“Out with the old and in with the new” seems to be the motto of some of the teachers at LSHS who have been leaving in the middle of the year. There has been a notable rise in teachers who have left in the middle of the year. LSHS is losing good teachers, and each year the numbers keep rising.
“Sometimes students can probably put pressure on teachers. Students can have a perfect vision of what a classroom can be and kind of put pressure on the teacher and the teacher might not like it and might not respond in the right way. So they might want to get out of that and go to a different place.” Senior Bentley St. John said.
Students can not learn properly if their teachers are constantly changing, and they are left with a substitute who knows little about the subject matter. Students who are already taking a hard class suddenly have a multitude of different teachers who teach in different ways, that’s when problems start occurring, and grades start to slip.
“I just feel like we’ve had subs who don’t know the stuff like they don’t know the subject at all and can’t teach it properly. When we did have a teacher, she was on her way out, so she wasn’t very committed. It just means that like I haven’t had a very good education, especially since I know kids last year in IB Anthropology who got sixes and sevens on the test. That’s not going to happen for this year.” Senior Charlotte Manganaro said
When students have their teachers constantly leave, their final grade is affected. They start to place lower on high-ranking tests like IB. The reason most teachers start leaving in the middle or even the beginning of the year is simply because some get better job opportunities, but some don’t even leave the district.
“I think three of my seven teachers left, and they didn’t leave like the district they just left. They just left our building because the administration at North was better. I know at least two of them went to North, and they thought that they were going just to be treated better and have better benefits.” Manganaro said
The constant change in admin is a recurring theme in the rise of the missing teachers. Not having stable leadership can put stress on the teachers. For four years straight, Lee’s Summit High School has been changing in ways that are pushing teachers to their breaking point.
“I think it’s a possibility that there will be some teachers who have been here for a long time that might just leave, just because this year is, like, the fourth year in a row that we just haven’t had like a normal school year. I can see how that would be pretty draining for teachers. I know it’s draining for students, and I can definitely see how some teachers would want to leave for next year.” Senior Caroline Huffington said.
