- April 24, 2024
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Flagler Schools lost 21 teachers between March 1 and Oct. 1 this year due to retirement — up from just nine during the same time frame in 2019.
The increase reflects teachers’ wariness of teaching in-person classes during the pandemic.
Celine Bradley was one of the district’s retirees.
“I was hoping to finish the year out: That was my original goal,” she said.
Bradley had been scheduled to teach fourth grade at Wadsworth Elementary this year, but didn’t want to teach face-to-face because she falls into the high risk category for COVID-19.
The district offered teachers a remote-instruction option in which they’d be teaching students via webcam, but even in that case, the teachers are required to be on campus and participate in things like cafeteria duty and recess duty, so that didn’t seem like an ideal option either.
Bradley was, at least initially, placed in a third option: teaching via iFlagler, the district’s virtual learning platform.
That still required teachers to teach from a district building, but with fewer ancillary face-to-face tasks.
The district’s iFlagler enrollment boomed from 39 full-time iFlagler students last year to 1,458 as of early September this year.
But by October, the number had dropped down to 1,154, and the district began reassigning teachers like Bradley.
“They called me up one afternoon and said that they had a drop in iFlagler enrollment … and I was chosen from Wadsworth to be face-to-face,” Bradley said. “And I just could not do that.”
That was on Sept. 23. Bradley was already in the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Program, or DROP, but had planned to work at least another year.
She considered taking leave but decided that didn’t make sense because things likely wouldn’t be better by the time she’d need to return.
“I love teaching; it’s a second career for me,” said Bradley, who’d previously been a technical writer. “I wasn’t burned out. So I wanted to keep teaching.”
Now she stays home, helping her own grandson with his iFlagler kindergarten classes.
Those reassignments have frustrated some teachers.
“I’d thought they would have done more for people at high risk,” Bradley said.
She said she appreciated the fact that the district extended an early retirement option that had been offered in June, allowing teachers to take it up through September.
“The response to the pandemic in general is what is causing this problem, not my school district,” Bradley said. “I don’t really have a lot to say against my school district: They went with numbers, and, granted, parents have a lot of say. But I guess teachers don’t feel that their health and wellbeing is being thought of in the same way.”
School Board members and district Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt spoke of the pandemic’s effect on the district during an Oct. 20 School Board meeting.
“Superintendent Mittelstadt is making sure that every part of our community is being heard, listened to and collaborated with to make improvements as we all figure out this new system that we have,” School Board Chairwoman Janet McDonald said.
Mittelstadt said the district is awaiting guidance from the state on the future of its remote-live learning option.
“I’ve been approached by parents in our community regarding our innovative learning model — the one in which our teachers are remotely teaching into the homes of our students ... and they want to know, well, what does January 2021 look like?” she said. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can tell you I’ve been in contact with the Department of Education. ... Mid-November or early November, we’ll receive another executive order ... which will give us some guidance on what January may bring to our teaching lanes, particularly the remote-live model.”
While the district wants to make sure it offers great opportunities for students who need to be served in their home environment rather than at school, she added, “I do think it’s critically important that we look at the heavy load that we’ve placed on our teachers regarding how to do that mixed model. ... We don’t want these unintended consequences from this pandemic to lose great teaching or employees. Throughout our district, we’ve lost employees in all aspects of how we’re trying to keep moving our district forward.”
