PBS News Hour

GEOFF BENNETT: The nation is in the middle of a teacher shortage.

And, at the end of another school year, burnout is causing many more teachers to call it quits.

Micaela DeSimone is a sixth grade English teacher in a charter school in Queens, New York, and explains how the past few years have changed her views on what was once her dream job.

She says her Brief But Spectacular take, as part of our open call for stories.

MICAELA DESIMONE, Educator: I don't know a teacher right now that's not struggling.

And I know a lot of teachers.

My father was a guidance counselor for 30 years.

We had a family of five on just his salary.

And he got the summers off.

He got to coach and be with people.

It looked like a joyous, fulfilling, satisfying and sustainable life.

So I just knew from an early age I wanted that.

So, I teach at a charter school in Long Island City, Queens.

We serve grades six through eight.

So, I'm at a middle school.

The biggest perk is, you get to see these people and experience these important life events with them.

I work with some of the most brilliant, incredible educators that you will ever meet.

They are open-minded, they are creative, they are collaborative, they are hardworking, and they are tired.

During COVID, teachers really had to learn a new job.

To teach over a screen was unbelievably infuriating and demoralizing.

Nobody turns their cameras on.

So you don't know if they're listening.

You don't know if they're there.

Again, I work in the midst of the largest housing projects in the country.

So, my students absolutely did not have access to this technology.

And that was during the phase of the pandemic where everyone was like, oh, my God, pay the teachers millions of dollars.

How are they doing this?

And that did not last long.

Once we finally figure out how to teach on zoom, they shove us back into the classroom without PPE.

I had 25 kids in a room.

How am I supposed to keep them six feet apart?

So what we saw when we got back to the classroom is, number one, your teachers are exhausted, but, also, the kids are exhausted.

And a lot of my students had been home for a year, a year-and-a-half without adult supervision.

The apathetic nature was frustrating and infuriating and demoralizing.

It's demoralizing because, when we asked for help, we didn't receive it.

So now I am running on a very low empathy tank and a very low resource tank, and my funds are being cut.

I'm not asking for more money for crayons.

I'm asking for a another special educator in the room, because my classroom is mandated to have one, hot spots for my students who don't have access to Internet, multilanguage learner specialists who can come help us with the immigrants that are being dropped off at our schools.

I have decided to leave teaching after this year, because it is at the point where my mental and physical health can't sustain this profession anymore.

It's a grieving process.

I'm mourning the loss of a life I expected, and I am mourning the loss of a future I'd always imagined for myself.

So, at the same time, I'm 30 years old, and I'm basically like a 22-year-old college graduate, because the only experience I have is in this very niche profession that nobody really knows what we do every day.

We're smart, and we're capable, and we manage 25 to 30 people at a time.

And yet the positions that I am qualified for are that of an intern.

So, as hard as it is to walk away from this, another even harder element is figuring out what to do next.

My name is Micaela DeSimone, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on teacher burnout.

AMNA NAWAZ: And you can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos online at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.