By Sammy Ginsberg
I am back in LA! Arrived on Monday after a lovely time in London. Very healing. I left LA in turmoil and I returned to LA at peace.
Well, kinda. The airport was intense, with two women getting in a screaming match in Teslas. And then my Mom triggered me in the car, and I burst into tears screaming, “I want to go back!” like a child.
I was triggered by a few things that my Mom said. My mom cares about me, and wanted to share her concerns with the plan I have in place to help me, but instead it made me panic. These concerns are relevant and real, and I am working through them. But I am really scared.
I am taking a risk, and I don’t know how it will turn out. I am choosing to believe that I will figure it out. I am choosing to listen to love instead of fear. But damn is it fucking hard.
By resigning as a full-time teacher and moving to the substitute teacher unit to work part time until I am stable enough to teach again, I have chosen to sacrifice my healthcare, my retirement plan, four years of seniority, and a $50,000 pay cut.
This is how painful and traumatic my experience teaching was at LAUSD.
I still love teaching and believe in the mission to provide quality education for all “to thrive in college, career, and life” – however, I myself as an educator working for LAUSD was unable to thrive. By my fourth year working for LAUSD, I was not even surviving. I went on medical leave twice this year from November to December, and May to June from burnout. I am not the first teacher to experience this, and I won’t be the last.
What makes me so fucking upset is that I typed in “Teacher Burnout Los Angeles Support Group” and found nothing. Well, that’s not true. I found a teacher support group in fucking Canada!
I decided to have a call with Lynn, the therapist in Canada, and I shared about my situation. She then told me about a teacher she worked with this year. Get this!
| Teacher at LAUSD (aka ME!) | Teacher in Canada |
| 2021-2022 Teacher was starting to burn out in her first year as a teacher at LAUSD responsible for four curriculums with one co-teacher after completing credential 100% online, still completing CalTPA, clearing the induction program, and having all faculty and PD meetings on Zoom. She contacted her induction mentor who told her that there was nothing they could do and that they had it way harder back in the 90s when they started teaching. She contacted her administrator who told her that there was nothing they could do, and that next year it would be easier. She asked for mentors who had taught or were currently teaching her curriculums to meet with her after school and was told that could not be provided. Thus she applied for a Masters in Secondary ELA Education at a local university and was accepted. 2022-2023 The next year, she was given an additional co-teacher to work with on top of the same four curriculums, while also working on her Masters in night classes after school. She started to have health issues as well as conflicts with her roommates and boyfriend caused by burn out. She discovered that year that having four curriculums as a first year teacher was against the UTLA contract on top of the fact that the average number of curriculums in her department was 2, and thus requested two preps and one co-teacher as she was violated in her first year and was the department average at her school. She was told this was not possible, and was offered to teach three curriculums, two the same with my two co-teachers and a new prep. Her union rep said there was nothing they could do. She agreed, cleared her credential, and became a permanent status employee at the school district. 2023-2024 In her third year, she had conflicts with her co-teachers, and again contacted administrators and her union reps saying that she was burning out, requesting 2 curriculums and one co-teacher. Her administrators told her that they were hiring many teachers over the summer and that they would let her know. Before school started her fourth year, she asked the administrator what had been done. She found out that they had kept two co-teachers, and given her three curriculums and three grade-levels, one a brand new course that had just been launched that year. She consulted her union rep asking to use her seniority or file a grievance. He said that he didn’t recommend either, and that it was too late to do anything. 2024-2025 In her fourth year, she got an FMLA note for stress to take two days off a month that legally she was not allowed to work on, however the problem causing the stress was too much work, so how would not working on those days help? When her boyfriend broke up with her due to work stress and her first boyfriend died by suicide in the same week, she took medical leave for two weeks and then when returned requested two curriculums and one co-teacher or to be able to transfer to another school that could provide that. She returned off and on until she had five days of panic attacks in a row, and then took medical leave until the end of Fall Semester. She was able to transfer to a different school that gave her three curriculums and two grade-levels with no co-teachers. There were challenges, however, she reached out to the teacher she had replaced and started weekly coaching sessions, on top of a mentor in the ELA department and the instructional coach, however, when she was told she would be responsible for four curriculums the next year, she tried to speak to the administrator about it, and ended up having a panic attack in front of the administrator. She went on medical leave until the end of the Spring semester. After consulting her union, HR, her principal and two other administrators, she resigned as a teacher and will be transitioned to the sub unit indefinitely taking a $50,000 paycut and losing her healthcare and four years of seniority. | 2024-2025 Teacher was starting to burn out from one new prep. She contacted the administrator who connected her with Lynn, a therapist who specializes in working with teachers who walked her through the process at her school site to get her needs met as a teacher, thus the teacher went on leave for a few months, and when she returned, was given a modified assignment and an experienced co-teacher already teaching the curriculum at her school to train her to teach the curriculum. |
Isn’t that so fucking fucked up!! The difference? The system.
Our educational system is dysfunctional and it needs to be improved.
It doesn’t matter if I survive one more year in the classroom, until our education system is improved, I will be trapped in survival mode.
When I went to my three week group out patient program I met two other LAUSD teachers. One had been teaching for 17 years!
I asked them, “How did you do it?”
“Anti-anxiety meds and alcohol. We’re all miserable if that makes you feel better.”
Uhm no it fucking doesn’t!! You mean I can work hard for 13 more years as a teacher for LAUSD- and that’s what I get!!! FUCK THAT.
I have chosen instead to spend my time and energy to improve the education system. It turns out that as a teacher in the system, you have no power to improve it. You can only survive.
Thus, I have decided to leave the classroom. I have been offered two roles at two universities – one at California State University of Northridge and one at Cambridge University- by two professors that I admire working on projects to improve the support and infrastructure for teachers of writing. They have given me the title and the email of Engagement Specialist, and have a little bit of money, but not enough for me to actually live on.
I am hoping that by doing this work, I can improve the system to help students and teachers (and their families) thrive in college, career, and life!
I believe that this is important work, that through improving the teaching of writing, we as a society can become more thoughtful, reflective, and informed. We as a society can become better communicators so that instead of using bombs and guns and fists and threats, we can use our words.
I will apply for grant after grant until we get the funding to make this possible. I am doing this work for love.
I am choosing to believe that by following love and working to serve teachers of writing and writers of all backgrounds, the resources I need to do this work will find me.
At the time that I write this, I don’t know what will happen. In a time where our administration is defunding education, libraries, and DEI initiatives like Walmart on Black Friday, I feel a little crazy having left my secure job for unfunded positions.
However, honestly, after resigning, my mental health has improved immensely. I feel hope again. I feel like myself again. My future feels bright again. Isn’t that sad?
This is a huge risk, and I feel really scared right now. Especially in LA where it is necessary to drive just to get to work or the grocery store or see family. Where people choose to hit people with their car at a nightclub in my neighborhood of East Hollywood and injure 36 people. Where ICE raids are happening, and I constantly walk past people sleeping on the ground on the way to get coffee in the morning. Where half-dressed, starving angels rave and rant and shit on the streets, that I ignore because I can barely take care of myself.
I am so privileged, and yet I can barely take care of myself in this fucking dysfunctional city as a teacher (which is supposed to be a good job).
If I am struggling in this way, imagine how others are doing. We don’t have to imagine. It’s happening. Right in front of me. I see it. It’s happening on Instagram. It’s happening far away in Palestine.
These human rights violations. How are we so powerless? How did this happen? How can we change it? Is money really the solution despite being the root of all evil? If I just had money, would everything be better?
I don’t believe in that. From growing up in Calabasas, I learned that even people with money are miserable and feel powerless. It seems that there is never enough money to solve all the problems that need solving. And that just as you solve one problem, another problem pops up, it’s a whack-a-mole situation.
I believe that is because money will not solve the problems; it is love Love is all we need. You can’t buy love. Just ask Donald. You can buy sex, but you can’t buy love.
Love is all we need!
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