Cooper Middle School Math - horrible teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

And you’re debating from a premise that teachers have no agency and no role in a solution to a problem you claim impacts them. I hope you teach your students better logic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a particular teacher at Cooper Middle School who is known for being the worst. I won’t say the name. Please don’t use the teachers name when responding or they will delete this thread.

What have other parents done to help their child successfully complete Algebra I Honors when they had this teacher? Did you have to hire a tutor?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

What is the teacher doing right now that is the worst? My DC had Algebra at Cooper and did well — I actually loved the teacher, although I don’t know if this is the same teacher you are referring to. I learned a long time ago to not listen to other parents regarding “bad” teachers because their reasons don’t always align with mine. My DS’s favorite teacher in ES was one whose class parents actively sought to get their kid out of because she wasn’t viewed as “warm” (thus, she was “bad”); however, this teacher was awesome. She got my kid to love reading and writing, and she was very caring in her own, weird way.

[Anonymous]

[list]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

How’s that working out for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

This post is so funny, there pages of two people going back and forth, literally recalling the teacher to do more….gaslighting at its finest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

How would turning teachers on teachers improve the work environment? How would that improve the student experience?

Teaching is hard enough without worrying whether Mrs. Peters in room 102 is reporting me for a noisy classroom. Should I demand that Mrs. Johnson get written up because a student transferred out of her class into mine? Mrs. Smith wasn’t in her room after school when Susie came unannounced for tutoring; should I have her written up for not being on her post, or would neglecting duties be a better reason?

The poster who keeps saying teachers need to take on this responsibility clearly doesn’t know how schools operate.

Reading is fundamental. The post is about advocating to the school board to hold underperforming teachers accountable not tattling on noisy classroom. No need to invent a strawman to excuse an unwilingess to take responsibility in your workplace.

You don’t get it. (You don’t want to get it?)

Personally advocating to hold our coworkers accountable is going to do two things:

1. Pit teachers against each other. Yes, that’s going to happen. If I go to the school board to advocate against X, don’t you think teacher doing X is going to feel targeted? And don’t you think that’ll cause some issues at the copier? There’s a reason this is ADMIN’S job and not ours. Admin is LITERALLY TASKED with teacher evaluation.

2. The time I’m doing admin’s job is time I should be doing my own. Shouldn’t I stay in my lane, doing what I’m supposed to do well?

If “X” is “failing to give adequate instruction such that _% of students every year request to be transferred to other teachers” why is it that you DON’T want to target that? Why do you want to perpetuate a culture like this?

Requests to move classes are known to counselors and admin, this information is shared already, there is nothing more for teachers to do. And how would teachers know if it was inadequate instruction since they haven’t witnessed said instruction (again, admin does that)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

And you’re debating from a premise that teachers have no agency and no role in a solution to a problem you claim impacts them. I hope you teach your students better logic.

There is a bigger problem. The large possibility that there is not a teacher to replace the said “bad teacher”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

And you’re debating from a premise that teachers have no agency and no role in a solution to a problem you claim impacts them. I hope you teach your students better logic.

There is a bigger problem. The large possibility that there is not a teacher to replace the said “bad teacher”.

According to FCPS this isn’t a problem.

https://wjla.com/news/local/fairfax-county-schools-record-low-teacher-vacancy-rate-retention-major-results-fcps-attrition-compensation-contracts-special-education-international-licensure-substitute-apply-program-virginia-intent-to-return-pandemic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

why is your kid special that s/he should be moved -- can all the kids in that class be moved?

Every parent wants their child to be removed from this class, it is the same year after year and parents try to get their kids switched and complain a lot. Nothing has been done by admin to change the situation. I’m not saying that this teacher needs to be fired, I believe that the administration should work with this teacher to be a more effective teacher and actually “teach” the students. There are some really great math teachers at Cooper that this teacher could learn from. Even sharing the other teachers notes would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Joke's on you (not a funny one, sadly).

There is 1 empty slot in my subject this year. One. Across 5 teachers and 16 sections. Even if in a prior year they would move your kid, this year there is no ability to, and if you happen to get that one spot your child's schedule will be flipped upside down and they may end up with the crummy English teacher instead. I am capped at 150 students. If your kid makes 151, they aren't coming to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a particular teacher at Cooper Middle School who is known for being the worst. I won’t say the name. Please don’t use the teachers name when responding or they will delete this thread.

What have other parents done to help their child successfully complete Algebra I Honors when they had this teacher? Did you have to hire a tutor?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

What is the teacher doing right now that is the worst? My DC had Algebra at Cooper and did well — I actually loved the teacher, although I don’t know if this is the same teacher you are referring to. I learned a long time ago to not listen to other parents regarding “bad” teachers because their reasons don’t always align with mine. My DS’s favorite teacher in ES was one whose class parents actively sought to get their kid out of because she wasn’t viewed as “warm” (thus, she was “bad”); however, this teacher was awesome. She got my kid to love reading and writing, and she was very caring in her own, weird way.

I’m absolutely sure it wasn’t the same teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

And you’re debating from a premise that teachers have no agency and no role in a solution to a problem you claim impacts them. I hope you teach your students better logic.

There is a bigger problem. The large possibility that there is not a teacher to replace the said “bad teacher”.

According to FCPS this isn’t a problem.

https://wjla.com/news/local/fairfax-county-schools-record-low-teacher-vacancy-rate-retention-major-results-fcps-attrition-compensation-contracts-special-education-international-licensure-substitute-apply-program-virginia-intent-to-return-pandemic

Well, we know they’ve lied about this before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

And you’re debating from a premise that teachers have no agency and no role in a solution to a problem you claim impacts them. I hope you teach your students better logic.

There is a bigger problem. The large possibility that there is not a teacher to replace the said “bad teacher”.

According to FCPS this isn’t a problem.

https://wjla.com/news/local/fairfax-county-schools-record-low-teacher-vacancy-rate-retention-major-results-fcps-attrition-compensation-contracts-special-education-international-licensure-substitute-apply-program-virginia-intent-to-return-pandemic

Well, we know they’ve lied about this before.

Hey I understand from this thread that there’s no bad teachers, that if there were bad teachers they don’t impact the good ones, if they do impact the good ones theres absolutely nothing teachers can do to impact their working conditions, and that admin carefully tracks all the performance metrics of all teachers. The creative narratives aren’t limited to the leadership.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same thing I'd do with any teacher school or subject if I felt it was necessary: hire a tutor.

This is why the school system sucks and bad teachers are everywhere. instead of actually addressing the problem people just hire tutors. That’s a waste of your money and your kids time attending class. We need to get rid of teachers who clearly don’t want to be there.

[Anonymous]

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The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

Then call the administration. Don't blame the teachers. The teachers are not in the other teacher's classroom.

Teachers and administrators have a role in the solution. If teachers want to work with parents to start holding other teachers accountable, their workplace will benefit. If teachers just want to complain about the mean unfair expectations on them to shoulder the burden of their slacking colleagues without doing anything about it they can expect more of the same.

Oh, yes. That will do wonders for the workplace environment. I don't think you get it: teachers are not shouldering their slacking colleagues. They may not even know if their colleagues are slacking. They may hear things from students--but, that is not the same thing.
And, if for some reason, they are shouldering it, I guarantee you the administration knows.

So the heroic teacher on this thread doing “tremendous” work to the detriment of her health and family because parents ask to switch their kids into her class...making it up?

No, I’m not. My colleagues have smaller classes than I do because of parent requests. I grade more. I reach out to parents more. I have a bigger workload.

It isn’t fair… and it’s still NOT MY JOB to fix this. My job is to continue doing my job. Admin’s job is to fix this.

And all your bellyaching doesn’t change that. Would your bosses like it if you started unilaterally doing their job?

If I failed to address low performers because I was afraid of someone being mad at me at the copy machine, my bosses would fire me.

You clearly have no idea how a school functions. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you willfully want to pin this on hardworking teachers.

Not ONCE have you said you would take the issue up with admin, the very people who are specifically tasked with teacher evaluation and teacher quality. We have very delineated roles for a reason in a school, reasons you cavalierly discard.

You’re debating from a place of arrogance and ignorance, which means we’ll get nowhere. I’m through.

And you’re debating from a premise that teachers have no agency and no role in a solution to a problem you claim impacts them. I hope you teach your students better logic.

There is a bigger problem. The large possibility that there is not a teacher to replace the said “bad teacher”.

According to FCPS this isn’t a problem.

https://wjla.com/news/local/fairfax-county-schools-record-low-teacher-vacancy-rate-retention-major-results-fcps-attrition-compensation-contracts-special-education-international-licensure-substitute-apply-program-virginia-intent-to-return-pandemic

Well, we know they’ve lied about this before.

Hey I understand from this thread that there’s no bad teachers, that if there were bad teachers they don’t impact the good ones, if they do impact the good ones theres absolutely nothing teachers can do to impact their working conditions, and that admin carefully tracks all the performance metrics of all teachers. The creative narratives aren’t limited to the leadership.

Nobody wrote any of this. The opposite is actually all over this thread. You are mad at teachers because they can’t solve a particular problem for you.

If you actually cared about the poor performance of a certain teacher, you would be reaching out to admin. They probably are already aware of the problem, and additional documentation would help them do their job. Spewing anger at teachers for not getting their bad colleagues fired? It’s illogical and ineffective. And silly.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

why is your kid special that s/he should be moved -- can all the kids in that class be moved?

Every parent wants their child to be removed from this class, it is the same year after year and parents try to get their kids switched and complain a lot. Nothing has been done by admin to change the situation. I’m not saying that this teacher needs to be fired, I believe that the administration should work with this teacher to be a more effective teacher and actually “teach” the students. There are some really great math teachers at Cooper that this teacher could learn from. Even sharing the other teachers notes would be helpful.

You said that “every parent” wants to move their child from this class, but what, specifically, has this teacher done right now that has adversely affected YOUR child? Expecting the administration to “do something” about a teacher is not helpful unless you can explain what exactly this teacher has done wrong.