Over half of teachers want to quit from burnout

Even after two years, the effects of the pandemic continue to plague the workforce, with some industries struggling more than others. For teachers, the last few years have been relentless.

Since the pandemic, burnout in teachers has been running rampant, forcing many out the door. Fifty-five percent of educators indicate they’re ready to leave the profession earlier than planned, according to the National Education Association, the largest teacher union in the U.S. And without the right amount of support, they’ll go through with it.

“[For teachers], there’s been a series of stages of stressors,” says Lynette Guastaferro, CEO of Teaching Matters, a nonprofit organization that coaches, mentors and emotionally supports educators. “The first stage of stress was the move to remote instruction with little to no preparation on how to deliver instruction virtually. We all had to learn how to use Zoom for a meeting — they had to learn how to manage 30 kids. This is a totally different skill set.”

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When teachers returned to school, the circumstances only worsened. The emotional toll of worrying about whether they were getting through to students was lifted by being back in the classroom, according to Guastaferro, but it was quickly replaced by other stressors — mask mandates and hybrid learning being the primary concerns.

“Moving into a blended environment where you had some kids in school and some kids at home was actually worse than the first part,” she says. “It’s exhausting. [Teachers] had to unlearn what they’d learned from teaching digitally, because now they have kids in the classroom as well.”

Mask mandates also added complications, Guastaferro says. Teachers cannot remove their masks during the day, and an inability to see their students’ faces caused stress, too. While some mask mandates are being lifted, the more crucial solution is providing more support and counseling, she says.

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Providing teachers with someone else to voice their concerns could go a long way — in fact, retention can be increased up to 33% when teachers receive four days of professional development and eight individual days of coaching, according to data from Teaching Matters.

“Until we're finally back to normalcy where school is like it used to be, we're going to still be in this place,” Guastaferro says. “Having somebody else problem-solve with you around, that alone reduces the stress level.”