More Philly teachers preparing to leave?
Based on your comments, emails, tweets and phone calls, I struck a nerve.
That is: my recent story about teachers leaving or contemplating leaving the Philadelphia School District because of a three-year contract stalemate resonated with some people, made others lament how teachers are treated ("sad commentary,") and really ticked off others.
People were pretty astonished that Bryan Steinberg, a teacher at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, is thinking of leaving teaching to become a bartender. But in messages, others told me they were in similar positions. Someone said he recently left to become a full-time DJ. Someone else is now working in the medical field. Someone else is thinking about becoming a trucker. ("To add insult to injury, they have us do more work, additional roles and duties in the building that have nothing to do with teaching and bury us in non-teaching related paperwork. It's a mess," wrote one teacher, who resigned recently.) Others are leaving for the suburbs, or looking hard to go that way.
On the other end of the spectrum, some folks suggested it was foolish of teachers to bank on raises, that their salaries are decent considering how dramatically health-care costs are rising, etc.
Some teachers told me this year will be the deciding factor - if a contract is settled, they'll stay, but if not, they can't make it work any longer. Significant changes are afoot at the School Reform Commission, with Chair Marge Neff and Commissioner Feather Houstoun recently announcing their resigations; candidates for Neff's seat are being vetted by the mayor's office and a replacement will be named "in the coming weeks." Houstoun's successor will be nominated by Gov. Wolf, and that timetable is less clear. The term of a third commissioner, Sylvia Simms, expires in January. With those unknowns, and no new bargaining sessions scheduled, I wonder how many other teachers will be tendering their resignations.