The Houston Independent School District has seen its share of changes over the past few months, and a new survey shows some of those changes are taking a toll on the mental health of teachers.
A slew of changes
The largest school district in Texas and eighth largest in the United States, HISD saw 880 teacher vacancies in August 2022. Since then, HISD has gone through changes that have affected students and teachers alike. The Texas Education Agency intervened in the school district, citing poor academic performances, misconduct against school board members and the presence of a conservator as the reasons. A new superintendent, Mike Miles, and a board of managers were put at the helm of HISD in June.
Since the TEA takeover, teachers have grappled with being asked to accept Miles’ New Education System or be reassigned to a non-NES campus, a state-approved teacher evaluation system by the HISD board of managers that previously resulted in a lawsuit from the Houston Federation of Teachers as it would be used to evaluate teachers’ employment status and salaries, questionable performances starring Miles, and confusion about their pay structure.
According to a survey by the Charles Butt Foundation, poor pay, benefits, workloads, long hours, staff shortages, and the pressure of keeping students safe serve as sources of stress for teachers.
Texas Teachers By the numbers
77% considered leaving their jobs in the last year
93% gearing up to leave for jobs in other fields
81% searched online for other jobs
68% updated their resume or networked to find other job options
58% say their mental health is strong
*Charles Butt Foundation
Fighting for mental health
In February, more than 40 teachers and administrators created a Texas task force to recommend school districts provide or expand health insurance policies to include clinical mental health services at no cost to teachers. In March 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott asked the Texas Education Agency to find solutions to the problem of teachers quitting their jobs and the group responded with recommendations.
A teacher’s story
A 63-year-old pre-kindergarten teacher at one of Miles’ New Education System Aligned school, who has been teaching for 28 years, told the Defender this school year is different from any year in the past.
She teaches at Burrus Elementary, a school that primarily comprises a minority enrollment of 97.4%, with 65.9% Black students, 31.2% Hispanic/Latino students, 2.6% of white students, and 0.3% of students of two or more races.
When she began the school year, she realized that the NES Aligned pre-k curriculum was vastly different from what she expected. Her training, for which she was paid a $2,000 stipend, was aimed at acquainting teachers with the pre-k curriculum and was even more confusing.
“It was a sharp contrast to what we were told at this training as what we were supposed to do in the classroom,” she said.
In addition to this “web of confusion,” she was later instructed to annotate 35-45 pages of lesson plans every week, which was “very tiring.”
“A little bit more thought, training and clarity should have been put into the NES system before they put it into place. It was just thrown under us all at one time,” she said. “It’s a constant snowball of confusion with plenty of blame to go around for its impending failure!”
There is also pressure to finish the curriculum “a certain way” and “the dynamics of the NES system should not be applicable to pre-kindergarten children and to pre-kindergarten teachers,” according to her. Some teachers also have to arrive as early as 6:20 am and leave around 5:30 pm in the evening on some days without extra pay, especially now that Miles has made it clear teachers in HISD will not receive overtime pay.
Under Miles’ new rules, doors of classrooms must be kept open at all times and school administrators are constantly entering, looking at the board and the teacher’s folders. Last year, the teacher recalls, she had more autonomy – to encourage and challenge the students who were ahead of the class but this year, the lessons are set in stone. The pre-k students are expected to write full sentences and change details in stories.
“They [HISD] say they want to see a multiple response strategy with three and four-year-olds and they want you to keep a timer,” the teacher said. “They [the students] pee on themselves more than they talk. These kids can’t write, they can’t even hold a pencil yet. What works for fourth and fifth graders is not gonna work for these kids.”
The first week of school, the teacher found herself teaching a bigger classroom with both pre-k and kindergarten students because the kindergarten teacher had quit. The school support officer entered the classroom, observing her, after which she accused her of showing cartoons during social and emotional learning. She was subsequently written up.
The video in question was “Going to School with Bluey!,” which talked about the first week of school, while the teacher worked on her lesson plans. The quintessential school routine – “the backpacks, meeting new friends, lunch with friends, interacting with teachers, teachers reading a book out loud” – was part of the video.
“I wanted to give them [students] something constructive for them to watch. I make sure everything I do is education-related,” she said. “I wouldn’t dare do that now.”
The teacher has been vested with the responsibility of teaching four new curricula – Amplify, Eureka, Zearn and Amira – in which she has no training. She says she has continued to have issues – from being told she’s unprepared to
Through all of the changes and challenges, she says her blood pressure rose to 183/121, but she has exhausted her sick days, and her medical leave request was denied. “That’s death, that’s stroke level,” she said.
The campus has since seen four more teachers quit. The teacher, who said she must work until 2025 to retire with benefits, at 65 years of age, said she, too, will request for a release of her contract if she does not receive training.
Tara Jones, a teacher who retired from HISD in 2022 after three decades in the profession, has been through it all – “the stress with covid and bad leadership.” The mantra she followed to take care of her mental health was simple: “therapy and meditation.”
Since the TEA takeover of HISD, Jones has “heard of teachers going in and checking themselves into various hospitals for psychiatric care.”
“It’s not about school reform, as the superintendent is saying, it’s about dismantling public education as we know it,” she said.
Jones is now substituting at the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District and here, she says she has noticed a lot of changes. “There is pedagogy in the schools. The schools have PE teachers, nurses, librarians.”
What can teachers do?
A recent Gallup Poll revealed teaching was the top profession for burnout in the United States, with 55% of female teachers and 44% of male teachers reporting burnout. This has led to another concerning trend in school districts – a teacher shortage, owing to reasons like low salaries, political and academic pressures, health and safety concerns.
A study called “Psychology in the Schools” says teachers are becoming less able to cope with stress and are quitting the profession, which is also contributing to the teacher shortage across the US. The data used in the study correlates between stress and job satisfaction. The increase in stress levels affects teachers in different ways – those with a high coping level were more satisfied with their jobs than those with low coping levels.
Michelle Williams, the president of the Houston Education Association, says teachers need to take care of themselves first, for their mental and physical health.
“If there are ailments that are happening as a result of the toxicity in HISD, we have an employee assistance program where they can start seeing a counselor,” she suggested. “They do not have to stay in HISD under these circumstances.”
Williams emphasized two solutions for teachers – become a part of a union and next, to file a complaint.
“Find the people that represent you, get some representation,” she said. “We cannot do anything or you can’t get anything done without filing a complaint.”
If a teacher is confused about which union to join, Williams suggests they opt for “whoever represents their core values.”
There are a few to choose from, among others – the Houston Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, the Houston Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers representing employees in Houston ISD and Spring Branch ISD, and Association of Texas Professional Educators (ATPE).
Williams says teachers in Miles’ NES schools in particular, are “not doing well,” citing a constant pile of paperwork and testing students.
“It’s taken its toll,” Williams said. “I have a member who constantly is going over lesson plans, internalizing lessons, she doesn’t have a moment’s peace. Sometimes they’re [teachers] working 10 hours a day and they don’t have any support.”
How teachers can respond to stress
- Establish goals
- Reach out to a colleague for advice
- Engage in stress-relieving activities
- Prioritize health, family time and quality sleep
- Set some time to relax
- Determine their response to stressful situations
How Pay-for-performance is affecting teachers
The Houston Federation of Teachers recently dropped its lawsuit against HISD over its proposition for a new teacher evaluation system, after HISD’s board of managers voted to adopt a state-approved evaluation system. The union’s lawsuit said the proposed system violated state law, and requires input from teachers and community members. Union members said Miles’ appraisal system will decide a teacher’s possibility of getting a raise or keeping a job.
Earlier this year, Miles recruited teachers, enticing them with high base pay salaries and signing bonuses at his 28 NES schools. He also promised to raise teachers’ salaries across the district too. The catch? Teachers were to participate in an evaluation system that would recognize high performers and pay them accordingly.
The pay-for-performance evaluation system garnered criticism from teachers. The plan, which suggests a target distribution where 20% of teachers fall into the top tiers, 40% are marked as “proficient,” and the other 40% of teachers are evaluated as less than “proficient.”
“We’re in such high demand,” Williams added. “A teacher could get fired today and as long as they don’t have any record as far as child abuse, a school district will hire them. Especially math, science, bilingual or special ed teachers have nothing to worry about. However, HISD has everything to worry about.”
“You can’t woo teachers with money because we don’t get into the profession to get rich.”
Michelle Williams, president, Houston Education Association
