LEAWOOD, Kan. — Teachers in the Kansas City area are raising their voices about the state of public schools.
Already this year, many kids have lost days in the classroom because of staffing shortages, with many teachers already gone to early retirements and more on the brink of leaving their posts.
A new political action committee is organizing around what they call an education crisis.
Ken Thomas wanted to teach one key lesson in his Blue Valley School District government classes.
"To know that their voice is important in the things that we do, and that our republic cannot survive with a citizenry that is not educated and critically thinking," Thomas said.
Now, Thomas is no longer a teacher.
"[At the] End of May [2021], I tearfully walked out of school," he said.
After 20 years in the district, he left. He's one of many teaching departures, and those still working, are starting to speak out.
"I refuse to continue working in an environment where people are constantly attacking teachers in public schools," Dianne O'Bryan, a current Blue Valley School District teacher said. "I think we have a small minority of people who are really upset with public education and those people right now are really the driving force and the driving voices."
This climate has produced the Freedom to Learn PAC. The group formed a month ago, and their goal is to tell stories from inside schools.
"Those faces are these educators, and these staff members who have worked so hard for so many years in a profession where they were so valued and so respected for so long," Sloane Heller, the chair of the Freedom to Learn PAC said. "And suddenly in the last two years, that really took a quick 180."
The group recently surveyed 800 Kansas teachers across more than a dozen districts.
"78% of teachers would not recommend the profession to their students," Heller said.
She's a mother of two, including a kindergartner, and she says the clock is ticking.
"We have 12 more years of public schools here in Kansas," Heller said. "And if we don't act quickly, we could see the major collapse, potentially of our public school system."
O'Bryan has seen early retirements firsthand.
"I would say I'm really worried because one of those people might be me," she said.
O'Bryan said it's something that keeps her up at night.
"I've sat and thought, 'Is this is something I can really walk away from?' Because the idea of walking away from it is very, very, hard," she said. "And I think a lot of people are in the same position as me."
