Graduation Semester and Year

Spring 2025

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Department

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

First Advisor

Yi Zhang, PhD

Second Advisor

Maria Trache, PhD

Third Advisor

Kathleen Tice, PhD

Abstract

For some time, K-12 teachers across America have been resigning from classrooms in large numbers. Like many of the nation’s communities, schools in American neighborhoods of color have seen an overwhelming amount of teacher resignations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to existing literature, education’s traditional systemic norms and health protocols which were initiated during COVID-19 motivated classroom teachers to leave their jobs. This qualitative study uses a phenomenological methodology as it discovers that an interrelatedness of factors influences six participants to resign from their classroom teaching roles at predominantly African American middle and high schools during and immediately following the pinnacle of COVID-19.

Keywords

African American, K-12 public education, Secondary education, Phenomenology, Teacher shortage, Teacher resignations, High school, Middle school, Principals, Teachers, Education, COVID-19, Black schools, Demoralization, Teacher shortage

Disciplines

Educational Administration and Supervision | Educational Leadership | Educational Psychology | Secondary Education | Teacher Education and Professional Development

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.