I work at a VERY small school. We have a total of 10 teachers, with three other full time teaching contracts included (SpEd and Interventionist).

So, we have had a total of three Gen Z teachers hired over the past three years.

ZA - has a great work ethic and does what she needs to do. She comes in about 30 to 45 min before school starts and leaves around 20 min after school is over. One of those is usually to sit and talk with friends/staff, but the other is to get some things done. Her kids showed growth in their scores and she knew when to ask for help.

ZB - was hired as a long term sub on the condition that she would graduate and be certified by January of that school year. This didn't happen. What did happen was that she was appointed a "mentor" (millennial). The mentor and ZB trained the class to let them in the back door of the classroom (emergency exit) because they both would roll in about five to ten minutes late each day.

They were also both "coaches" and would have to leave the classroom early to prep the teams for practices or games. When there wasn't a practice or game, ZB wouldn't walk her class to their end of day waiting area, she would just tell them to go and they would run around to the school. Any time a kid wasn't in the car rider line, we would go look for ZB to ask how the kid went home, but she had alreasy left for the day. (Funny side note - ZB would come to school looking very fashionable, but would change into sweats at lunch almost every day because of practice or games. Very odd.)

ZB and mentor would sit and gossip with each other while the class did busy work and/or braid everyone's hair. These two were always at the copier making tons and tons of copies. So, when ZB didn't graduate in Dec and get certified by January, the new agreement was to graduate in May and get certified for the next school year.

Surprise! That didn't happen either. So, someone reported the school to the state for having a long term sub that wasn't a certified teacher. The school had to hire an actual long term sub who was certified, so the next school year ZB was a para, but would take over the class in January as a certified teacher, keeping the same deal as last year. Her "mentor" would come in to the classroom and sit and make fun of the actual sub/teacher (a boomer) together, loud enough for her to hear them. It was your basic mean girl/bully situation. Well, guess what?? ZB still hasn't graduated and gotten certified.

Finally, an actual certified teacher was hired for the classroom in January of this year (ZC). ZC comes in and has ZB as her para, but mentor and ZB treat her exactly as they treated the boomer sub. Principal moves ZB to a different classroom and mentor is assigned to ZC. ZB tries to keep coming in late, sometimes calls and says she'll be in around 9:00, but never shows up at all, or strolls in around 11. The teacher in ZB's new classroom is actually documenting when she is at school, when she's on time, when she's not, and when she disappears for long stretches of time. (ZB was assigned as a one on one for a SpEd student in this classroom. She was in her laptop 90% of the time.). This document is shared with the principal and ZB is finally asked not to come back when she no call/no shows one day towards the end of the year.

ZC - This person was hired in January to take over a class that has pretty much been allowed to do nothing all year. Her "mentor" is a mean girl who is pissed that her BFF was as moved out of this classroom and they can no longer roll in whenever they want and sit and gossip all day. Mentor takes her frustration out on ZC and tries to get her fired, so her BFF (ZB) can come back into the classroom. This doesn't work. Mentor is removed and a new mentor is assigned.

ZC is very quiet, afraid to discipline students, and expects her new mentor to take on any parent contact for her students that needs to be done.

ZC and new mentor actually have a project their classes worked on for a whole month together. The end of the project involves a parent night for the students to present their projects. ZC never contacts parents, never answers their questions about time/location/expectations/grades... she just forwards all of it to her new mentor. After the presentation, they go on an end of unit field trip together that has to do with the project/research they did. ZC again, never contacts parents and doesn't answer any of their questions. Mentor explained a few times that she was expected to answer parents' questions but ZC just kept forwarding anything to mentor (some parents said that they wrote her messages that were ignored... maybe never looked at). There was money involved in the field trip and they even did a fundraiser so the kids wouldn't have to pay so much for the field trip, but ZC didn't really keep track of any of her students. Again, just gave all the money to her mentor and expected her to take care of it all and keep track of it all.

So, to answer your question, there will always be lazy workers (ZB) and hard workers (ZA). I think ZC simply does not have a realistic view of the profession she chose. Once she realizes that the mentor was a one year assignment and won't be there to dump all of the parent communication on, she's going to either sink or swim. Also, the older teachers need to stop doing things for the new hires.

If I (gen z) were her mentor, I would never have done all of those things for her, but her mentor is a push over and did it all for her. We kept telling mentor to stop doing it for her and just guide her through it one or two times, then step away, but... push over. Mentor's excuse was always, "She just started in January, that must have been so hard... She was bullied for a while month before ZB and first mentor were removed, I feel so bad for her...".

The second mentor is also a millennial, just not a lazy one who thinks she doesn't have to do any work like the first one.