Student, parents say they feel abandoned as K-12 Alberta kids head back to class Nearly one in six, or 16.4 per cent, of respondents said they will have retired by next year.
One in seven — 14.3 per cent — planned to leave teaching to join another profession. Nearly seven per cent of respondents said they would be leaving Alberta to teach in another location.“When you talk to teachers as to why, (they say it is) the lack of response that is clear from the government around COVID,” said ATA president Jason Schilling.He said teachers reported being frustrated they still had not received rapid test kits or medical masks.Schilling also said educators were interested in leaving because of the contentious draft curriculum.Compared to the previous survey asking the same questions, the number of teachers looking to leave the profession had doubled.Recently-retired principal Sue Bell appeared at a press conference with the NDP this week.
Alberta Education moves forward with K-6 curriculum She said she retired early because of the challenges teachers have had to face during the pandemic.“I would have worked for a few years more, but the last year-and-a-half just burnt me out, so I was done,” explained Bell.The educator of nearly 3 decades said the breaking point came when Alberta Health stopped doing contact tracing in schools.Teachers and support staff had to take over the task and Bell described working overtime, including on weekends, to notify families they had been in contact with a case of COVID-19.“From that point on, I did not have a day off until we went online in December.”In a statement, a press secretary for the Minister of Education disagreed with the findings.