Thursday, September 12, 2013

Challenges in St. Louis schools have some teachers quitting - 'She couldn't control her classroom of 21 kindergartners' (unruliness undoubtedly the main problem--you can take the boy out of the tropical rain forest, but you can't ...)


Challenges in St. Louis schools have some teachers quitting




ST. LOUIS • Laura Sahaida knew teaching kindergarten at a low-performing elementary school in the city would be a tough job — but not like this. Just six days after she started at Ashland Elementary this school year, she decided to resign.
She was leaving each day feeling defeated. She had no teacher’s aide. She couldn’t control her classroom of 21 kindergartners, most of whom had not attended preschool.
“I had lessons planned for teaching them the routines and procedures. But I couldn’t get the class to sit still for five minutes,” said Sahaida, who previously had worked in the Kirkwood and Ladue school districts.
More than 50 teachers have resigned from St. Louis Public Schools in the past 10 weeks, putting the district in the difficult position of looking for replacements when there aren’t many applicants.
Half of those resignations came after the first day of school . . .