Alyssa Ridenour
reporter@greenepublishing.com
Loranne Ausley is a democratic politician, attorney and member of the Florida State Senate. She represents 11 counties in North Florida, including: Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Hamilton, Leon, Jefferson, Liberty, Madison, Wakulla and Taylor. Ausley recently decided that she wanted to spread some love and appreciation to educators within her district, as the past year has been especially hard on them.
The year 2020 brought on a whole slew of challenges for educators, as well as students and parents. With the global pandemic causing closures worldwide, halting transportation and limiting access to in-school classes, the school systems in America had to find a way to adapt. This led to the widespread implementation of virtual learning. Later into the year, teachers had to give their lessons partially online and partially in a classroom, as parents had the choice to send their child back to school or not.
For many educators, this posed a challenge since they were so accustomed to teaching in-person classes. They had to find new and innovative ways to get their lessons across without being able to hold group projects or hands-on interactive lessons. As time progressed, they soon found themselves flipping back and forth between online classes and in-person classes. There was a learning curve for many educators during the pandemic and keeping up with online and in-person students and assignments became a daunting task for many.
During the pandemic, the rate of teachers quitting their jobs climbed. During a new RAND Corporation study that investigated over 1,000 former public school teachers, nearly 44 percent of those who left the field stated that it was due to their jobs becoming constantly and consistently more stressful as a result of the pandemic. Stress was also cited as the leading cause of teachers resigning since March of 2020. The education field is already stressful as is, but COVID amplified that stress for educators.
As mandates began lifting and people began to slowly become more comfortable in public, Ausley decided to make rounds, showing appreciation to the teachers at schools within her district. On Thursday, May 20, she made her way to Madison County, stopping by Greenville Elementary School, Madison County High School, Lee Elementary School and Waypoint.
While in the county, she spent most of her time interacting with and giving thanks to our local educators. However, during her visit at Greenville Elementary School, she also spoke to one of the classes there, explaining the electoral process and describing her job and position in the state.