Christy Hart was blunt.
As an 18-year veteran of the Macon County School District, Hart has learned that the most direct route is usually the best way to solve any problem.
During the Macon County Economic Development Commission meeting at Entegra Bank in Highlands on Thursday night, Hart made it crystal clear the toll that teaching takes on her and her colleagues every day.
“If I could walk out right now, I would,” Hart said. “But I’ve been here 18 years, and I’m invested in Macon County Schools, so I can’t do that.”
The Macon EDC voted unanimously to support a resolution that would put teacher assistants in every classroom in grades K-3. Currently, only grades K-1 have assistants, and some of those are shared by more than one class.
As a parade of elementary school teachers made clear to the EDC board, the old days of simply instructing reading and writing are long gone. In many classrooms, today’s teachers and teaching assistants are doing as much counseling and nursing as they are teaching.
Mental health issues, including but not limited to, suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety and dissociative disorders, are presenting among students as young as kindergarten and teachers simply aren’t equipped to also be psychologists.
Superintendent Chris Baldwin pointed to the ongoing opioid epidemic and the number of students being raised by grandparents due to parental drug issues as one of the causes of the overarching student mental health problem.
Baldwin then went a step further and called it like he sees it every day. Macon County has a societal problem – The breakdown of the family structure.
When parents aren’t invested in their children’s success, or in some cases even interested in the child’s wellbeing, everyone suffers. Teachers are on the front line of that suffering and their job is getting harder every year.
How do we as a society solve the massive issues facing our children? That’s a billion dollar question and as Baldwin noted – “There is no silver bullet that will turn things around.”
Change isn’t going to come overnight, but it better come soon. The future is growing up fast.