A first-grade teacher says in a tearful video that only one of her 34 students passed a sight words assessment. According to Upworthy, the teacher, Carol Fernandez, shared the clip on TikTok, where she posts classroom ideas and teaching strategies. The report does not say where she teaches.
Fernandez says her class has 34 students, and the report describes them as six and seven years old. In the video, she says “I’m exhausted” and “I’m at a zero.” She says the past two months have been “go, go, go” and that her body is telling her to stop.
Fernandez says her class is working on sight words, and that one of the words is “everyone.” She says she runs centers and reviews daily, and says “Clearly they’re not studying at home.” She says the results came back with “one girl” passing out of 34 students. The report does not say what score counted as passing.
Teacher stress in national surveys
Fernandez says teaching means giving energy to students even on days she does not feel well. She says she has to set her own thoughts and problems aside to do it. She says many students are “really struggling academically” and that it “breaks my heart.” She says being on the front line of teaching is “almost scary,” and that she starts questioning herself by asking “is it me?”
She says she writes words out for students to copy and that some copy them wrong. She also says teaching is tiring even with boundaries in place, and that teachers need boundaries and certain systems so that they “don’t go crazy.”
Fernandez says she worried about sharing the video because she loves being a teacher. She says “Teaching truly feels like a calling for me,” and that the job can also be exhausting and heartbreaking. She adds “Both things can be true.” She says she wanted to be candid about the harder side of teaching, and that she hopes the video leaves other teachers feeling less alone.
Surveys have measured how common job stress is among teachers. According to RAND, 55% of K-12 public school teachers reported frequent job-related stress in its 2026 State of the American Teacher Survey. That compares with 34% of similar working adults. The share was down from 62% the year before.
RAND also says teachers were more likely than comparable adults to report burnout, difficulty coping with job-related stress and symptoms of depression. The findings come from nationally representative surveys fielded in January and February. Workload is another measure. A separate RAND report put the average teacher workweek at 49 hours in 2025. That is ten more than teachers’ contracted hours, though four fewer than in the two years before.
RAND’s figures describe teachers nationally. They do not describe Fernandez’s school or her class, and the report on her does not say which district she works in. They also do not measure student results on sight word assessments.
A different school case drew attention after a Virginia first-grader shot his teacher in 2023, a case that later moved through the courts.
Published: Oct 12, 2026 11:55 pm