In the last few years it has become no secret to educators, students, and the public that there has been a nationwide shortage of workers in the school system. 

Lots of people will try to talk about other things in the system: how they do not believe teachers are educating our students with the right material or our schools are to liberal or republican for our kids to be attending.

Leaving politics out of the conversation for a minute, and focusing on the real problem might be exactly what we need to fix it.

Society needs to make it essential to focus on why our school employees are leaving the education system, and what we can do to help.

In our own small town of Cecilia, Kentucky, we are no enemy to the shortage that is in this country.

On February 10, an email was sent out to all teachers, by admin, saying that students need to be more aware of leaving trash everywhere and make extra effort to clean up after themselves.

Though we should all be doing this anyway, the admin believes it is critical at this time because we have had three members of the coastal staff quit since the start of the year.

“I really wish students would treat this building with some respect,” principal Tim Isaacs said. “All I ask here is that you treat it [the school] like you value it.”

The custodians leaving their jobs has been hard on the school, and it is not helping that students will not clean up after themselves. This leaves us with once again, another huge staff shortage.

The problem though, did not start with an email and a few people quitting. This has been an ongoing problem since 2020.

“Well honestly we’ve done pretty good staying fully staffed, but then Covid started to hurt us, as it did with a lot of places,” Isaacs said. 

Along with Covid, not only did our custodial staff lose some members, but so did lots of teachers.

There are various reasons why people in the education system decide to leave. Some of them we cannot help, for instance, the low pay check that most teachers receive at the end of the month.

Here at Central, most teachers at the end of the month receive a paycheck of $3,000. This may seem like lots of money, but after the deduction that is taken, that paycheck can become slim.

For example, tax that is taken out (Federal Income, Federal Insurance Contributions, Medicare, Social Security, State Income), insurance for health, dental, and car at the least, as well as certain bills and payments.

Other reasons would be political and academic pressures as well as health and safety concerns.

“We all know that our educators work very hard, and it’s not news to anyone that they often work beyond their required hours,” NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said.

With all of the loss that we have had in the education system over the past few years, there are still some positives that we can point out, and some opportunities that students have taken advantage of.

Custodial jobs are offered to students who are 18 years old. One of our own Central Hardin students does work here after school hours to help clean up the school.

If there are any juniors that will be co-oping next year that would like a different job than their current one, you can be a janitor next year through the co-op program.

This job position for students could be really helpful to our school (and many others) because of the nationwide shortage of workers in the school system.

Mr. Isaacs actually got to testify before the Education Committee, on this issue as well as teacher recruitment.

“There’s a variety of problems; our teachers don’t feel as supported anymore as they used to. It’s never been a high paying job, but it’s always been one that the community has demonstrated a great deal of respect for. A lot of teachers don’t feel like their community is giving them the respect that they used to give them,” Isaacs said.

In lots of ways, teachers are essentially being asked to parent other people’s children. Why being there for students is a part of the job, parenting is not.

This goes beyond three janitors leaving the walls of Central, this leads to the future generation of our children, and if we will deprive them of an education because we drive out education.