUDGUCATION: To Teachers Contemplating Retirement