This year, five teachers are leaving Black River Falls High School. One of the five teachers is retiring and the rest are resigning. While each teacher has a personal reason to leave the school, I believe many issues in the high school make the decision easier.

It seems to me that lack of consistency, the lack of effort from students, and the workload are all aspects of teachers wanting to leave the high school. With these problems in mind there are some solutions to help encourage teachers to stay. First, add consistency for aspects in the school and, secondly, discipline students who do not give any effort.

By adding consistency to aspects around the school, instead of changing focus and advising, teachers are allowed to organize their work around a permanent system. Students become frustrated when changes are made because they can not get used to the system, but teachers have the same frustrations from the changes, and they deal with students’ frustration. The multiple changes and lack of consistency also makes it difficult for teachers to plan around others events. If the teacher doesn’t know what is happening with the school, it makes it increasingly difficult for the teachers to help.

However, a more effective way to keep teachers would be to discipline the students who do not care or will not give effort. Teaching is a difficult profession and inspiring students to learn is a main part of it. Creating lesson plans and interesting material to have students care about the lesson is difficult enough but when students do not give any effort and just sit around doing nothing it adds stress and frustration to their already busy lives. Disciplining students for wasting the time of the teacher and the class would help reduce the stress in their already exhausting job.

Teachers put a lot of time trying to interest students and when students do not give any effort, it makes the career more difficult. Black River Falls has a large problem with students not completing their homework and receiving F’s for a grade. Having the administration discipline the students takes the issue off the teacher’s hands. If a student will disrespect the teacher by not participating, the teacher should be able to remove said student from the class instead of affecting the learning environment of others.

While some may say all the stress and frustration is part of the teaching profession, their profession is to teach students, not to be babysitter to disruptive students. If the high school could fix and decrease the issues stressing teachers, I think it would help encourage the teachers to stay instead of moving. While teachers may be leaving to find a career closer to their family, I feel having an exceptional teaching environment in BRFHS would greatly weigh the decision to stay.