Catherine Good, 58, never dreamed she’d retire from teaching during a global pandemic.
“When the whole COVID thing came up, then it was like, OK, is this really how I want to end?” she said. “Is this the way I want to go out?”
Good, a special education teacher from Warren, Mich., had summer 2020 in her sights for retirement long before the emergence of the coronavirus. But countless other teachers nationwide are grappling with whether to retire, resign, or take an unpaid leave of absence rather than face a workplace riddled with uncertainty and health risks. Like Good, many dislike the idea of closing the curtain on decades of faithful service during such an unsettled time.
“Everything that I believe in, I can’t do,” said kindergarten teacher Mary Morris of Toledo, Ohio. The veteran Catholic school educator at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School said she reached her breaking point after realizing the struggle of keeping a roomful of 5-year-old children socially distant or stopping them from sharing toys and classroom supplies. “It’s all going to be paper and pencil,” she said. “And that’s when I sat down and I thought, ‘What am I doing?’”
Christina Curfman of Hamilton, Va., is 55 and suffers from an autoimmune disease. She has two adult children. She told WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., she decided to leave the classroom rather than risk the consequences of catching the coronavirus: “I want to be here for my kids the rest of the time I can.”
Others, like Liza McArdle, of Ann Arbor, Mich., feel the COVID-19 requirements make it impossible to do their jobs. The 50-year-old educator couldn’t reconcile teaching French and Spanish with a mask blocking her face.
No one knows how many more teachers will leave over the coming weeks as schools wrestle with their fall plans. But signs point to a looming wave of resignations. The Michigan Education Association, the state’s teachers union, surveyed more than 15,000 Michigan educators in May. It found 32 percent said they were seriously considering retiring early or leaving the profession, and 8 percent said they already had left.
The average annual rate of teacher attrition across the country is 8 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That means, at least in Michigan, the number of teachers not coming back already hit the average with a little more than a month to go until the new school year begins after Labor Day.
The exodus could leave many schools with staffing gaps. An anticipated teacher shortage led three major districts around Washington, D.C., to scrap plans for in-person classes and go fully virtual. Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools reported about 10 percent of its teaching force requested health exemptions under the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the rate of applications for leaves of absence doubled. The neighboring Loudoun County Public Schools, where Curfman taught, received an unprecedented number of leave requests and resignations this summer, leading it to also decide not to offer in-person instruction.
But despite the upheaval, many teachers are choosing to stay put.
“I kind of don’t come from a family that retires,” 64-year-old Philadelphia High School for Girls math teacher Vicki Baker told Time. “I feel like we have one time to get this right because there’s so many things at risk.”
After praying about whether it was the right time, Good went ahead with her early retirement. She plans to care for her aging parents and serve in the mission field. Good briefly worked as a missionary in the 1990s in Europe and has participated in numerous projects with her church over the years.
“All along, my plan has been when I retire, I want to go back to the mission field,” she said. “Now I have time.”
Comments
Ruth T
Posted: Wed, 08/05/2020 11:44 pmThe first thing I did when I heard we were going 100% virtual is check my options for leaves of absence. Interestingly, the day before, I got my state's "member retirement packet." In all our fall preparations, which grow exponentially, we somehow find it impossible to stop and ask WHY we're doing this. Do students really transmit? Do teachers not get it from kids (as has been shown)? And if we're in it for the kids, and there are no kids, why stay if you don't have to?
HANNAH.
Posted: Thu, 08/06/2020 11:03 amRegarding “fall preparations, which grow exponentially”: It is overwhelming to read in the local paper of all that is being done at the school where I used to tutor – which plans to open with “in-person” education, with accommodations for students who can’t attend in person.
One wrinkle: the superintendent has informed the state education commissioner “that the district could lose 30 percent or more of students if the district cannot accommodate their families’ wishes to unmask.” Those families seem to be asking the same questions you are, Ruth T, about “WHY we’re doing this.”
The superintendent said, “I’m taking every opportunity to make sure (the state is) aware of the burden they’re putting on us.”
Varenikje
Posted: Thu, 08/06/2020 01:43 pmI work(ed) at a nursing home. I loved my job, but my kids said that if there were cases of Covid-19 there, they didn't want me there. I am 61 years old and have a few health issues (mitral valve replaced years ago). I tried to take off for a couple of months and nursing home said, if you don't come back to work tomorrow, then you are fired. They will ask me to come back "if I'm needed." So, here I am! Wondering if I did the right thing to listen to my kids. In many ways schools are much different from nursing homes (from an infection standpoint) but I guess it is too late to think about that now!