Teacher burnout, resignations on rise in BCPS

By Caitlyn Freeman
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

Baltimore County public school teachers are resigning at higher rates than normal as they report feelings of burnout and an inability to keep up with the workload, union officials said.

Cindy Sexton, the president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County (TABCO), said educators are struggling with being back in the classroom full-time after teaching remotely for most of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between the lack of social-emotional skills in students, a large staffing shortage, hefty workloads and an overall lack of administrative support, teachers are at their wits’ end, Sexton said.

“There’s just never enough time,” Sexton said.

Cheryl Bost, the president of the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA), said that issues Sexton cited aren’t unique to Baltimore County and are impacting educators statewide.

The issue both Sexton and Bost highlighted the most is the ongoing staffing shortage.

BCPS officials didn’t provide an exact number of current unfilled teacher positions by the time of publication.

According to data from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), BCPS had 7,629 teachers during the 2020-21 school year.

An analysis by the Watchdog found that the board approved 419 resignations between July 13 and Dec. 7 as compared to 276 board-approved resignation for the same period in 2019. The analysis also found that the board approved a total of 515 resignations for the entire 2019-2020 school year, or about 100 higher than the 419 resignations recorded for one five-month period this year.

Of the resignations approved this fall, the Watchdog analysis found that 185 were elementary school teachers, 216 were secondary school teachers, nine were from special education schools and nine were school administrators.

In response to the data, BCPS spokesman Charlie Herndon said that a high number of resignations are common for a school system of 111,000 students, but he acknowledged the current hardships educators are facing, calling the last 19 months “difficult.”

“Our teachers have been absolutely heroic,” Herndon said.

Lena Amick, a social studies teacher at Owings Mill High School, said educators are being tasked with crippling workloads that go beyond their contracted workday, which she said is 6 hours and 45 minutes with a 30-minute duty-free lunch.

Amick said she teaches three 90-minute blocks of high schoolers and typically is tasked with covering for a colleague during her allotted planning period. She said that for most teachers, some days include covering a class that doesn’t have a substitute teacher or acting as hall or lunch monitors.

“We don’t have enough time in our paid day to do the work that we’re required to do,” Amick said. “And if we don’t do the work, we have nothing to give students when they show up the next day; or we’re not providing necessary mental health services to students in crisis; or we’re not meeting the requirements of the law with [Individualized Education Program’s]. Or we’re not grading their work…Or we’re not doing mandatory trainings that we need to do for our job. It’s all necessary, and there’s too much of it.”

Amick, a fifth-year teaching veteran, said that while the feelings of being overwhelmed and burned out aren’t new, the pandemic exacerbated them.

“I’ve never seen people so burnt out, and I’ve never myself felt so burnt out,” she said.

A fellow BCPS high school educator and coordinator, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, agreed that the pandemic exacerbated preexisting issues, especially with the staffing shortage. However, the teacher added that the lack of support from the school administration and the school system overall adds to the struggle.

The educator, who’s been in the field for 30 years and with BCPS since 2007, claims that there’s a significant disconnect in what the higher-ups see within schools day-to-day and what really happens. And, while no longer in the classroom teaching day-to-day, the source works closely with teachers and sees the impact that the pandemic is having on them. 

“I think they’re just more exhausted because I think there’s the teacher shortage … but I have a feeling that is because they keep covering classes and they have no time to plan,” the educator said. “And if they have no time to plan, then you have to go home and do it.”

The educator added that if they were still in the classroom each day, they’d actively be looking for other employment.

Alongside the shortage and workload issues, Bost said teachers are experiencing students with significant learning loss and a severe lack of emotional skills and maturity. To compound matters, Bost said, teachers were expected to jump right back into teaching as they would pre-pandemic with students who spent a year and a half at home.

“There is a re-acclamation to school that has been tough to get through,” Bost said.

Both the educator and Amick as well as Sexton and Bost cited hiring more staff as a solution to many of the issues. Another common solution is to lessen the workload of teachers by reducing the amount of state testing requirements and benchmarks, which was done during the early days of the pandemic. Bost herself is advocating for this solution at the state level.

Bost also recommended that schools get rid of teacher committees and after-school meetings when possible. She also said school officials should redelegate administrative paperwork and recordkeeping.

Herndon said BCPS Superintendent Darryl Williams is looking for ways to get teachers more time off to address their needs.

Early this month, Williams decided to close schools for Thanksgiving break a day earlier than originally scheduled to allow a reprieve for educators. Further, during the Nov. 23 meeting of the school board, Williams proposed and got approved three additional early dismissal days throughout the remainder of the school year.

“We’re hearing what teachers are saying,” Herndon said.

Bost called the additional time off a “nice gesture,” but said it doesn’t address the root of the problem.

“We need to get rid of the demands,” Bost said.

Amick said she anticipated this change due to political pressures the school system faced and while she appreciates the extra day off, she doesn’t think it’ll solve anything.

“I think they are doing that so that people will stop accusing them of not caring about us,” Amick said. “Because that’s what’s happening right now. However, all of the problems that are leading to burnout cannot be fixed by one day, or two days, or six half days, or any amount of days of school that you call off. I really think that some serious other changes need to be made that demonstrate that there is substantial pressure on teachers.”