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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH is a middle school teacher in his 30th year. He had planned to teach a few more years but has decided to retire at the end of the year. He is a great teacher—still has visits, emails, letters, etc. from kids he has taught over his entire career. His school went back to in person in early November, 2020 and he began teaching simultaneously in person then. This year his classes are entirely in person. Why is he retiring sooner than planned?

- Terrible admin in his school. There are a LOT of behavior issues in his relatively wealthy school district. His school—and really the whole district—is afraid to suspend students or take other appropriate action. They are trying restorative justice but don’t have a clue of what it actually is. I have seen it used effectively at my kids’ school, but it takes a lot of time and training.
- District level/community idiocy around mask requirements, CRT terror, etc. He does not want to be teaching in a small classroom with unmasked children in a high COVID area. CRT and related concerns mean that if a parent complains about a classroom book, it is supposed to be just removed—for everyone—no questions asked. CRT isn’t being taught or incorporated into the curriculum in his district. He is tired of dealing with the impact of small groups of very vocal , very stupid parents. The previous superintendent of his district, as well as the curriculum coordinator for his subject, resigned over the summer due to death threats and other extreme unpleasantness from the anti- CRT crowd. This all made national news.
- Over the past two weeks, two long term subs literally walked out of the building due to poor student behavior. This week’s departure was a middle-aged man who didn’t even stop by the office to let them know he was done.
- DH has great classroom management skills and has not been as affected by poor behavior, but he has definitely seen an uptick in work refusal and more worrisome, more kids who do not have good support systems at home or who are in the worst cases, suicidal.

He won’t quit before the end of the year because he has a contract and he cares about his students and colleagues. But I have never seen him so tired; he is a night owl but now is lucky to stay awake past 8:30 on a school night. I cannot believe the impact of district and school level mismanagement is having. I am 100% in favor of his retirement and am actively urging him to use any remaining personal days and to minimize all extracurricular work he does. I do feel bad for the students, but the district does not deserve a single extra second of his time. I am thankful that our own children did not go to school in this district.[/quote]

This is so sad, but so common. I am a HS teacher and I feel similar to him. I'm still fresh and doing ok, but the work refusal from several kids is really unsettling. Their inability to focus and stick with difficult (even slightly) tasks is shocking some days. The system is broken. ;-([/quote]

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