Literary Pixie

By Sammy Ginsberg

After four years of teaching for LAUSD, I have resigned due to burn out.

I will be working part time as a substitute teacher, as well as at the CSUN Writing Project and Writing Partners while I heal and figure out what to do next. I am also working on the Los Feliz Writers Festival, although that is 100% a labor of love. I would love to figure out grants and make it sustainable, but who knows in this climate. 

For the last four years, I told my colleagues, mentors, UTLA reps, Human Resource staff, and administrators that I was suffering from burnt out. They told me there was nothing they could do, gave me a mental health hotline, and told me to go see my doctor. 

My doctor told me to go to therapy. My therapist told me that while my work situation sounded against the UTLA contract, they couldn’t advocate for me within the school district and all they could do was work on my coping and resilience skills. I told them, I wanted group therapy specifically for teachers suffering from burn out. They told me it didn’t exist. I googled it. It doesn’t. 

But it does in Canada. I spoke to Lynn at Thrive for Teachers and she shared about a similar situation to mine and how it was resolved:

A teacher was starting to burn out from one new class that she had never taught, on top of two other classes. 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 finishing every day at lunch time, and was given an experienced co-teacher already teaching the curriculum at her school to train her to teach the curriculum.

When I asked for support for my burn out, I was told I had to either work my assigned full-time schedule or resign as a teacher. I was told, maybe you’re just not cut out to be a teacher. I was forced to resign.

I have been forced to take a $50,000 pay cut and lose my healthcare because of my burn out. I am currently working through this situation, and have been writing a blog-novel titled Burnt Out Bitch about my experience to prevent it from happening to other teachers and help our school district improve.

Lynn runs a 12 week group therapy program in Canada specifically for teachers. She charges $1200 dollars because in Canada all therapists receive $1200 a year to spend on therapy and mental health support however they choose. I spoke to my therapist in LA who was a teacher for 7 years before working on their LMFT about her program.

They will be running a 12 week virtual group coaching program together starting August 25th on Mondays from 6pm to 7:30pm. I’ll be attending the sessions! There are still spots available.

I only wish this existed in my first year when I initially told my school district that I was having burn out symptoms instead of after I was forced to resign. 

My question for LAUSD and healthcare companies, why don’t you offer specialized services for teacher burn out? 

LAUSD has 24,710 teachers paying at least $1,343.46 per teacher to Kaiser, Health Net, Anthem Blue Cross. That’s $33,196,896.60. 

I know I am not the first teacher to suffer burn out as a teacher, and I won’t be the last. Why does this not exist? How much money does it take to create a program like Lynn’s? 

No matter, we’ve already started to create it for you! All you need to do is support us. We are solving our own problem even though it’s you that has the money, authority, and responsibility to do so. 

This is a key reason I burnt out as a teacher. I am the one suffering from the problem that you have the authority and money to solve, and yet you refuse to listen to me or give me the power to solve my own problems. Teachers are the ones suffering, but the power to resolve the problem is controlled by someone else. This is happening in all parts of our society, and has been happening for generations. This needs to change.