TOLEDO, Ohio — It's teacher appreciation week and WTOL 11 is giving teachers a voice to highlight some of the biggest challenges educators are facing.
Christina Muntz, the orchestra director at Woodward High School in north Toledo, said teachers across the country are tired.
"We're caregivers, we're councilors, we're wearing many hats, and yet the one title we're getting paid for is teacher," Muntz said. "It's a great position, a wonderful position, but it's exhausting these days."
Exhaustion is not the only emotion. The fear of a shooting at a place meant for educating the next generation is palpable, Angie McCue, an art teacher at Woodward, said.
"Ever since Sandy Hook, I feel like it's been okay to kill children, and that's the biggest problem," McCue said. "You think I don't think about dying at school one day? I do. I think about that all the time."
As teachers, McCue and Muntz said they are facing challenges they never imagined when they started the job.
According to a 2022 study by national research organization the RAND Corporation, nearly three-fourths of teachers and 85% of principals are experiencing frequent job-related stress, compared to just a third of overall working adults.
"There are just so many things we have to do," McCue said. "There's the violence part, there are all the expectations that we have, there are all the things we have to do for the state, there's the testing, that's always going to be a thing."
Trying to return to classrooms and a sense of normalcy after pandemic lockdowns may have amplified the existing issues, Muntz said.
"Coming out of COVID, where we were virtual, it wasn't easy. It was not easy," Muntz said. "We had kids who just wouldn't show up because it was easier not to. It was easier to go to work. But bringing them back in post-COVID, it's still hard to bring them back in because they've already gone, they've flown."
Teachers are also under enormous pressure to ensure their students meet set performance standards, while outside pressures in a kid's life can make or break testing in the classroom.
"(The Ohio Board of Education feels) like if kids aren't performing, they feel like it's the teacher's fault that they're not learning. They have so many outside things going on," McCue said.
It's a lot of expectations to grapple with. Between fearing for their lives and mounting career pressure, what keeps McCue and Muntz going?
"I just try to live in the moment, live in the present, and take it day by day," Muntz said.
"Some days I wonder, why am I doing it?" McCue said. "But there are always different things that get me through and I'm grateful for that. It's always the kids. It's always the students."
McCue and Muntz clarified that they were airing frustrations about teaching as an industry. They said they feel very supported and appreciated by their school, students and community at large.