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From the mouths of Hillsborough County teachers

 
Superintendent Jeff Eakins listens to first-grade teacher Alysande Mitchell voice concerns during a Teacher Town Hall.
Superintendent Jeff Eakins listens to first-grade teacher Alysande Mitchell voice concerns during a Teacher Town Hall.
Published Dec. 20, 2015

Has it ever been easy to be a teacher?

We don't know. We can't say if the job is harder in Florida than anywhere else. Or if Hillsborough County stands out among Tampa Bay area school districts.

We do know that when Hillsborough superintendent Jeff Eakins invited teachers to a series of town hall meetings this month, they brought forth a lot of honesty.

Some of their statements were about issues unique to Hillsborough - such as the stalled teacher contract costs, and uncertainty surrounding the soon-to-be-completed Gates teacher evaluation experiment.

But they also expressed frustration shared by many in this era of high-stakes tests and grueling accountability.

Here is some of what the teachers told Eakins:

Lisa Culberson

Gaither High, science department chair


"I've had a ton of professional development and I have stacks of books about professional development sitting on my shelf because I had no time to read them.

"I missed a lot of my kids growing up because I'm a very good teacher. Some of us should be better parents but we can't be both."

Deanna Nadeau

Kimbell Elementary,fourth-grade teacher


"I always loved teaching. I loved teaching. I can't even tell you why. I'm supposed to be a teacher. (But) I hate my job. I look way too much for another job.

"I teach children that do not have anything. No books. I assess more than I teach which is foolish, because if I can't teach, I shouldn't be assessing. I'm testing fluency, but they're not reading out loud. My children are not fluent.

"Media center? I can send two kids, and this blows my mind, my children do not have materials they need at home. My students need books. They should be allowed to go to the media center on a weekly basis. My students in grade 4 have been to the library ... not more than five times this year.

"Three (teachers) have already left my school. Three people that had 20 kids in the classroom. Those children now have substitutes."


Tiffany Michaud

Cannella Elementary, Media specialist:


"Where's the fun? They're children. We're missing that. The curriculum in many cases is written so far over their heads that they just stare in compliance.

"They can't do anything on their own without being told because they never get a chance to talk or interact. It's, 'don't talk in the room,' 'don't talk in the cafeteria,' 'don't talk while you're waiting for the bus,' 'don't talk while you're eating breakfast.'

"There is no interaction. There is no fun. There is no support system for children, because they don't even know who's sitting next to them because they don't even get a minute to say hello."

Tonya Kentish

Middleton High School, reading coach:


"Morale is very low amongst teachers. We had a conversation the other day about why can't we keep good teachers? Why do teachers not have the work ethic that they used to have where they would want to come to work every day and when they came to work, they gave it 110 percent?

"We don't have that anymore. We have teachers saying, 'I'm leaving, y'all need to get somebody in here to cover this class right now.' I am spending a lot of my time putting out fires instead of giving teachers the support that I know they need.

"Teachers need a morale booster. We need something to spark a fire under teachers. Because I will not lie to you, last night I Googled, 'what can I do with my teaching degree besides teach?' I really didn't get much."

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Marcy Nussbaum

Bellamy Elementary, parent and third-grade teacher:


"I love my school. I love the teachers. The problem is, I'm also a teacher who hears the lunchroom conversations. These teachers have a job after teaching. They go and they're waitresses and librarians, they work at Publix and I'm thinking, how can you work after this?

"We sit around talking about how we went to bed at 9 o'clock and some people say they went to bed at three in the morning because they were still correcting tests. I switch to my parent brain and say, I have a teacher for my child who is that overworked and stressed?"

Christina Rodriguez

Rampello K-8 School, first-grade teacher:


"When I think about teaching, I think about sitting on an airplane. They let you know that when the cabin pressure drops and the breathing apparatus comes out, you need to put it on you first. We always should be thinking about our students. But when it comes to teaching right now, we need to put the apparatus on ourselves first. Because the teacher is that direct contact to the students."

Danielle Sweet

Gaither High, social studies department chair:


"There is no time to grade with rigor and relevance. I see people leaving this profession because you demoralize teachers. Morale is spiraling downward because you're just asking too much of the teachers. Teachers don't have time to grade those essays, and really correct them, and spend time with those students."


Christina Rodriguez

Rampello K-8, first-grade teacher:


"The success of those students in my room is only whatever knowledge is in my brain. I don't have time to plan for them. And even if I had plans, I don't have time to look at those plans during the day.

"And that doesn't have anything to do with emails that I need to answer, or there's a new Tier 2 form that I need to do, or my pre-observation, or anything like that.

"When do we get the most time to plan? At the beginning of the school year. We get six days. It's really not planning. It's setting up your classroom. I don't have those kids in front of me. I don't know anything about them. Guess what, when they get there? The room was set up wrong and I need to change it.


Myla Uppercue

Gaither High, guidance department chair:

"We have 2,153 students. So in order to ensure students and parents receive excellent customer service, many of us work 60 hours a week."


Evan Statman

Brandon High School, marketing teacher and track coach:


"When administration comes to me and says, 'We need you to do this, this and this,' I say, 'That's a great idea but when am I going to find the time?' Because I get to school at 6:15 in the morning. I leave at five, six o'clock, at night and check on my (on-the-job-training) students and there's days when I don't get home until 11 or 12:00 at night."


Kristy Verdi

Randall Middle, history teacher:


"I teach eighth grade U.S. history and this past week I learned that they had never heard of Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord, the shot heard around the world, Molly Pitcher. Never been exposed to it, so they say. They're honor students. They certainly don't know what state borders Florida to the north. Geography
has disappeared. I'm just letting you know that. It's like gone for some reason."


Alysande Mitchell

Robles Elementary, first-grade teacher who is paired with a co-teacher for a combined class:


"My new teacher, she actually decided to resign. I've been having subs in the classroom. So it's sort of like okay, yes, we're meeting the requirement, we have two adults in the classroom, two teachers, but at the same time I feel like the quality of my students' instruction would be better if the requirement was for it to be two certified teachers who have some experience.

"We are an ERT (extra reading time) school. We have to be there by 7:15 a.m. and I'm usually there early. And I usually leave late, 6 o'clock sometimes. And I'm a mother, I have three children, and I just try to put my all into it and I put countless hours into working at home as well."

Marlene Sokol covers the Hillsborough County public school system. Contact her at (813) 226-3356 or msokol@tampabay.com. Follow @marlenesokol.