The Mass Exodus

About ten years ago as a teacher specialist I prepared for New Teacher Orientation for 400 new teachers coming to our district. At the time naïve Angie didn’t really pay attention to why there were so many new teachers coming in. I wrongly assumed it was because several teachers retired that particularly year, but those thoughts have since changed. Last year I only talked to one person about why she was leaving the district, and she said she had interviewed twice to be assistant principal and wasn’t asked for a second interview, which is apparently a part of the hiring process for that position. Last year when another district offered her a position as assistant principal and a significant pay raise, she took it. Here’s what I know. This wonderful lady and I worked together, so I know how hard she worked and how dedicated she was to her students as both a teacher and as a dean. One of our administrators shook his head sadly that she was leaving and said that Norfolk has let a tremendous asset go. That was just the tip of the iceberg. I mistakenly went into this school year thinking that all was well, and two weeks ago the bottom dropped. I received message after message that teachers were leaving the district for the pastures of Virginia Beach. Teachers that taught my own son were leaving. Friends I had met as a teacher specialist were leaving. People I valued and respected in my own building were leaving, and then I realized I had to say something. How did we get to this point where people were so disheartened that they are leaving a place I’ve been with for 26 years? Are there problems? Of course there are. As teachers who have left have said, Virginia Beach has problems too, but the leaders have dialog with teachers and address those problems differently. So here we are with a mass exodus of people leaving Norfolk and heading to Virginia Beach. Here we are another year where teacher specialists will prepare for new teachers coming in. But wait, last school year not every classroom had a certified teacher. Many positions were filled by long-term substitutes. A parent just told me this past weekend that she pulled her child out of a school because the subs kept changing in her daughter’s classroom. Are we going to continue to create a culture where so many leave, or are we going to have the difficult conversations that bring everyone to the table to come up with solutions?