Philly educators are leaving at alarming rates. Here are 3 teachers’ stories.

Takia McClendon adores her job as a fourth-grade teacher in North Philadelphia — her funny, smart, hardworking students, the growth she’s helped them achieve, the ways the kids challenge and charm her. She also thinks about leaving teaching constantly.

“I come here because I love this job, I love these kids, but I don’t know how long I can survive,” said McClendon, a career changer who came to the Philadelphia School District in 2022. “The pay is just too low — not to teach, just to survive. I’ve made more money selling bikes and sneakers.”

Recent research out of Penn State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis found that Philadelphia teachers leave the profession at very high rates — higher than the rest of the state, and higher than the rate at which local education schools are graduating new teachers. The study found that 20% of charter teachers and 18% of district teachers left the profession in their first year. After five years, the attrition rate dropped to 9% for district teachers but was 17% for charter teachers.

» READ MORE: Where are Philly’s teachers going? Here’s what new research on city educators leaving the profession says.

The Inquirer spoke to three Philadelphia educators who are considering leaving or have already made their decision to go. Here are their stories.

McClendon came to teaching after a career as a buyer and manager of a specialty running store. When an injury made running difficult, she began imagining other paths. She reached out to a favorite teacher from middle school, now an elementary school principal, to see how life experience and a political science degree might parlay into a teaching job.

Aliya Catanch-Bradley, principal of Bethune Elementary in North Philadelphia, brought her former pupil in one day to shadow teachers at her school. McClendon was hooked.

“I said, ‘I love it here, what do I have to do to become a teacher?’” McClendon remembers. “She said, ‘Do you want a job?’” Catanch-Bradley wasn’t kidding; she guided McClendon through enrolling in a graduate education program and obtaining an emergency teaching certification, and promised to support her through learning the ins and outs of the profession, promises she’s made good on.

Her principal calls McClendon “an absolute rock star, with data to support it,” and said she wants to do whatever it takes to keep McClendon in education and at Bethune.

Teaching isn’t easy — her Bethune students tested her at first, assuming McClendon was going to leave like the teachers before her — but once she earned their trust, they were all in.

Though McClendon is only two years into teaching, her students have shown tremendous growth on state exams. Some of McClendon’s students came to her performing on kindergarten level, and now they’re caught up or nearly caught up to fourth-grade levels.

“I bought them doughnuts yesterday — I said, ‘You did so well on the test. It’s only going to get better,’” she said. And she loves the relationships she has with her students: the way they talk about Pokemon together and identify with McClendon, who also grew up in the city and attended public schools. “I love this, I’m living the dream. These students are me.”

But the dream feels unsustainable; in Philadelphia, starting teachers are paid $51,568 annually. McClendon is 35 and has a mortgage, and has to pick up retail shifts whenever she can to supplement her district salary.

“I really want to make it to five years and 10 years,” McClendon said, “but I’m not sure I can afford to.”

Maddie Luebbert, 30, doesn’t want to do a job half-heartedly. So the seven-year veteran, a respected teacher at Kensington Health Sciences Academy, is quitting at the end of the school year.

“I finally got to a point where I realized that this is the only thing left that I can control. It’s the biggest cause of stress,” said Luebbert, who realized that they never felt fully rested, not even after summers away and holiday breaks.

Until this school year, Luebbert taught English, a subject that requires high school students to take standardized tests. And it felt like every year, there was a new requirement that was presented as the top priority, with nothing else being taken away — STAR tests, social-emotional lessons, small-group instruction with big classes and kids at wildly different reading levels. Students who already had complicated lives came back post-COVID with heavier burdens, and classroom management was more difficult, Luebbert said — it wasn’t the students’ fault, but there’s a price for the adults who teach them.

“I’ve felt like my job is impossible, and I do work in a place that I really love with an administration that is very respectful and supportive,” said Luebbert. “I have colleagues that I love and trust, and great relationships with students. I don’t know how people in bad situations do it; I was barely hanging on in the ideal type of situation.”

Luebbert, who has been an advocate for LGBTQ issues and the district’s policy around transgender and nonconforming students, was relieved when they submitted paperwork to leave after this school year finishes. (And knows they were lucky to be able to do so; their partner has a good job with health insurance.) But the act felt bittersweet, especially for a member of a family that includes three district teachers.

“I’m not happy to make this transition; I wanted to do this job for a long, long time, but it’s just not something that’s been sustainable,” said Luebbert. “I really think especially since 2020, almost any teacher would be ready to quit if they could.”

Luebbert is leaving the door open to potentially return someday. But for now, they’re looking forward to low-stress work.

“My dream job right now is walking dogs,” Luebbert said. “There’s not a lot of emotional commitment.”

Now that they’ll have a less demanding schedule, they’ve applied for a volunteer position that would work alongside dog walking: a school board position. They’re uniquely qualified to make policy decisions about issues that affect the system, they said.

And “let’s be honest,” they said, “it’s not going to be harder than being a teacher.”

The educator was hired to teach one subject at a Philadelphia neighborhood high school, and spent weeks planning lessons over the summer. When he reported to work, he found out he was teaching an entirely different subject. And though he’s relatively new to teaching, he’s felt unsupported, with crucial questions unanswered. His administrators often mentioned punitive measures.

“You won’t provide me feedback on my curriculum, but you will write me up for being late on my lesson plans? This is so not set up for me to be at my best. I feel like I’m on my own,” said the teacher, 28, who asked not to be identified, for fear of reprisal.

“My experience this year is a culture of squeezing water from a rock, like if we’re all just a little bit harder on the person underneath us, maybe the results will be better. There’s not a lot of grace that’s given to educators.”

The teacher came to teaching post-COVID “because I wanted to make an impact that was really obvious.” First, he taught at a charter school, then spent time at a district magnet, covering another teacher’s leave. This year was supposed to be a fresh start at a place where the teacher wanted to put down roots.

Instead, he’s starting to look for other jobs — in private schools, in districts outside Philadelphia, even outside teaching.

“I want an environment where I’m treated with a basic level of decency,” the teacher said. “I have those avenues open.”

Teacher attrition is particularly high at charters, especially among educators in their first five years; he’s not sure he wants to go down that path again.

“A lot of charters have turnover cultures, and I’m very tired of moving schools all the time,” the teacher said. “I know there are great charters out there, and I’m not categorically opposed, but I’m really wary of somewhere that doesn’t have good strategies for retention.”