“I Am Continuously Distressed by the State of Public Education.”

I have been a teacher since 2021, and am continuously distressed by the state of public education. One of the most difficult things since starting my career has been watching educators that I met during my Masters of Teaching, choose to seek other careers. Very few folks from my cohort currently work as teachers, and are pursuing different professional programs in the hopes of finding other work outside of this field. It is simply untenable to ask teacher candidates to complete so many years of education, only to struggle with job insecurity before securing a permanent contract, and to accept the low starting salary and hours.

There are also many negative ramifications for our students, every single day. Our school does not offer cafeteria services or breakfast clubs, leaving those from lower-income households to seek out other opportunities for the most basic of needs - nourishment. In addition, I have purchased school supplies with my own money in order to ensure that students have access to all necessary materials because our school simply doesn't have enough funding to pay for even the most basic supplies.

I also struggle with the unattainability of field trips. I would love to give students the opportunity to apply what they've learned in our classrooms. Unfortunately, there is very little funding available to subsidize these learning experiences for students. Maintaining motivation after removing real-life experiential learning opportunities is challenging, to say the least.

Finally, the struggle of supporting all students and their varied needs in de-streamed classrooms is near impossible. It is a daily challenge to offer meaningful and regular feedback to students in learning when we are responsible for scaffolding work to have multiple points of entry for 30+ kids. In addition to the daily behaviour and mental health challenges, educational goals are often abandoned in the name of survival. It's tough out here!

– OSSTF Member