February, 2023
By Liliana Castillo and Emily Chalambaga, Staff Reporters
In the past year alone, schools have seen a dramatic decline in teachers nationwide. With more than 1,000 vacancies in early August, it’s safe to assume that schools will continue to suffer with their shortage of educators. The shortage has also affected our own community, leading to several problems such as low grades, increased levels of stress, and diminished stability for students.
We interviewed our staff for their thoughts and opinions about the declining number of teachers. Their responses help us better understand what is causing the shortage and how it has affected their own work. Conflicts such as lack of respect, low pay, and pandemic-related issues were common subjects our educators mentioned, and they also shared their opinions on how student education is being affected.
The Foundation of the Problem
For 9th-grade Assistant Principal and English Department leader Maritza Gonzalez, a big part of the problem is the challenge of facing a classroom for the first time. “First-year teachers don’t know what they don’t know. They’ve never done it before, they don’t know what lesson planning is, how long it takes to grade an essay, how to redirect a student who has their cell phone out, or how to support students who have unique learning needs,” Gonzalez said. In other words, first-year teachers might be unaware of what they may be getting into. Teaching is by no means an easy job, so when educators begin their careers, they can feel unprepared for the disorder they might encounter and ultimately quit when work becomes too stressful.
Teachers also face the struggle of students not cooperating and putting in the amount of effort when it comes to classes. Some say people don’t respect teachers as much as they should, and the impact has been detrimental to our society. It’s no surprise that teachers have suffered greatly over the past few years. Post-pandemic, teachers are still recovering from facing the struggle of virtual lessons, lack of communication, and connection to their students to figure out how to teach. Additionally, from the shift to online classes to the underwhelming pay to the growing concern about safety, teachers have had fewer and fewer reasons to put up with the lack of respect.
Becoming an educator takes a lot of patience and practice before you become skilled in the field. It’s not a job to be taken lightly and the profession comes with a lot of stress people aren’t prepared for, leading to educators eventually quitting.
In addition, not everyone is meant to be a teacher. One needs to be eager about the job before fully committing to it, and doing that takes a lot of courage and dedication. If not, it can lead to the downfall of hundreds of students’ grades and lead them to become careless and disheartened. As Gonzalez explained, “I only want to put people in this role that are going to help kids with expectation, quality, and love.”
Impact on Teachers
A typical day in KAC consists of teachers having to cover classes in order to make up for the absences of teachers. Principal Janice Lopez said, “It has a very negative impact on the staff culture in general because as teachers leave, it leaves other teachers to close in the gaps which creates a vicious cycle. You lose a teacher, other teachers cover, teacher gets burnt out, teacher quits.”
11th-grade English teacher Amy Welin shared her experience caused by the lack of teachers, stating, “The need to cover other people’s classes and help sub for other teachers has doubled because of the shortage. Which gives teachers less planning time and a lot of teachers already work a lot after school and a lot on the weekends. So when you spend your planning periods covering for other people, it just means you bring home more work.” This can strongly damage a teacher’s personal life, seeing as how they have to work day and night to provide students with education.
Student Education
Students all around the nation have complained about insufficient teachers. Consequently, due to the recent shortage of teachers, students have begun to understand the importance of teachers in our education system. Students of all schools have suffered greatly from the shortage, resulting in less comprehension of school subjects and productivity overall.
Students have been proven to be less productive when they don’t have consistency. In an interview with Celeste Castillo, an 11th-grade student, she shared, “In the classes that I don’t have teachers in, I have really bad, failing grades like under 20’s, but the ones with teachers I have are like 80’s, and 70’s, so it’s like a big difference.” When scholars don’t have a teacher to support them, they lose focus on their goals and objectives in school.
“For them to be successful, it is proven that they have to have consistent teachers. So the more consistent teachers are, the more success a kid is going to experience,” said Lopez. With teachers, students are getting more hand-to-hand support in helping them understand and gain interest in their studies.
However, not everyone is meant to be a teacher. Teaching as a career can be incredibly stressful and cause several problems for one in the future, such as increased tension, hardships in communication, and a potentially wasted career. One needs to be eager about the job before fully committing to it, and doing that takes a lot of courage and dedication. If not, it can lead to the downfall of hundreds of students’ grades and lead them to become careless and disheartened.
One possible solution might be for students to become more resourceful and start taking control of our own education and future. We may not always have teachers, but that can not always be the excuse for being unproductive and having poor manners.
“Even though you were dealt a bad hand and even though it is unfair to you, you sort of have to take your learning into your own hands and be self-driven and motivated,” said Welin.
Despite the Situation…
Even when times seem tough and circumstances seem grim, teachers have held their heads up high and continue to work under the pressure of several factors impeding their success. And KAC leaders are working to find solutions for the teacher shortage. As they do this, Welin advises students, “Use resources around you, become passionate. We as a society have to figure out why people don’t wanna teach and how to make teaching a more enjoyable and sustainable job for everyone.” We have the ability to make the change by cooperating with teachers and creating a comfortable space among students and educators.
At KAC, our teacher situation is finally calming down, and with the arrival of two new English teachers the school is fully staffed. But there is no doubt that this problem will arise again. When it does, we need to be fully aware of the consequences of our actions and make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes we committed this year. As Welin said, “When there are not highly prepared, passionate, and trained teachers in the classroom, a generation of learners is going to suffer. So everyone should care about this problem because a society where people are not as educated is going to suffer.”
Sources:
Ms. Welin (AP English Literature teacher)
Ms. Lopez (Principal)
Ms. Gonzalez (Assistant Principal and English department leader)
Celeste Castillo (Class of 2024)
The Cardinal Post 