2016’s top teacher is moving to Texas
Oklahoma’s 2016 Teacher of the Year, who was a finalist for the national title, just penned a breakup letter to the state.
“Teaching in Oklahoma is a dysfunctional relationship,” Norman High School’s Shawn Sheehan wrote in a viral blog post Thursday evening, “And with a myriad of emotions, I have made the decision to end this relationship.”
As Sheehan finished packing up his algebra classroom Friday morning, he spoke to the Tulsa World about his and his wife’s heart-wrenching decision to abandon the city and state they never wanted to leave — and just how easy it was for them to get teaching jobs at their top-choice district in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
“We’re calling it — we’re fresh out of ideas,” Sheehan said.
He’s referring to the extraordinary personal efforts he has taken in recent years to elevate the profession he loves, to encourage other teachers through a nonprofit he established, and even to take on the politics that have kept teacher pay in Oklahoma at rock-bottom.
In his blog, posted as he and his wife headed out for one last graduation ceremony, he wrote: “I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I will leave with my head held high. I poured my heart and soul into my teaching at Norman High School. I represented our state at the highest level. I tried to help find funding sources via (State Question) 779.
“I ran for state Senate. I started a nonprofit focused on teacher recruitment and retention that has spread nationwide. I’ve done everything I know how to do to try and make things better.”
Sheehan wrote a Tulsa World column earlier this year titled “Should I stay or should I go.” He explained to the Tulsa World that he and his wife never considered moving until they became parents to a little girl named Scarlett seven months ago.
His wife is from Owasso and doesn’t even like the two-hour drive between her hometown and the family she left behind there and Norman.
“For the longest time, she was like ‘No way,’ and I was always wavering. But this session it became clear that legislators are uninterested in finding solutions, and she was the leading voice in the move,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan said he exhausted every conceivable alternative, even applying for a higher-paying teaching job at the local Career Tech center.
He and his wife, an English teacher, only applied to their first choice — the public school district in Lewisville, Texas, and both got jobs.
According to the published pay schedule there, new hires started out in 2016-17 at $51,475.
That means with four and six years’ experience, respectively, Sheehan and his wife stand to earn at least $53,000 and $54,000 a piece beginning in August.
“That’s $20,000 above where I am now, and I’m just starting at a number I will never, ever see as a public school educator in Oklahoma. It’s hard to ignore,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan said he’s not just fed up with lawmakers, but also fellow teachers who have helped elect them.
But he thinks, ultimately, it’s the parents of public school children across the state who hold all of the power.
He said he and his wife are a mere two teachers among the dozen who are leaving Norman High School this summer. Others are headed as far as Oregon and Washington state, where they have no family ties.
“The message is we’re voting with our feet,” Sheehan said.
“We never had one foot out the door, and we hope that there’s a time that we can come back.
“We hope they figure it out and, some day, they’re paying their teachers a living wage. Boy, would we love to come back to this city and this state, closer to Grandma and Grandpa.”
Then he added, “But now, we’re calling it.”