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2022-08-29 -Great Cultural Revolution
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School districts roll out mental health initiatives for teachers as staffing woes, burnout plague educators
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[FoxNews] 'It’s all pretty bad,' one researcher says of depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion among elementary school teachers.
| Some will no doubt benefit themselves and their students by taking this as a sign to change their careers. |
School districts across the country are rolling out initiatives to help alleviate stress among educators that was exacerbated during government-ordered pandemic lockdowns and has continued to this year as districts struggle with staffing issues and students who have fallen behind socially and academically since the lockdowns.
"The demands on all of us were really high and we were trying to make up for lost time for the couple of years that they fell back on their curriculum. But we forgot that they haven’t been in school for a couple of years so they missed that social-emotional piece. We are dealing with that in the classroom," a New Hampshire fifth grade teacher, Karen Bowden-Gurley, told the Associated Press.
One researcher at the University of Delaware School of Education found that levels of depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion among elementary school teachers are 100% to 400% higher than before the pandemic
"It’s all pretty bad," said Leigh McLean, the primary investigator at the Teacher Emotions, Characteristics, and Health Lab at the University of Delaware School of Education.
As the new school year kicks off, districts across the country are suffering with staffing shortages that began plaguing school districts nationwide during the pandemic. Teachers had sounded off about burnout stemming from the uncertainty during lockdowns, including switching to remote learning, moving to hybrid learning, and eventually transitioning back to in-class instruction in 2020 and 2021. Teachers unions often supported remote learning, even as late as 2022 in cities such as Chicago.
About 300,000 public school teachers and staff have left the field between Feb. 2020 and May 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A February survey from the National Education Association found that 55% of teachers reported that they are thinking about leaving the profession. A whopping 79% of teachers report dissatisfaction with their careers, according to a July American Federation of Teachers survey.
Teachers reported that the fallout from lockdowns is not their only stressor. They also pointed to the threat of school shootings, such as the one in Uvalde, Texas, in May that left 19 students and two teachers dead. Daniels argued that parents speaking out against some curricula taught in school districts, students being socially and academically behind following remote learning, and more violence reported among students at schools have added to the stressors educators feel.
To help retain teachers and prevent burnout, some districts have increased mental health training for staff, hired social and emotional learning coaches for educators, are holding classes on breathing exercises for teachers and students, and one Texas school district even plans to build "calming rooms" for teachers, where they can go and chill out during times they aren’t in the classroom. 
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Posted by Skidmark 2022-08-29 00:00||
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Posted by Skidmark 2022-08-29 02:19||
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Posted by Procopius2k 2022-08-29 07:51||
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Posted by Chris 2022-08-29 08:11||
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Posted by Warthog 2022-08-29 09:13||
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Posted by magpie 2022-08-29 23:43||
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00:41 Grom the reflective
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