What we Learn When a Local Teacher is Arrested For Being Drunk at School

On Wednesday this week, a local high school teacher was arrested under suspicion of being drunk while teaching at Terra Linda High School(TL) in San Rafael. They were arrested without incident after a breathalyzer had found they had 3 times the legal driving limit of alcohol in their system as well as a prescription drug and cannabis.

The first thing I thought of when I read about it was, “teachers have been through hell and back… everyone has their breaking point.” I think there’s something we can learn about all of this.

“It takes a village and the entire village failed. Not just one teacher,” a parent from the high school told me anonymously.

I learned of this arrest because I graduated from TL back in the day and some of my childhood friends were posting numerous articles about it online. At first, I was like… “whoa crazy!” But then I just got so sad. While we can’t determine why this teacher had decided to come to school intoxicated, we do need to talk about teacher burnout. It’s at an all-time high and we need to check in on them.

My neighbor and my sister are both public school teachers in the Bay Area. Over the last two years, I’ve listened to them both suffer. First, the pandemic hit, and no one knew what the heck was going on. School administrations across the board were trying to figure out the best next steps with very little government guidance. Meanwhile, teachers were scrambling to make sure there wasn’t a single student left behind.

What I think some of us forget is that not all students had immediate access to computers, zoom, and the technological know-how to get into a virtual class. Everyone was learning on the fly and students looked to teachers to keep them in the know. This puts tremendous pressure on our teachers to be the leaders in a situation that was scary for all of us.

Front of Terra Linda High School – photo from Wiki Commons

I read this article online that summed up the issue really well:  “Across the board, teachers, administrators and school staff are suffering under the relentless weight of a pressurized societal spotlight, where polarizing frustrations about the pandemic—including school and business closures, shifting social distancing and quarantine protocols, and vaccine and mask mandates—are projected onto school systems and the adults working in them. For the past two years, educators have been operating in crisis mode, running on fumes as they address and adapt to each new escalating round of pandemic-related demands, trying to keep everyone healthy while teaching with limited resources under drastically shifting circumstances.”

Now, the masks finally came off in most schools within the Bay Area. Teachers are relieved that they can get back to teaching while seeing the faces of their students. But this is coming 2+ years after this whole pandemic situation started.

Coming back to the teacher that was arrested on suspicion of being intoxicated at school. I can’t help but wonder how this impacts parents and kids. TL is considered a high-achieving high school with very little crime. This type of incident happening on campus probably shocked parents and students.

So, I’ll age myself at this point just by saying this but some of my friends from high school now have kids/students at our alma mater, Terra Linda High School. So, naturally, as your journalistic snoop, I reached out to one of the students at TL and they anonymously gave me their feelings on the matter. In short, there’s more than what people are saying online. The student let me know, “I think she and all the teachers at TL have been going through some massive BS from the state and students, so I’ll start there…”

The TL student told me, “I actually had this teacher last year online, but pre-pandemic my friends and I would regularly hang out in her classroom during lunch and free periods. she was always down to talk about anything (including books) and had a tea and coffee station in her class that students could help themselves to.  She was one of my favorite classes I’ve had.” The student told me.

“It was also clear to me that she was struggling especially once we went online. Students have been AWFUL to her…like the worst. I’ve ever seen or heard kids talk and interact with a teacher so poorly. I’m forever grateful that I got to know her and have her though. I do think she needs to ‘pay for her crimes’, but I also think she needs some extra love and care,” Concluded my TL student source.

Photo of TL Campus Commons under construction in 2020 – photo from the school Facebook account.

The parent of several TL students told me, “This teacher has been struggling for quite some time. I saw her struggling when my oldest daughter had her last year and then this year with my youngest daughter. You can NOT tell me the school has NO knowledge that this teacher was struggling. The school, district, and board should’ve been contacted last year and things should have been put into place IMMEDIATELY for this teacher.” 

She continued, “I do not IN any way approve of her actions. It’s awful what she did. I think the school knew she was having problems but I can’t be positive. Them not doing something about it but the kids are at risk. Everyone who walked away and ignored it, or thought it would change, deserves that title on them in the second degree.  We are NOT faultless as a community in this happening,” the parent added.

We can support our teachers better

What happened here with this teacher isn’t a reflection on all of TL’s teachers or the administration. In this case, this particular teacher seems as if they may be struggling with potentially their own personal demons – tho, to be honest, we really don’t know why this happened exactly. Hopefully they will get some help now that the situation has escalated.

Teachers deserve better pay & affordable housing

On top of the maybe obvious pandemic craziness, teachers are grossly underpaid. Honestly, they almost can’t even afford to be a teacher in San Francisco anymore on top of everything they have been through. In San Francisco, the Chronicle spoke about how teachers were quitting in large numbers due to pay issues that have left them underpaid and also becoming “forensic accountants” each month to determine why their paychecks are lower than usual due to a faulty payment system. Even without a faulty payment system, teachers can barely get by.

According to teachers I know, many teachers have to live well outside of their school districts just to find affordable housing. This is unacceptable. Like most of us, the cost of living is creating more pressure in their lives. For teachers, this issue falls on top of everything else they deal with day in and day out. For many, it’s just too much. The reward of teaching may not be worth the struggle they face while being a teacher.

Check-in if a teacher is struggling

For the TL teacher, I feel someone could have stepped in sooner if the parents had noticed she was struggling. Maybe no one said anything to the administration? Maybe someone did and they were actively trying to get her help. We don’t know, really. According to my sources, this teacher took the Spring semester off last year. Then, this year, they were thrown back in expected to go back to normal with allegedly a heavier workload.

There is clearly no normal in schools these days and parents, students, and especially teachers are under extra pressure to keep calm and carry on.

Be kind to teachers around you. Support them in ways that you can. Consider helping support laws that increase their pay and give them more help in the classroom. We need them to stick around and we need them to be happy and fulfilled in their careers and their lives, our children will thanks us. 

Oakland teachers held “sick out” Jan. 18 2019 as a precursor to what could become a full-blown district strike. Photo courtesy of KRON 4