Tuesday May 23, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Teachers in the Sooke School District (SD62) are experiencing burnout, says Sooke Teachers Association (STA) President Jennifer Anderson.
Anderson made that statement as part of her report to the SD62 board trustees and senior staff at the May 23, 2023 SD62 board meeting.
Various comments from teachers were mentioned as within the definition of burnout:
- dread going to work
- feel tired upon waking up
- bored with their job
- lower performance
- feel emotionally drained
- avoid conversations
- easily frustrated
- no motivation to update teaching materials
- no energy for self or family on the weekends
- classroom becomes disorganized
- leave marking to the last minute
- not participating in non-obligatory activities at school
“Does that sound like the kind of teacher you want?” Anderson asked the board.
There were no questions or comments from trustees or staff.
Anderson asked that the board “do something real to help teachers because they need it”.
Factors influencing teacher load:
Factors likely impacting the load on teachers include full classrooms in a fast-growing school district, financial distress across the board (families of teachers and students) in times of inflationary pressure, administrative requirements, and dealing with challenges in classroom management.
Teachers, like everyone else, are coming out the other side of the having dealt with the impacts of the COVID pandemic for over two years in a stressful interpersonal environment.
What is burnout?
Burnout is generally defined as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress.
The Mayo Clinic describes job burnout as “a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”.
School district response:
Island Social Trends will followup with a response from the SD62 administration.
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends is professional regional journalism presented at islandsocialtrends.ca. Fully online as a daily news portal since mid-2020, Island Social Trends emerged from the path of previous print publications in the west shore: MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (2011-2013), and West Shore Voice News (2014-2020).
Since 2008, journalist and editor Mary P Brooke has taken a socioeconomic lens to reporting and analyzing the news of the west shore and south Vancouver Island region, including BC and national news impacts. [See Island Social Trends Politics Archive]. She has covered the details of local, provincial and federal elections since 2008. As of 2023 Mary P Brooke reports with the BC Legislative Press Gallery.
Mary P Brooke has also focused on news of School District 62 (Langford, Colwood and Sooke) at the board level since 2014 [see Island Social Trends Education archive] and has covered West Shore Parks & Recreation over the years (particularly the transitional years 2014-2020, and again starting 2023). During 2020 and 2021 she reported daily on BC’s COVID pandemic news to build the ongoing COVID pandemic archive. Since 2021 she has been building a Food Security news archive. She is now covering the 2023 Langford-Juan de Fuca by-election.
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