Terrible Elementary Teacher - what to do?

[Anonymous]

I realize there is a teaching shortage, but what can a parent do if your child is placed with a newly hired, horribly mean teacher? My child who is a soft spoken, happy kid with straight As starts regularly crying and telling us how miserable he is with his teacher? We, along with many other parents in the classroom, have complained separately, met with administrators at the school. Then what? I’ve been trying to wait for things to improve within the classroom while also telling my child that “everyone has a bad teacher” sometimes and the likelihood of having another bad teacher next year is low. However, today my child had a complete meltdown at dinner about how his teacher gives him dirty looks all day, won’t let the kids use the bathroom, and berates children in the classroom. We’ve already met with the teacher 1:1 and the school administration team. Nothing has improved in the last two weeks. My husband and I are starting to really worry this is creating some mental health issues for our kid.

Any advice? I’m starting to think either I see the continual decline of my kid while the school does nothing or have to transfer to private, homeschool - all options I really don’t want to have to explore unless given no choice.

[Anonymous]

You are not going to like this answer but this happened to our son in 1st grade and we pulled him out and homeschooled him. We moved to a small private after that. We were very unhappy with the teacher and the curriculum in MCPS and just didn’t see how we were going to make it work long term. The move has worked out well, although I wish I didn’t have to spend so much money to get the education I excepted when I moved to MoCo. I do think other elementary schools in the County are better and we hit a school in crisis just before it hit bottom. It seems to be getting better but we are now settled at our private and will just stay.

[Anonymous]

First, telling your kid their teacher is a bad teacher is not a very good idea. You are making the situation worse.

Second, if parents or a group of parents demand that their child be moved to a different class admin has to do something. If the teacher is truly doing and saying inappropriate or mean things you need to document and report, repeatedly. Then tell the principal you're going to the press or reporting to the Dept. of Education or something, don't just give up.

If you remove your kid to homeschool or private you are leaving the rest of those poor kids to suffer for the rest of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, telling your kid their teacher is a bad teacher is not a very good idea. You are making the situation worse.

Second, if parents or a group of parents demand that their child be moved to a different class admin has to do something. If the teacher is truly doing and saying inappropriate or mean things you need to document and report, repeatedly. Then tell the principal you're going to the press or reporting to the Dept. of Education or something, don't just give up.

If you remove your kid to homeschool or private you are leaving the rest of those poor kids to suffer for the rest of the year.

Yup, talk to the boss or boss's boss until it's resolved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, telling your kid their teacher is a bad teacher is not a very good idea. You are making the situation worse.

Second, if parents or a group of parents demand that their child be moved to a different class admin has to do something. If the teacher is truly doing and saying inappropriate or mean things you need to document and report, repeatedly. Then tell the principal you're going to the press or reporting to the Dept. of Education or something, don't just give up.

If you remove your kid to homeschool or private you are leaving the rest of those poor kids to suffer for the rest of the year.

Yup, talk to the boss or boss's boss until it's resolved.

+1. Power in numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, telling your kid their teacher is a bad teacher is not a very good idea. You are making the situation worse.

Second, if parents or a group of parents demand that their child be moved to a different class admin has to do something. If the teacher is truly doing and saying inappropriate or mean things you need to document and report, repeatedly. Then tell the principal you're going to the press or reporting to the Dept. of Education or something, don't just give up.

If you remove your kid to homeschool or private you are leaving the rest of those poor kids to suffer for the rest of the year.

What? No, they don’t. You aren’t in a position to “demand” anything.

[Anonymous]

Totally depends on what grade? 4th grade or below pup hon out of that school and declare you are homeschooling him. Then wait a month and go back to re-enroll him and insist on different teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, telling your kid their teacher is a bad teacher is not a very good idea. You are making the situation worse.

Second, if parents or a group of parents demand that their child be moved to a different class admin has to do something. If the teacher is truly doing and saying inappropriate or mean things you need to document and report, repeatedly. Then tell the principal you're going to the press or reporting to the Dept. of Education or something, don't just give up.

If you remove your kid to homeschool or private you are leaving the rest of those poor kids to suffer for the rest of the year.

What? No, they don’t. You aren’t in a position to “demand” anything.

I worked in public school for many years and yes parents can insist and demand and not stop until something is done, keep escalating, go to school board, go to parent groups, go to local paper, call state board of education, but don't give up. It is the right thing to do but only if the teacher is truly terrible and damaging as opposed to not exactly what you want for your child, there's a big difference.

[Anonymous]

What you don't understand is that there is not another teacher waiting to take their place, what you have is a warm body. From the pandemic, to distance learning to parents absolute fury with teachers, many have retired or left the profession. There are not teachers available to take this bad ones place.

I work at an ES with a couple of "warm bodies." The administration knows, but when there is no one to hire instead what are they supposed to do?

[Anonymous]

Private this year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, telling your kid their teacher is a bad teacher is not a very good idea. You are making the situation worse.

Second, if parents or a group of parents demand that their child be moved to a different class admin has to do something. If the teacher is truly doing and saying inappropriate or mean things you need to document and report, repeatedly. Then tell the principal you're going to the press or reporting to the Dept. of Education or something, don't just give up.

If you remove your kid to homeschool or private you are leaving the rest of those poor kids to suffer for the rest of the year.

Yup, talk to the boss or boss's boss until it's resolved.

+1. Power in numbers.

+2. We had a situation like this. The principal refused to help, so we went to the school superintendent and had both the teacher and principal removed. Power in numbers is right.

[Anonymous]

We had a long term sub like this at the end of last year. It was awful. Parents complained. Nothing was done becasue there was noone else.

[Anonymous]

OP, how long has the principal been at the school? What is the principal’s history of dealing with poor teachers? Same questions apply to the teacher— how much experience does the teacher have and how long at that particular school? We had a new principal “inherit” a bad teacher years ago when my son was in first grade. Several parents transferred their kids out to catholic schools for the year, others just went the tutor route. Teacher was gone the following year.

Has the administration send anyone in to observe the class? We had an issue with a 5th grade teacher pre-Covid and parents made so much noise that the AP and another teacher (forgetting her title, but she’s sh teacher who teaches/coaches the teachers) spent much of the fall in that room. Original teacher improved in classroom management and at least stopped insulting the students.

[Anonymous]

OP I am so sorry to hear this is happening to your son. I would get him out of there asap. We started an MCPS school in 3rd grade and the teacher was a horror. I discovered she'd previously taught 1st grade and the whole class parent body went to see the Principal to have her replaced. It took ages, my DD suffered thru a year with her and finally she was taken out of the classroom (the teacher) and made a reading specialist who floated between schools. But the damage was done for a lot of kids, my DD's confidence was lost. But she was really lucky with her 4th grade teacher who was lovely and helped build that confidence back up.

I think if my son were crying frequently like yours is, I'd get him out asap.

[Anonymous]

I had a teacher like that for a year and a half in 3rd/4th grade. It was awful. I moved to that school in the spring of 3rd grade and they put me in her class. Now that I look back at it, I think she was mentally ill.

If there isn't another class to request a transfer to, call the local Catholic school to see if they have a vacancy. I ended up in Catholic school in 6th grade anyway.

I felt sick going to her math class in 4th grade. It was after lunch and I was so nervous. We'd ask the morning math class what kind of mood she was in and they'd give us a thumbs up/down.