- Burnout is a common issue popping in schools across the nation.
- Leon County School District tells ABC 27 they're working to address that challenge.
- Watch the video to hear from one educator who recently resigned from the classroom.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
A recent Gallup poll shows 44 percent of K-12 teachers nationwide are experiencing burn out. I'm Kendall Brandt your neighborhood reporter in Northeast Tallahassee. Here in our neighborhood, one educator tells me her story of why she's part of that statistic.
English teacher Day Harrington says her dad's work as an educator inspired her. "My dad was the only adult I saw growing up that seemed happy to go to work, every other grown up 'ugh, another Monday.'"
She says she loves teaching. She also says that job got harder each year worked at here Cobb Middle School. "It's exhausting to feel like you're never finished."
She told me late nights grading at home and working outside the classroom are just part of the reason she posted a video on Facebook last week announcing she was leaving.
It's not just her feeling this way.
A RAND study says teachers are more than twice as likely to be stressed as other working adults
So, I asked Leon County Teachers Association President Scott Mazur why.
"Things aren't just coming off the plate," Mazur told me. "There is just more stuff going on to it. Couple that with now that you're taking the work home and working on it there, takes away from family time, your children, those types of things."
Given the statistics, I asked Sarah Hembree, the Leon County Schools director of recruitment and retention, what's being done to support educators. She was the principal at Cobb Middle School just six months ago.
"What we've really been focusing on this last year has been identifying where some of those changes are and seeing how much is on a teacher's plate," Hembree explained. "So, what's on their plate, what can we take off and what can we do a bit differently."
One of the things Harrington says would help: more funding for extra help. "I see a lack of funding resulting in a lack of resources. It's awful."
Leon County is removing nearly 70 positions to help with keeping students on track. The district tells me they created some academic support positions with COVID funding, which Hembree tells me were always temporary. She says the change will actually fill some gaps in the district. "Of the positions that were lost, we knew they were going and we have other opportunities for those teachers within the school district, many of them at their same school site, just in a different role."
While the school district works to adjust, Harrington tells me she'll be carrying the positive memories forward.
"I think I will miss the students very much. I think I will miss my school family very much. "
The Florida Education Association says there are more than 4,000 open positions within public schools in Florida that need to be filled by the start of the next school year in August.
