Does Anyone Have Any Examples of How the MCPS Shortage is Impacting Things This Year?

[Anonymous]

I know there has always been a teacher shortage of some sort but are parents feeling it or seeing it impact their kids more so this year? Are classes bigger? Fewer offerings? Our class size is usually in the low twenties but we are pushing 30 this year. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

This is the first I've heard of this. Another post even claimed enrollment was so far down that there would be layoffs so not really sure what's going on here.

[Anonymous]

There are more long term subs this year and fewer daily subs. A lot of classes being “covered” by other teachers. DS’s health class has just had daily subs or coverage. All they do is read and answer reading comprehension questions. If they finish in 10-15 min, there is nothing else to do. Some students sleep. I have another child taking the same course so I can see the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are more long term subs this year and fewer daily subs. A lot of classes being “covered” by other teachers. DS’s health class has just had daily subs or coverage. All they do is read and answer reading comprehension questions. If they finish in 10-15 min, there is nothing else to do. Some students sleep. I have another child taking the same course so I can see the difference.

Yes to this. There just aren't as many people available as there have been in past years.

[Anonymous]

We've had long term subs before due to medical issues, so that part is nothing new. Maybe there are more this year.

IMO, the biggest impact is the shortage of bus drivers.

[Anonymous]

We have a child in kindergarten at a Focus school and the K classes are bigger than normal and what they are supposed to be at a Focus school. But my understanding in that case isn't that there are fewer K teachers than last year, just more kindergarteners. A lot of parents held their kids back (can't blame them).

Seems there have been a lot of bus delays with the driver shortage and the kindergarteners apparently end up waiting in the gym every day for a long time waiting for the late buses to arrive. I have no idea why they just can't take all the kids who are there to the classroom instead of clustering them in the gym to wait, but there are a lot of things that don't make sense to me these days.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have any open teaching jobs. We could use more subs, but even if more teachers showed up, we wouldn’t have money to hire them.

At my hometown, there are open full time teaching spots they can’t fill, so classes are huge and kids can’t get specialized help like reading. That’s not happening in MCPS for teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've had long term subs before due to medical issues, so that part is nothing new. Maybe there are more this year.

IMO, the biggest impact is the shortage of bus drivers.

The shortage of bus drivers only impacts the families whose children catch the bus. But the lack of subs affects far more people: every student in that class is impacted, plus the teachers who have to cover those classes and the regular students of the teachers who have to do coverage. Maybe your teacher lost their planning period so they now don’t have time to write comments for feedback so they just use the rubric.

[Anonymous]

If you look at the MCPS jobs board, there are tons of openings for special education teachers and paraeducators. There are also quite a few openings for long term subs. I'm sure all of this varies depending on the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a child in kindergarten at a Focus school and the K classes are bigger than normal and what they are supposed to be at a Focus school. But my understanding in that case isn't that there are fewer K teachers than last year, just more kindergarteners. A lot of parents held their kids back (can't blame them).

Seems there have been a lot of bus delays with the driver shortage and the kindergarteners apparently end up waiting in the gym every day for a long time waiting for the late buses to arrive. I have no idea why they just can't take all the kids who are there to the classroom instead of clustering them in the gym to wait, but there are a lot of things that don't make sense to me these days.

Right, and if some of those kindergartners joined the school late, it's hard for the principal to get another K teacher assigned. There are also space constraints. If there's not an empty classroom, there can't be another class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've had long term subs before due to medical issues, so that part is nothing new. Maybe there are more this year.

IMO, the biggest impact is the shortage of bus drivers.

The shortage of bus drivers only impacts the families whose children catch the bus. But the lack of subs affects far more people: every student in that class is impacted, plus the teachers who have to cover those classes and the regular students of the teachers who have to do coverage. Maybe your teacher lost their planning period so they now don’t have time to write comments for feedback so they just use the rubric.

Bus driver shortage is wide spread.

How many classes have long term subs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've had long term subs before due to medical issues, so that part is nothing new. Maybe there are more this year.

IMO, the biggest impact is the shortage of bus drivers.

The shortage of bus drivers only impacts the families whose children catch the bus. But the lack of subs affects far more people: every student in that class is impacted, plus the teachers who have to cover those classes and the regular students of the teachers who have to do coverage. Maybe your teacher lost their planning period so they now don’t have time to write comments for feedback so they just use the rubric.

Actually it doesn't, because teachers generally wait for the kids arriving late on the bus to start teaching.

[Anonymous]

I’m sure (I hope, at least!) that this year teachers are staying home when they have cold-type symptoms that in past years they’d just push through.


But I don’t think we want teachers, even vaccinated ones, powering through that throat tickle or slight cough to head into the classroom. So everybody scrambles to cover. Following those covid best practices is inevitably going to exacerbate the shortage of subs that’s been a recurring problem for years.

[Anonymous]

35 kids in my son's high school geometry class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've had long term subs before due to medical issues, so that part is nothing new. Maybe there are more this year.

IMO, the biggest impact is the shortage of bus drivers.

The shortage of bus drivers only impacts the families whose children catch the bus. But the lack of subs affects far more people: every student in that class is impacted, plus the teachers who have to cover those classes and the regular students of the teachers who have to do coverage. Maybe your teacher lost their planning period so they now don’t have time to write comments for feedback so they just use the rubric.

Actually it doesn't, because teachers generally wait for the kids arriving late on the bus to start teaching.

Not in secondary school.