Rookie teacher learning why so many teachers leave jobs

Audrey Smith’s first-grade class was enjoying recess a recent December morning when a potential crisis developed.

A boy in her class slumped to the ground holding his left knee and near tears.

Smith ran to him. She played doctor and returned about a minute later looking relieved. The boy was on his feet, moving gingerly, but moving.

“He’s fine.”

For Smith, a first-year teacher at Gwinnett County’s Baldwin Elementary School, the job is managing one problem after another. She is learning from rookie mistakes and working to improve.

Smith is undergoing the stresses that sift so many young teachers out of the profession. Long days, multiple roles, from teacher to administrator and mother figure, and dealing with mandates from everyone from Georgia’s General Assembly to parents, make a tough work environment. Forty-four percent of new teachers leave the profession in five years.

“This season is the toughest season of my life,” Smith, 25, said. “I’m dealing with being a new mom, a new teacher at a new school.”