Before nationwide school closures due to the coronavirus, the Jackson-Madison County School System was working to learn why so many were leaving the district, including 44 teachers from August 2019 to February of this year.
Kristen Rice, now a financial consultant at Regions, was a kindergarten teacher at Arlington Elementary for about three years before deciding to leave the profession in 2018 because of behavioral issues that disrupted educating her students, one of several reasons she says JMCSS experiences a lot of turnover.
Rice believes teachers are resigning because of issues with student behavior, a lack of administrative support and being overburdened by too many responsibilities.
“It’s where they’re at, how they’re being treated and if they’re being supported or not,” Rice said. “I didn’t feel supported by my administration. When I left, there wasn’t a ‘what can I do to fix this?’”
The concerns Rice expressed were also cited as concerns by a committee of educators that district Human Capital Director Tiffany Green had been working with and what outgoing Jackson-Madison County Education Association President Janis Carroll had been presenting as teacher concerns to the school board.
'I would cringe thinking about going back the next day'
The biggest challenge in teaching kindergarten was behavior, Rice said. Many of her students had either never attended school or not learned what was appropriate behavior for an educational setting.
“We couldn’t teach; we had to focus on behavior,” Rice said.
Rice said most of the behavioral outbursts in her classes were a result of some students not being able to process the information, thus not learning and becoming frustrated.
Leading up to the day she resigned in August 2018, she said she started the school year with 14 students, a number that increased to 24. She was chosen to have an inclusion class, which is a combined class of students who do and do not have individualized education plans, which can be for reasons such as speech or academic performance.
For one of her students with an IEP, the parent wanted the student to be exempt from discipline. That student would climb on tables, trip others in the hallways, run around and yell, Rice said.
“It became, ‘I have to stop my teaching because I can’t tell him no,’” she said. “It interfered with student learning, and that was one of my biggest concerns: that my kids were not getting what they needed.”
“We were held to such a high standard in kindergarten,” Rice said of the stress and the many responsibilities she had.
She and others weren’t told that they’d be disciplined or lose their jobs for low test scores, but it was understood that they might be moved to another school or grade level, Rice said.
Teachers’ performance is affected by how students perform on some state tests.
“There were some days I would go home and I would cringe thinking about going back the next day because of what I went through that day,” she said.
Two doctors even recommended she change jobs because of the stress it was causing her.
Now, after almost two years out of teaching, Rice said she misses it — but not enough to return.
“I keep seeing what’s happening, how discipline is still an issue and how attendance is becoming an issue,” she said. “I see all they’re going through."
Teacher turnover and absences
From the start of the 2019-20 school year last August through February, 44 JMCSS teachers resigned, along with two counselors/psychologists and one librarian. That included seven resignations at North Parkway Middle and eight at Liberty High.
Yearly turnover for teachers in the district averages about 100, which is a national average but is unacceptable, said former Superintendent Ray Washington.
A retention committee was created to learn why teachers are leaving JMCSS, find ways to reduce turnover and make the district a better workplace.
Support with behavior and discipline was one of two concerns the committee wants the district to review and base its retention plan around.
"We can’t afford to lose 100 teachers every year,” JMCSS board chairman James “Pete” Johnson said.
Teachers were not just resigning, but missing significant amount of time at work.
For example, from August 2019 to January 2020, Andrew Jackson Elementary had 146 teacher absences, compared to 178 absences in the entirety of the 2018-19 school year; Jackson Career and Technology Elementary saw 254 absences through January compared to 239 the year before; and Lincoln Elementary had 273 absences from August to January compared to 270 in the entire previous school year.
Carroll, the outgoing JMCEA president, has also presented several teacher concerns to the board.
In a letter to Carroll, one first-year teacher expressed concern that classroom sizes are too large, especially considering behavioral issues. In another letter, a 26-year JMCSS teacher said she left in part because she spent the majority of her time addressing discipline instead of teaching.
Teacher morale: An appeal for improvement among a perception that many aren’t complaining
What could be different?
Looking back, Rice said she would have liked to have more help in her classroom, like a full-time aid. That support could have made her stay, but she said she had to put her health first.
One change Rice wants to see is how students are disciplined, especially for engaging in physical violence.
The district should focus on how discipline is addressed, ensuring that consequences match the behavior, she said. While students shouldn’t have the opportunity to continually disrupt class, some consequences can be too extreme, like in-school suspension for cursing. Others don’t address extreme behavior, like hitting a teacher.
When there are no consequences, it shows other students that they can act the same way, Rice said.
Teachers need to be supported in how they handle discipline in the classroom, and the administration should have a way to address that behavior if it can’t be handled in the classroom, she said.
Under new Superintendent Marlon King, district leadership is working on a disciplinary framework, which would include the steps and process detailing how students are disciplined.
'Support can make or break you'
Rice has maintained her teaching license, said but her heart isn’t in it anymore. If anything, she said she might pursue a degree in psychology and consider returning as a counselor instead of a teacher.
“It was hard having 23 little minds in my hands and being responsible for making sure they go to the next grade and learned all they need to learn,” she said.
That’s what she thought about as she worked to educate students through the daily disruptions.
It was hard for Rice, who has general anxiety disorder. The responsibility of the job was like a huge weight off her chest when she resigned, she said.
“(After resigning) I didn’t take things home with me every day, like are they going to eat tonight and are they going to have clean clothes tomorrow,” she said. ‘I took all that home with me every single day until it finally took its toll. I couldn’t do it anymore.”
It breaks her heart that she’s not using the degree she worked five years to get, and it saddens her when she learns of other teachers quitting their jobs or the profession.
She just wishes there was more support.
“Support can make or break you,” she said. “Support can be difference between ‘I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow’ or ‘I can’t wait to go to work tomorrow.'"
Lasherica Thornton is The Jackson Sun's education reporter. Reach her at 731-343-9133 or by email at lthornton@jacksonsun.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LashericaT
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Former JMCSS teacher: Student discipline at the heart of turnover issues - The Jackson Sun
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