<br><div><aside class="gnt_em gnt_em__fp gnt_em_vp__tp gnt_em__el" aria-label="Video - Online class tricks teacher for wholesome reason"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">It's been a tough year in education for everyone.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Bizarre schedules, little in-class time for millions, and so many Zoom rooms.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Education reporters in the USA TODAY Network had a front seat to the highs and lows of an extraordinary year of schooling. Those challenges took a toll on many, with<a target="_blank" href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/teachers-were-already-leaving-the-profession-due-to-stress-then-covid-19-hit-11614025213" rel="noopener" data-t-l=":b|e|inline click|${u}" class="gnt_ar_b_a"> 43% of teachers who recently quit</a> citing stress — both before and during COVID-19 — as the chief reason for their departure.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">But the industry could be on the verge of an infusion of cash and new blood, now that Joe Biden's American Families Plan is proposing up to <a target="_blank" href="/story/news/politics/2021/04/28/president-joe-biden-propose-american-families-plan-paid-leave/4852679001/" rel="noopener" data-t-l=":b|e|inline click|${u}" class="gnt_ar_b_a">$9 billion in federal money</a> to train more people for the profession.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">For Teacher Appreciation Week, we're highlighting the educators who stuck with us over the past year because of their tenacity or charm or dogged determination to help students or communities.</p><h2 class="gnt_ar_b_h2">The professor piecing together stories of people in unmarked graves at Clemson University</h2><figure class="gnt_em gnt_em_img"><img class="gnt_em_img_i" style="height:372px" data-g-r="lazy" src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/3d93021e91b0ec7a084ab7d527e0eff44827b6fb/c=0-104-2000-1229/local/-/media/Greenville/2015/03/27/B9316532920Z.1_20150327141813_000_GE0AALA4K.1-0.jpg?width=660&height=372&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp" srcset="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/3d93021e91b0ec7a084ab7d527e0eff44827b6fb/c=0-104-2000-1229/local/-/media/Greenville/2015/03/27/B9316532920Z.1_20150327141813_000_GE0AALA4K.1-0.jpg?width=1320&height=744&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp 2x" decoding="async" alt="Clemson University Professor Rhondda Thomas touches stone work inside Hardin Hall. The stones came from slave cabins on John C. Calhoun’s plantation, which now makes up the Clemson campus."/></figure><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">For months, Rhondda Thomas, a historian at Clemson University in South Carolina, has been working to <a target="_blank" href="/story/news/education/2021/01/05/clemson-professor-tell-stories-behind-604-unmarked-graves-campus/4138322001/" rel="noopener" data-t-l=":b|e|inline click|${u}" class="gnt_ar_b_a">identify and tell the stories of the 604 people buried in unmarked graves at Woodland Cemetery</a>, the on-campus graveyard.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The goal is to honor those buried among the white faculty and alumni at Woodland, which researchers believe include enslaved Africans, sharecroppers, convict laborers and domestic workers who lived and worked in Clemson up until the cemetery was formally dedicated in the 1920s.</p><aside aria-label="advertisement" class="gnt_m gnt_x gnt_x__lbl gnt_x__al"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">"Those graves have been there for a long time. So we didn't discover them,"...</p></div> <style> .wrapper { text-align: center; } </style> <div class="wrapper"> <a class="button" href ="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/05/03/teacher-appreciation-week-celebrating-impressive-educators-2021/4879032001/">Read more <span>➤</span></a> </div>
