600 teachers and school staff in Baltimore City and Baltimore County left the classroom on the last day of the 2022-23 school year — and they won’t be returning in the fall.
According to data from school board meeting agendas, many of these resignees quit after working for a year or less in their positions — leaving key vacancies in special education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
At Baltimore City Public Schools, 44% of those who resigned after the last day of school left the district before hitting the one-year mark.
President of the Baltimore Teachers Union Diamonte Brown said the new use of unannounced evaluations this past school year increased anxiety, especially among early career teachers.
“Our evaluation, unlike many other school districts, is tied to our pay,” Brown said. With an unannounced formal observation, Brown said, teachers lack the time to prepare their students for the disruption or face-to-face time with an evaluator to explain their lesson plans.
First-year teachers also often struggle to balance the complex factors in a classroom, said Cindy Sexton, president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County.
Between student behavioral needs and standardized testing requirements, “there is so much a teacher has to do before they can even start the actual instruction,” Sexton said.
