As we closed on the end of 2020, all of us realized how unsettling the year had been because of the COVID-19 pandemic. One profession in particular, teaching, had seen tremendous challenges for grade schools, middle schools, and high school educators. Because of the changes and health concerns, more and more school systems were seeing teachers opting to leave the classroom and to either retire early or to seek out other career opportunities. In many cases there were not enough willing replacements, and when that happened many school systems put more work on the staffs they had.

Across the country in 2020 we saw schools forced to deal with openings and closings in the face of the virus. This put tremendous pressure on America's teachers. Many teachers were asked to weigh risks to their personal health and to teach in person. Others were made to teach online and to perfect distance learning. Some were made to do both. According to a CNBC survey in December 2020, 77 percent of educators were working more today than a year ago. 60 percent said they enjoyed teaching less and 59 percent did not feel secure in the school system's health and safety precautions. The same study found roughly 27 percent were considering leaving their jobs, retiring early, or taking a leave of absence because of the pandemic.

The numbers seem to line-up with an August 2020 NEA(National Education Association) study that found 28 percent of teachers having been made more likely to retire early or leave the profession because of the virus. This could lead to a shortage of qualified teachers. If it happens 40 percent of teachers contemplating this with 21 to 30 years of experience...could see schools suffer a severe loss of leaders and mentors on their campuses. This also includes 43 percent of minority teachers that are considering leaving. Also too COVID-19 is causing many new and young teachers to consider leaving the profession as well.

Even before the pandemic, large numbers of educators were already leaving the profession because of the financial pressures the job places on their lives. Then COVID-19 entered the picture in early 2020. As schools finally started opening back up in the fall of 2020, to keep their jobs most had to return to their physical classrooms. They quickly had to deal with face coverings, plexi-glass shields, constant sanitizing, social distancing, and the fears about the virus spreading to themselves. When schools started closing again and going virtual, many teachers say their teaching duties became much more difficult. This because of the inability of some children to adapt to online, engagement problems, and having to adapt to virtual learning teaching techniques that many teachers were never fully prepared for.
Hopefully school closings because of COVID-19 will one day be a thing of the past. Most educational experts believe that the closings have created massive destruction on our children. Barely any social interaction between school friends, behavior disorders, the missing of healthy foods, learning difficulties, and yes even the rise in child abuse...are all things we've seen since the pandemic arrived. In April 2020 JAMA(the Journal of the American Medical Association) estimated a probable decrease of 5.53 million years of life for children because of the closings. Scenarios if they go on will lead to lower life income, poorer health, and reduced educational attainment.
And, the data suggests that during the pandemic schools that opened up, actually had little reason to be concerned about the COVID-19 spreading to children and teachers. An article from "Nature" recently "cited multiple studies indicating that the spread among children in schools is low." In fact, children are less likely to transmit the virus to adults, like parents and staff members, than adults who would infect each other. One final note, data shows that school closures are not a matter normally of public health, but of lobbying groups who sway government officials to support their special interests...such as teacher unions.
Vaccines may provide a remedy for the pandemic if they're safe and effective. However, the COVID-19 virus is already mutating and changing, which makes me wonder if it will ever be made to completely go away. Remember how there has never been a preventive vaccine for the common cold! That may mean students, teachers, and parents may be facing in-person school and online learning issues for a long time if the coronavirus doesn't go away. Again, all of this causing many educators to re-examine their careers...with many deciding it just may not be worth it anymore.