Central Florida teachers resigning in droves due to pay and lousy working conditions

[OrlandoDem2]

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/11/15/i-team-teacher-resignations-on-the-rise-in-central-florida-as-educators-struggle-to-make-living-wage/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=wkmg6&fbclid=IwAR2wH8lK7cDRfvoWDcS77ZcoVoRq3wZfUdWFNWUWkQeNCoSJdGhgwFl4q6o

As a personal testament I teach in Orange County. I cannot in good conscience recommend someone teach here. The state legislature is anti-public school. The local school board won’t raise pay and OCPS wants to increase insurance costs in a pandemic. The superintendent, Barbara Jenkins, couldn’t be more removed and isolated from the teachers.

The people who sit in the Ronald Blocker Educational Leadership Center in downtown Orlando should all come out to the schools and teach for one week. The working conditions are horrible and the pay sucks!

OCPS is flush with cash and they won’t pay a decent salary to veteran teachers. I have worked for 25 years and I make less than $65K. The superintendent makes $350K.Wow. I don’t expect to make that much but with what I endured I deserve a lot more than I make!

Don’t teach in Florida is the moral of the story!

[GPV]

1. They've been strangling the schools to death down there for a few decades, I think. The public

ones, anyway.

[Phoenix61]

2. They want to do to the public school system

what they did to jails and prisons, privatize them.

[Lonestarblue]

8. Exactly. And once privatized, white schools will educate and minority schools will not.

[Escurumbele]

9. Its not only that, an ignorant citizen is a very controllable citizen who will believe anything.

All totalitarian regimes eliminate education, books (like the book burning they wanted in VA), and any source of knowledge possible, they want people to be ignorant because those are the most gullible ones who will believe their lies.

You are correct about the privatization, the know that only the elite will be able to go to those private schools, the majority will be left out from any type of education.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Death Sentence wants to rule over a kingdom of elderly after driving families away?

[Sancho]

4. ...we are in FL...my wife just retired this year after 40 years of teaching...

There are shortages in most schools, and the universities are producing about half the number of expected teachers.

I'm still going. I work for the health insurance, and I'm a union officer.

Conditions and salaries for educators in Florida under the GOP are really bad. DeSatan is simply crazy.

Florida has collective bargaining in its Constitution, so there is resistance.

[twodogsbarking]

5. So the plan is working.

Keep 'em stupid and they vote for stupids.

[The Jungle 1]

6. Repukes hate teacher unions.

What is true is that there would be no teacher unions if the communities would have paid fair wages!!!!
These people want teachers to work for free.
What was eye opening for me was watching fathers attempt to coach little league. Herding cats. Teachers do it everyday.

[lark]

7. Rick Scott destroyed our educational system on purpose and the pay is insulting.

Substitute teachers make $10/hr. in FL, with no benefits. Teachers are required to take classes & advance their degree, but under Scott pay for that was eliminated. Teachers have been quitting in droves ever since, it's not just this year only the pandemic & Death Sentence greatly increased the rate of attrition. My daughter has a double BS with a teaching credential and taught English in Brazil, but she will not be a teacher in this state, no way. So glad she made that decision before the pandemic.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. Best wishes to you, OrlandoDem2 and we hope things improve for you.

The best thing long-term for the USA's mental, physical and financial health is the very best teachers and schools and you deserve better.

My daughter is a 5th grade teacher here in KY, so we can relate. Right-wingers are constantly challenging school budgets as if they're wasteful and excessive even though they absolutely not.

So, their efforts effectively inject a negative feedback on the long-term well-being of our state. The less educated their kids are, the more they will become brainwashed and protest even more.

A Republican/Russian dream come true.......

[OrlandoDem2]

11. Orange County Classroom Teachers Association speaks on the situation

https://www.orangecta.com/THE-STATE-OF-THE-SCHOOLS-FROM-OCCTA-S-PERSPECTIVE-6-20645.html?link_id=1&can_id=fa53717614d5936d328c5e0c58786411&source=email-news-and-updates-october-25-2021&email_referrer=email_1362483&email_subject=news-and-updates-november-19-2021

At last week’s OCPS State of the Schools event, Superintendent Barbara Jenkins said:

We hold our students and employees to the following values - equity, integrity, inclusion, collaboration, respect and innovation. These values also respect our culture and what we stand for.

Indeed, these values are at the core of a quality education and our students deserve nothing less. Unfortunately, these values are seldom exhibited or upheld in relationships that District leaders and administrators have with the teachers and with the Union that represents them. We must lead by example—we cannot truly hold our students and employees to these values if we do not hold District leaders and administrators to them.

The State of the Schools in Orange County, from the perspective of educators, is regrettably quite different than what was presented by OCPS. From teachers’ perspective, OCPS is in crisis. Here are just a few of the most prominent things teachers are saying about the state of our schools.

OCPS’ teacher shortage speaks to the true state of our schools. It short changes our educators, short changes our students and short changes Florida’s future.

The District has ignored teachers’ pleas to end the practices that have caused an endless stream of resignations and early retirements and the inability to recruit qualified educators. There are currently ten pages of instructional vacancies listed on the OCPS website and every week there are hundreds of unfilled substitute vacancies. Almost 700 teachers left OCPS since the beginning of the school year, and 2,099 resigned or retired last school year up about 22% from the previous school year. The public is ill-served when our teachers are not valued or provided livable wages that attract and retain qualified and dedicated educators. Our students deserve to be in a classroom with a skilled teacher, not a permanent substitute.

The teacher shortage is caused by a shortage of decent pay and benefits. A shortage of transparency and accountability. A shortage of time to complete mandated tasks. A shortage of autonomy. A shortage of deference to teacher voice. A shortage of respect. A shortage of the values that were touted by the Superintendent.
OCPS has treated teachers as disposable, replaceable labor units rather than as valued and respected professionals. Superintendent Jenkins characterized OCPS as a “premier local employer of choice.” Sadly, this has not been the case for some time as OCPS has earned a reputation as an autocratic, top-down district where teachers are not given a seat at the table. Teachers are leaving this District after their stressful and challenging employment experience at OCPS. It is telling that 92% of educators who responded to an OCCTA survey said they did not feel supported by District leaders. Recruitment and retention will remain critical until District leaders take the steps they have been urged to take, but have failed to take, for years.

The District’s decision not to budget for badly needed teacher raises is an affront to the families that keep this school system running.

District leaders acknowledge that teacher pay is too low and that there are very real and devastating inequities for veteran teachers. Yet OCPS refuses to use even one penny of District funds for a base salary increase. This is a choice.

The District consistently over-budgets leaving millions of dollars on the table, it has also consistently underestimated reserves and maintained at least 17% in its reserves fund for years when the statutory requirement is only 3%. The District is choosing to maintain a bloated piggy bank when these extra funds could be used to provide fair and competitive salaries.


***Folks, things are bad in Orange County schools. Please contact your school board member and tell them Barbara Jenkins works for them. They do NOT work for Barbara Jenkins. It’s time for this Board to stand up for teachers and after about 15 years, it’s time for Jenkins to go.