Seven Texas Teachers on the State of Education: “I’m Tired of Getting Punched.”

Interlocking crises are ruinous to public education. Teachers are burning out. There is way too much stress and pressure on our teachers—to the point of unreasonableness. No, this isn't at all a true year of what teaching is. However, that's of little consolation to overly-stressed teachers who are bearing the brunt of two years of a pandemic.

If we can do one thing, based on what we read here, let's stop testing these students and let's refocus on the relational, healing, uplifting aspects of education. All of our youth are capable of achieving at high levels. What they need, however, is for their needs to get attended to. So many are traumatized and they need how to move forward in their relationships, make friends, and resolve problems. Let's indeed tackle the hard problems so that our youth and teachers can get on with learning.

-Angela Valenzuela

Seven Texas Teachers on the State of Education: “I’m Tired of Getting Punched.” After two years of hell, Texas teachers are burned-out, angry, tired—and sounding the alarm about public education.

By Forrest Wilder and Maya Mojica | TEXAS MONTHLY

March 17, 2022

Illustration by Texas Monthly; Getty

March 17, 2022

Even in the best of times, teaching is a challenging profession. In Texas, K–12 educators have long contended with relatively low pay, a Byzantine school finance system, high-stakes standardized testing, and indifferent politicians. But the COVID-19 pandemic—now in its third year—has introduced extraordinary new obstacles. There’s severe understaffing, heated debates over critical race theory, and plummeting standardized test scores, not to mention the slew of difficulties that accompany remote learning. These interlocking crises can sometimes make the classroom feel like a pressure cooker. And yet teachers—most of them, at least—keep showing up. To understand the toll this is taking, Texas Monthly spoke with a dozen current and recently departed teachers about burnout, COVID fears, learning loss, the upcoming STAAR tests, staffing shortages, the effect of the pandemic on students, whether to keep teaching or to quit, and the future of the profession. They are a diverse bunch, representing a racial and ethnic cross section of Texas educators. They teach at elementary, middle, and high schools at school districts across the state. What follows are lightly edited versions of the stories of seven teachers at the education front lines.

---

I. On Burnout

“This year is like none other for me.”

It’s no surprise that many Texas teachers are burning out. For two years, they’ve been asked to do far more than just juggle the usual demands of classroom instructions; they’re also counseling students reeling from the pandemic, breaking up fights, and giving up their planning periods to cover for other educators who are out sick or have quit. Teachers are also stressing about the full return of the STAAR exams in May, after they were canceled in 2020 and made optional in 2021. Many say they are being pushed to the breaking point. 

Alex Marquez, formerly seventh- and eighth-grade special education, Northside ISD, eleven years of experience: Beginning in 2020, I saw levels of anxiety I had never seen before. I ended up having to start medication just to build up the courage to walk into the classroom every single day, not knowing what circumstances I was going to be walking into—not even knowing, in many cases, if any of my students were sick; always wondering about my colleagues; always wondering, “When am I going to finally get sick? When am I going to bring COVID home to my family?” And always having that over your head in addition to the demands from administration, demands from parents, trying to also be there to support students. It made not only emotional and mental impacts on my life, but also physical and physiological ones—stomachaches, headaches, anxiety, insomnia, lack of appetite. It was just not a good state to live in. At the end of the day, I can’t pour from an empty cup. I can’t be there for my students if I can’t even be there for myself.

How Staff Shortages Are Crushing Schools, by Mark Leiberman in Edweek—Oct. 15, 2021

Across the nation right now, we are experiencing a staff and teacher shortage in K-12 education captured succinctly, as per these key quotes. by Mark Leiberman in the October 15, 2021 issue of Edweek:

"This is hardly the first time schools have had trouble filling open positions; many have long struggled to find enough workers qualified to help students with disabilities, for instance.

But the problem right now is particularly acute, and many educators told Education Week they’ve never seen it worse. Subpar wages, minimal benefits, tough work environments, onerous pandemic protocols, pressing health concerns, contentious political disputes, and a broader trend of disruption in the American labor market are among the factors shaping this year’s K-12 chaos." 

Among the allegedly "contentious political disputes" is the manufactured anti-Critical Rate Theory "crisis." It's hard not to be concerned about the future of public education. Here are a number of additional pieces on this same topic that readers may find helpful: 

How Bad Are School Staffing Shortages? What We Learned by Asking Administrators 

No Bus Drivers, Custodians, or Subs. What’s Really Behind Schools’ Staffing Shortages? 

Staff Shortages Affect Students, Too. Here’s Where Schools Are Shutting Down 

Thanks to Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings for sharing what clearly is a crisis we're facing in our nation.

-Angela Valenzuela

How Staff Shortages Are Crushing Schools

Stephanie LeBlanc, an instructional strategist at Greely Middle School in Cumberland Center, Maine, has picked up numerous additional duties to help cover for staffing shortages at the school.

Ryan David Brown for Education Week

by Mark Leiberman  October 15, 2021, Edweek

Teachers are sacrificing their lunch periods to cover unsupervised classrooms, monitor lunch lines, and get behind the wheel of school buses. Students are enduring prolonged bus rides and diminished meal options. Principals are still searching far and wide to fill dozens of open positions, including for people who quit after the school year started.

And at least several dozen school buildings have temporarily shut down due to an insufficient number of adults on the job.

These are just a few of the many effects widespread staff shortages are having on the nation’s 3.2 million teachers, 91,000 principals, and roughly 3 million support staff who work for public schools, according to interviews with educators and administrators and an Education Week analysis of local media reports.

Forty percent of district leaders and principals describe their current staff shortages as “severe” or “very severe,” according to a survey conducted Sept. 29 to Oct. 8 by the EdWeek Research Center.

Crucial job openings that would normally attract hundreds of applicants are going to underqualified candidates or remain unfilled, even with higher wages and recruitment bonuses fueled by federal relief aid. When people do get hired, they’re taking time off more often because they’re sick or were exposed to someone who may have COVID-19.

The current challenges highlight longstanding labor issues in K-12 schools and raise questions about the sustainability of fully reopened school buildings this year as the pandemic wears on. While vaccinations have dimmed the immediacy of the COVID-19 threat for many, the still-ongoing global crisis continues to take a substantial toll.

A longstanding crisis that shows no signs of slowing

This is hardly the first time schools have had trouble filling open positions; many have long struggled to find enough workers qualified to help students with disabilities, for instance.

But the problem right now is particularly acute, and many educators told Education Week they’ve never seen it worse. Subpar wages, minimal benefits, tough work environments, onerous pandemic protocols, pressing health concerns, contentious political disputes, and a broader trend of disruption in the American labor market are among the factors shaping this year’s K-12 chaos.

District leaders and principals are scurrying to raise wages, expand benefits, and turbocharge recruitment drives. But the most common strategy in the short term for tackling the shortage, according to a recent EdWeek Research Center survey conducted between Sept. 29 and Oct. 8, is asking employees to take on additional responsibilities. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they’ve done that this year.

Many educators have agreed to pitch in for the sake of the students. But that doesn’t mean they’re not frustrated. For instance, four teachers in Alabama sued their school district this summer for adding on responsibilities last school year without appropriate compensation.

For many who work in schools, the year has piled new stress on top of old, falling far short of expectations for the coveted return to normalcy that appeared possible as vaccines rolled out earlier this year.

“We’re certainly not feeling like we’re in this period of recovery that we keep hearing about,” said Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Slate Valley district in Vermont. “We’re still in this pandemic, and I think feeling the effects even more so this year than ever before.”

Olsen-Farrell spoke to Education Week from her home, where she was working remotely last week after her vaccinated husband tested positive for a breakthrough case of COVID-19. The next day, she said, half of the eight nurses for her six-building school system would be out sick or on quarantine.

On the list of positions Olsen-Farrell is having trouble filling: custodians, instructional assistants, bus drivers, special education assistants, and librarians. For the latter, the district cut the middle school library program to prioritize library services for K-5 students.

A middle school social studies teacher and a high school special education teacher both quit during the first week of school.

“They just walked out in the middle of the day, saying it was too much in this kind of environment,” she said. “It’s just too stressful.”

The middle school teacher’s replacement started last week; the district has yet to replace the other teacher, Olsen-Farrell wrote in a recent email.

Many exasperated educators are expressing existential concerns about the future of the public education system.

Here’s what people who work in school buildings are seeing and feeling as staff shortages persist.
Teachers are filling all kinds of gaps, on top of their regular duties

Substitute teachers were the role respondents to the EdWeek Research Center survey most often said they are struggling to fill.

At Belvidere Central Middle School in Illinois, the assistant principal shares with teachers a daily spreadsheet listing all the teachers who are absent and the timeslots that need to be filled. Thanks to a shortage of substitutes willing to step in, teachers are asked, though not required, to consider giving up their planning period to plug a hole in the schedule.

Johana Avila, a second-year instructor who teaches 6th- and 7th-grade social studies, recently covered a physical education class. It was surprisingly difficult to wrangle the students and teach them a sport she herself wasn’t familiar with, she said.

She likely wouldn’t offer to serve as a substitute again. “It’s almost like you feel a little bit of guilt, I should be covering, I should help out. But at the same time, we’re already piled so much with coming up with homework for kids who are quarantined,” Avila said. “I just feel like I need that planning time to make sure I’m giving enough for my students.”

At Huntington Middle School in Huntington, W.V., teachers are reluctant to give any substitute teachers a negative review in the required paperwork because they’re “desperate” for anyone willing to work, said Angela Nottingham, who teaches 7th grade and leads the school’s hiring committee for teachers.

Some teachers are volunteering to sacrifice both their planning periods and delaying plans for days off to ensure students are supervised.

“It’s like baking a lasagna and baking a cake at the exact same time in the same kitchen, but you can only use one bowl,” Nottingham said.

Most schools have avoided reverting back to remote learning even when staffing is thin, but some have had no choice.

Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa, Okla., has pivoted from in-person to fully remote learning twice since the school year started, once for three days and once for two days.

The first time, teachers woke up one morning to an email from administrators notifying them that the school building was shut down, said Katherine Maloney-Jacobs, who teaches 3rd grade reading and social studies.

The next time, teachers found out at 5 p.m. the night before—too late to ensure students took home the materials they’d need to keep learning remotely.

“The hardest part was communicating with enough advance notice that parents don’t feel caught off guard, or didn’t feel pressure to get their students on Zoom at a certain time,” she said. “I don’t want parents to feel pressured because I know everybody’s dealing with a lot right now.”

Chaos has prevailed even when the school building is open. On some days, Maloney-Jacobs ends up with five extra students in her class because of teacher absences. She has to quickly integrate them into her classroom routine, find more desks and chairs, and race to make additional copies of assignments.

Olsen-Farrell said she’s never seen burnout among staff hit so soon after the school year starts.

“Our teachers are June tired, and it’s the beginning of October, but I was saying that at the beginning of September already,” she said.

Nottingham said she thinks often about the fact that she could take a job doing data entry from her living room and make more money than she currently does.

“The only thing that my boss can do is say, ‘This is happening everywhere,’” she said. “I understand that, and we all understand that. But it just doesn’t seem like there’s any relief at all.”

Administrators struggle to make the case that working in a school will be rewarding

Thirty-percent of district leaders and principals who answered the EdWeek Research Center survey characterized their current staffing shortage as “moderate.” Another 25 percent called it “severe,” and 15 percent said the issues are “very severe.” Only five percent said their schools aren’t having staffing issues.

Administrators are faced with tough decisions about allocating resources and their own duties. The challenging conditions in schools don’t lend themselves to pitching their work environments to prospective employees.

Several candidates at Oakwood Middle School in Statesville, N.C., have told principal Carrie Tulbert during job interviews that they could likely get paid $7 more per hour working at Chick-Fil-A, “in a great environment serving chicken all day,” than they could as a school custodian.

“Typically you could have said, ‘Working in education is so rewarding. You get to be with kids no matter what job you’re doing, you’re impacting kids and how they feel at school,’” Tulbert said.

“Now public education is such a polarizing experience unfortunately, and a political experience, and sometimes a very antagonistic experience because of what’s going on in the world, that’s hard to say as a recruiter and hiring manager.”

The school started the year with two unfilled teacher vacancies. They’ve since been filled, but there weren’t many applicants to choose from, Tulbert said. “You have to find somebody with an amazing heart and passion for teaching. Most of those people are scooped up earlier in the summer,” she said.

Even when districts are seeing applications, many candidates lack the proper qualifications.

“We fill them with people who have no teaching experience and who get alternatively certified,” said Heath Oates, superintendent of the El Dorado Springs district in Missouri. “Sometimes this works out. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

Meanwhile, shortages of school nutrition workers and custodians have led to teachers cleaning their own classrooms a few times a week, and administrators stepping in to keep the chaotic breakfast and lunch lines moving smoothly.

More than two-thirds of school district leaders and principals say they’re struggling to hire a sufficient number of bus drivers, according to the EdWeek Research Center survey. Forty-one percent said the same about custodians, and 42 percent said the same about cafeteria workers.

Tulbert herself has been putting her bus driving license to use two days a week, covering for drivers who are out sick. She worries about the possibility of a fight breaking out or a parent needing her attention while she’s away from the building during the pickup period after classes end.

More broadly, though, she worries that her colleagues are becoming disillusioned with working in education.

“A lot of teachers are now saying, ‘I don’t want to be an administrator. I wouldn’t wish your job on anybody,’” she said. “How do you encourage people to come into a field where we don’t have enough custodians so you’re going to have to clean your own classroom?”

Students are missing out on crucial services

The Cumberland-North Yarmouth district in Maine is currently facing a significant shortage of “educational technicians,” who work with small groups of students and help out teachers, including in special education classrooms, according to Superintendent Jeff Porter.

At the district’s Greely Middle School, an 11-person team in the special education department has dwindled to six. Until last week, there was also an opening for a teacher in the behavior program for students who need specialized support and a quieter environment.

Stephanie LeBlanc is an instructional strategist at Greely Middle School in Cumberland Center, Maine. Staff shortages in the school are making it difficult to provide students much more than the basic requirements, LeBlanc said.

Ryan David Brown for Education Week

Stephanie LeBlanc, an instructional strategist who coordinates students’ individual education plans (IEPs), was filling in for the behavior teacher on top of her regular duties. She also recently had to cover an English class because the school didn’t have enough substitutes, and the educational technicians who have been helping fill gaps were busy with other substitute assignments.

“Everybody becomes more exhausted because the breaks that we would usually get aren’t happening,” LeBlanc said. “That cycle causes more people to be out.”

The effects of the shortage are falling most heavily on students who need a staff member with them all day. Some students have had to go to unfamiliar classrooms or miss out on crucial opportunities for academically enriching activities.

“We’re still meeting all kids’ base needs and our minimum requirements,” LeBlanc said. “But we really can’t go above and beyond and create those fun or creative opportunities.”

The Slate Valley district in Vermont has had to send students with disabilities home and offer compensatory services later to make up for their lost time in the building, Olsen-Farrell said.

Students in Syracuse, N.Y., have been missing morning classes and staying in school long after the final bell thanks to a shortage of bus drivers. In Medford, Ore., football games have been canceled, and a larger-than-usual number of students who live close to school buildings no longer have the option to ride the bus.

Schools in Filer, Idaho, closed for a week without remote learning recently due to an insufficient number of teachers. At least one school or district has also shut down temporarily due to staffing concerns in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia.

Many who work in schools are hard-pressed to name an ideal solution to these problems. Olsen-Farrell would like to see her state follow the lead of Massachusetts and call in the National Guard to fill emergency staffing gaps and help with COVID testing.

“I just think there needs to be recognition for a staffing crisis in education in the United States,” Olsen-Farrell said. “I think this is going to be here long after COVID is gone.”

"My Thoughts on a Recovering Economy," by Angela Valenzuela

This is a good time to look for work in Austin and other places throughout the U.S. However, it is clear that COVID fears exist. Remote work is increasingly preferred as many do not want to work in an office right now. COVID fears have also translated in early retirements. Others are changing careers wanting higher salaries and benefits, or perhaps reassessing what they really want to do in life. 

A closing off of the border also makes for fewer workers. Informally, I hear that the construction industry, particularly in a context of rapid growth in our city and state, can't find enough workers. Note: Here is another read from September 4th out of the Washington Post titled, "Why America has 8.4 million unemployed when there are 10 million job openings."

The ravages of COVID notwithstanding, I hope that the "cosmic pause" of the pandemic is enabling clarity of thought, including a reassessment of our obligations to ourselves as individuals, to our families and communities, and Mother Earth with whom we have been massively and consequentially out of sync. 

In a space of epistemic humility that this moment could actually engender, can we not begin to vision a new economy, perhaps one where we share, instead of compete, for resources? Why not create a world where we care for and value one another, as opposed to one of hoarding and selfishness? 

Instead of the toxic battleground that many want to make right now of our education system, I ask how can we reinvent education, making it affectionate, creative, and life-giving? 

The problem is not at all with the children, but with the adults who fall prey to the ceaseless, fear-mongering and moral panics that become the noise in our heads, manifesting in polarized discourses and policy positions.

It is up to each and everyone of us to bring balance to the chaos. At least for some, finding the right job or vocation is precisely what is happening right now as they realize that the built up world as we have known it is neither of their own, nor of their preferred, fashioning. 

I say then, let's re-make the world anew. Let's work collectively to create spaces of happiness and joy. And let these spaces merit the name, "education." Let's live lives full of gratitude and become champions of peace for a deeply troubled world. 

My thoughts on a Sunday morning. 

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Peace/ paz,

-Angela Valenzuela

Austin area employers facing stiff competition for workers amid recovering economy

Bob Sechler

Austin American-Statesman | September 3, 2021

By at least one measure — the prevalence of “help wanted” ads — it might be the best time ever to be looking for a job in the Austin metro area.

The number of online postings for employment in the region is at a record, the latest manifestation of an extremely tight local labor market that’s providing qualified job seekers with their choice of opportunities — and also fueling intense competition among businesses seeking workers.

About 88,500 jobs in the Austin area were being advertised in July, according to an index of online postings produced by the Conference Board, a private economic research group. The figure is the highest on record for the region and nearly 80% above the estimated 49,500 in the same month of 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

For Amy Garza, who has been trying to fill nearly three dozen open positions and is finding the task daunting, the trend comes as no surprise.

"It's crazy — just getting someone in the door (for an interview) is difficult," said Garza, human resources director at Austin-based Athena Manufacturing. "People can basically go out and pick their jobs right now."

More:Austin's jobless rate fell to 4.2% in July, lowest since COVID struck

More:COVID-19 surge puts brakes on Austin's return-to-office plans

More:Rents rising: Austin apartment market shifts into overdrive as pandemic recovery continues

Athena, a fast-growing contract manufacturer that specializes in precision metalworking and mechanical assembly, has raised its starting pay twice over the past year — to a range of $15 to $17 an hour for trainees with no experience, which is up from $12 to $14 an hour previously, she said. The company is trying other measures to boost employee satisfaction and retention, such as prioritizing career development and catering some workplace meals.

But "it's such a competitive market (for workers), and companies like ours that are kind of in the middle, we don’t have the budget right now” to match big firms on pay and benefits, Garza said. "It's hard right now — it is really, really hard."

Austin businesses aren't alone in that assessment. Nationwide, employers are scrambling to hire enough workers, with recent federal statistics pegging U.S. job openings overall at an all-time high as the economy has continued to recover despite the ongoing pandemic.

The wide gulf between job openings and job seekers — both locally and nationally — is being chalked up to a number of factors.

Economists say some people are simply looking for different kinds of employment than they held before the pandemic. That shift is believed to be hurting the leisure and hospitality sector in particular, where working remotely isn't an option and wages have been relatively low traditionally.

Across industries, however, persistent coronavirus fears, difficulty finding affordable child care, early retirements, the availability of unemployment benefits and reduced rates of immigration are all issues thought to be contributing to the labor shortage.

In Austin, where competition for workers was tight even before the pandemic because of the booming economy, the hiring difficulty appears to be particularly pronounced. Local business activity went into deep freeze during the initial months of the pandemic — along with the economy statewide and nationally — but it has been heating back up relatively quickly, helped by a steady drumbeat of corporate expansions and relocations to the region.

More:Texas manufacturing, service sectors expand in July as COVID-19 worries return

"We can hardly pick up the daily paper without seeing (that another company) is coming to town," said Jon Hockenyos, president of Austin-based economic analysis firm TXP Inc.

"That is part of all the job postings we have now," as companies that are new to the Austin metro area compete with existing employers for workers, Hockenyos said.

But other factors also are playing roles locally, he said, such as "COVID hesitancy" among would-be workers concerned about the ongoing pandemic, as well as an inability among some businesses to pay enough to get them off the sidelines.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Austin metro area recently hit 4% — its lowest level in the pandemic era and well below the current state and national rates of 6.2% and 5.4%, respectively.

The local unemployment rate routinely came in at or below 3% before the coronavirus sent the economy into a tailspin. But 4% is still considered near the point where most people who want a job have one, particularly given the lingering overhang of the coronavirus and the tremendous disruptions that it wrought.

It also marks a huge improvement from the initial months of the pandemic, when the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Austin metro area soared to 12.7% and 11.2%, respectively, in April and May of last year, as coronavirus-related fears and shutdowns triggered huge job losses.

With the recovery now gaining steam, however, local employers are having trouble finding enough workers to meet all of the demand for goods and services.

Kwee Lan Teo, an Austin Chamber of Commerce vice president, said 

5,700 job openings that were advertised in July offered signing bonuses 

for new employees — well over double the 2,100 that offered them in January.

“That tells you a lot," said Teo, who writes a monthly review of the region's 

job market. "They are trying to incentivize people to come back” to the 

workforce.

Overall, the fierce competition among businesses for job seekers has made 

it "hard to hire right now," she said.

Garza, of Athena Manufacturing, knows that firsthand.

If Athena doesn't meet its target of doubling in size over the next five 

years — from 270 employees now to 540 — she said it won't be because 

demand wouldn't support the growth. Instead, she pegged the most likely 

culprit as an inability to find enough new workers.

"I have never seen it this difficult (to hire) before," Garza said.