This is the Teacher Shortage by Ashley Davis

I resigned from my job today. Effective immediately. I didn't really have a backup plan, I just knew for my health and sanity I couldn't go back there.

This was my third year in this district. It was a third opportunity for administration to show me they care about their teachers. Instead, I was completely dejected and burned out by week three.

Why did I quit? There were the logistical reasons.

- I'm a computer teacher and I was going into week four still without any computers. Not only did I still not have the most basic tool needed for the class I am meant to teach, but there was no light at the end of the tunnel as to when they might arrive.

- When the "computers" finally do arrive, they will be iPads, not actual desktops. The district came and scooped up and threw away the 30 Chromebases currently installed in the computer lab, because a handful of them were broken.

- This change in device (the only school in the district with such a change) means a complete overhauling of the media curriculum, as many of the google apps we're required to teach don't translate well to the iPad. A problem we struggled with last year, when teaching virtually. Knowing the problems teachers had with students struggling to utilize google apps on the iPads last year, I have no idea why they decided to have them be the only device available for students in media this year. (We won't even talk about the huge problem of not having keyboards and mice.)

- This third year the district also decided to put me in an all new set of schools. The one I spend the majority of my time in is the one furthest east in the district, and is 50 minutes from where I live (without traffic). My commute went from 30 minutes last year to nearly an hour, and on my already limited days with my daughters I am lucky to see them for two hours a day.

- In my second school I don't have access to a teacher computer, and am completely unable to access any school related websites or applications, not to mention completely unable to print. Any printing I need for those classes has to be done at my other school, and hauled around with me. Considering I need nearly 200 pages of anything I print, that's a lot of paper to be hauling around.

Those are the logistical reasons. Annoying? Sure. But ultimately, if those were the only problems they could be overcome. However, the administration reasons are truly the reason I left.

- From the day I was hired I have been consistently set up to fail. I was hired in to be the Life Skills teacher, teaching Social Emotional learning. My first day on the job I was given my schedule of classes (teaching 1100 students a week) and a key to my room, and nothing else. No direction with the curriculum or names of people to reach out to for help or guidance (even though I would later discover the Life Skills team in the district is a group of amazingly collaborative and helpful women, and they had an incredibly well organized shared google drive with every lesson for the year, matched to the standards). I wasn't even given the name of my district appointed mentor. It would be two months before I finally met her. When I did, around the time of report cards, she was flabbergasted at all of the most basic things about the district and position I was never told, and had no idea about. For instance, where to go to log in to the rosters to input report cards.

- Human Resources deliberately hid from me additional money I was owed for my travel between buildings and overloaded class sizes. I was split between four buildings my first year (which I later learned was against our union contract, and I was required to have been asked if I was ok with an additional school added, and was supposed to come with extra compensation) and it was months before I learned that I was supposed to have been being paid not only for the time I spent commuting between schools on a given day, but also reimbursed for mileage. I was also entitled to certain amounts of money for each class that was overloaded (more than 28 students) in a given day. The only way to get paid for these overloads was to keep track of how many classes had how many extra students each day, and send a form in to HR at the end of each week. HR never told me about any of these extra compensations when I was hired in. When I learned about all this additional compensation FIVE MONTHS into my first year from a colleague and reached out to HR they sent me the forms for the commute, but still hid the truth about the overloaded classrooms. When I called them out for that as well they finally gave me the forms I needed, but it was too late to get the payments I had been owed the first five months of my employment.

- My second year teaching I was assigned to all new schools, and had to teach two separate specials. Life Skills, and also Media. This meant double the workload on any given day, because I now had two entirely different curriculums to plan for, at six different grade levels. This double workload didn't come with any additional planning time or extra compensation. It was also the pandemic year, and everything was taught virtually. To say things were stressful is the largest understatement.

- This second year I also had a really toxic and passive aggressive principal. She is a COVID denier who doesn't believe in masking, and was visibly annoyed by my insistence on COVID safety protocols. She asked staff not to go to their union reps with concerns they had (COVID or otherwise), and demanded we complete projects outside of contractual hours. At the end of the school year, with two days notice, she demanded we finish our report cards over a week early, even though there were union contracted and district provided records days dedicated to working on report cards. She imposed punitive measures on me multiple times in the school year, requiring official meetings with HR. The second (and last) time it happened, I brought along the Union President to represent me in the meeting, where he proceeded to dress her down for her intimdation tactics and the unnecessary nature of the reprimands.

- This second year, during the distance learning, I needed to stay home with my girls on the Wednesdays we were supposed to report to the buildings (to still teach virtually). It wasn't until I used up all of my PTO days that I learned because Dottie was in a strictly virtual district I was allowed to teach from home, without using my sick days. The Union President was the one who had to insist my bank be refilled.

- This year, I was assigned to teach strictly Media, as well as assigned to all new schools than the previous years. I was happy to only have to plan for one special again, but I was devastated to lose Life Skills. I was passionate and enthusiastic about the curriculum, and was really good at teaching it. I often heard from students and their parents that Life Skills was their favorite class, and it felt great to be teaching something so vital; how to be good to each other. I had also spent hundreds of hours learning the curriculum, planning lessons, and creating my own slide decks and materials. I was IN TO Life Skills. Learning that I would have to not only leave the class I loved so much, but lose all of the man hours I had already spent creating lessons was heart-breaking.

- Two weeks before school started this year I learned that the Life Skills teacher assigned to my two schools had resigned. The job was posted and I reached out explaining how much I would love to be put back into the position I was hired for, and all the ways it would ultimately be better for students to have me as the Life Skills teacher, and someone well versed in computers to be the Media teacher. I received a response from my principal saying they had thought of me immediately, but the "internal transfer window had already closed", and that it was a matter for HR. I replied that I understood the need, generally, for timelines and deadlines, but that this was the perfect example of an instance when those lines should be blurred, especially as the school year hadn't even begun yet. I heard nothing for four days, and then responded to it again, directly calling out the two heads of HR (who had been on the original emails) asking for any guidance or clarification. Crickets. They simply ignored me.

- One week into the school year and they still didn't have a Life Skills teacher. One night the principal created a group text with all of the specials teachers asking us if we would be willing to cycle through teaching Life Skills on our "float day" (the one day of the week where we have time to plan and are meant to provide intervention support to students in the school). When I asked if it would be teaching the Life Skills curriculum or if they students would be receiving an "extra" day in our special, she said "Great question! I'll let you all decide! Though, I guess for report cards they would need some Life Skills curriculum." Apparently we were expected to "float" through Life Skills for 12 weeks. I took this opportunity to say it sounded a lot like planning for two specials, and having just done a year of that I knew how incredibly challenging it was, not to mention trying to co-plan with three other people. If we were going to "float" through a special I would much rather take Life Skills myself, the more challenging curriculum, and have us all float through Media, which would require very minimal planning this early in the year. Again, crickets.

These are just some of the moments of disrespect and mismanagement that I've experienced. It also speaks nothing of the actual day-to-day pressures and challenges that is teaching high needs populations.

I went back to college later in life. I went to college to be a teacher, because it was something I had wanted to be since I was in elementary myself. I felt a calling to the profession, and to be quite frank, I'm really good at it. I graduated top of my class, and every mentor I had throughout my program talked often of how natural and mature I already was for this profession. And I love it. I love connecting with kids, and I love explaining something challenging in a way they can grasp, and I love watching their eyes light up when they "get it". I love hearing students call my name and wave in the hallway. I love getting handmade drawings. I love sharing an inside joke and a hug. I love getting creative with my slide decks, and making my lessons personal to my students. I loved this past week when I was able to explain something in (my very limited) Spanish so my non-English speaking student could participate in our activity. Those moments make me feel fulfilled. They will me with pride and joy and make me think for a second that I can do this.

But then those moments fade, and the weight of the reality of this profession sinks back down, and I'm left gasping for air. It's been two years, and I'm burned out.

I write all this not because I want to showcase how hard I've had it and woe is me. I write it because THIS IS THE TEACHER SHORTAGE. These problems I've faced SO MANY teachers are facing, every day. Teachers are leaving this profession in droves because time and time again we are shown that how we feel and what we need doesn't matter. We aren't supported at any level. We are hit with unbelievably unrealistic expectations (like teaching a computer class without computers), and when we say we're struggling, we're piled up with more. Last year I cried in a meeting with my principal and HR as I told them I was drowning with the pressure to teach and plan two specials, and the added pressure of distance learning, not to mention the struggles at home of single parenthood and navigating a global pandemic. Instead of taking anything off my plate, they added a weekly meeting with the principal, during my planning time. It was under the guise of support, but was really another weight on my shoulders, and only ever served to personally tell me the weekly schedule. No support was ever actually given. This is your teacher shortage. Amazing, loving, capable teachers, leaving after two years, because they simply can't take it anymore.

On the one hand I'm devastated to be leaving, and am heart-broken at the thought of never again seeing the students I was just beginning to bond with. But on the other, I'm breathing freely again, for the first time in two years, and feel an unbelieveable sense of relief.

I don't know if I'll ever have my own classroom again. I don't know if I want one. I know it won't be any time soon, and that if that time does come, I will be much more picky about where I agree to teach. I also know that I will never be the person who sits quietly and let's people take advantage of me. I will continue to advocate for what I think is fair and just, and refuse to simply comply because "it's the way things are". This district hated me for my voice. The superintendent knows me by name from all the emails he was CC'd on advocating for myself and my fellow teachers.

Use your voice, teacher friends. Ask questions. Be a pain in the ass. Don't go along with unrealistic or unneccessary rules from your district. And for the love of everything, DON'T WORK OUTSIDE OF CONTRACTUAL HOURS. If you can't get something done in the time you've been paid to do it, then what they are asking of you is unrealistic or unfair, and they're abusing you. Don't be afraid to say as much.

About the Author: Ashley Davis is a teacher, improviser, and mother of two young daughters from Ann Arbor, MI. She spends her days watching Spanish dramas with her partner Justin and wishing she had more time to craft. She just recently started watching the Mandalorian, and she now understands the hype around Baby Yoda. He’s the greatest.