What happens if FCPS isn't staffed by the first day of school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school is fully staffed!

Ours too...four teacher trainees

How do you know this?

I'm not the PP but our school has a few and they are listed are on the school website-this is how SPED is filling many vacancies.

Oh, good. What could *possibly* go wrong?

Nobody wants to teach sped. Those teachers take so much abuse from the kids and then the parents personally hold them responsible for the lack of support and resources the school provides for them to do their jobs. Then a lawsuit says they have to go back to 2020 and evaluate every single kid on their caseload and the hours of services they received and write recommendations for recompense. The sped system is INSANE in this country.

Insane and broken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

+1. Our school is in the same situation. I'm a SPED teacher and love my job but my caseload has doubled since last year and we keep getting more and more piled on. I am willing to bend over backwards for my students because this is not their fault, but I am sick and tired of bending over forward for the district. It will break my heart but this will probably be my last year unless there are major changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

She knows it’s bad. You cannot attract new teachers anymore though and the current ones are burning out and leaving early. Very few teachers in the current cohort are going to make it to a 30+ year career with full retirement. Even my colleagues 1-3 years away from retiring say they couldn’t have don’t it this long if it had been as bad as it is now.

[Anonymous]

The kids will suffer. I’m the reading specialist but won’t be able to provide my tier 3 interventions because I’m needed to fill vacancies. And still expected to do my actual job. I’m out after this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

She knows it’s bad. You cannot attract new teachers anymore though and the current ones are burning out and leaving early. Very few teachers in the current cohort are going to make it to a 30+ year career with full retirement. Even my colleagues 1-3 years away from retiring say they couldn’t have don’t it this long if it had been as bad as it is now.

But that is the thing. She literally has a teacher advisory board. The main focus should be how to retain teachers. Talk to and ask the teachers. There is a lot they can do to off load workloads and to make working in FCPS more desirable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

She knows it’s bad. You cannot attract new teachers anymore though and the current ones are burning out and leaving early. Very few teachers in the current cohort are going to make it to a 30+ year career with full retirement. Even my colleagues 1-3 years away from retiring say they couldn’t have don’t it this long if it had been as bad as it is now.

But that is the thing. She literally has a teacher advisory board. The main focus should be how to retain teachers. Talk to and ask the teachers. There is a lot they can do to off load workloads and to make working in FCPS more desirable.

Has she considered putting her professional and certified staff members into the schools to give real, hands-on help? If not, she does not get it.

They should be in the classrooms before making genuine resource teachers--who do work with kids-do double duty.

[Anonymous]

Every "instructional coach" should be subbing in classrooms of their own schools. If their school is "fully staffed" then send them to a school that is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

She knows it’s bad. You cannot attract new teachers anymore though and the current ones are burning out and leaving early. Very few teachers in the current cohort are going to make it to a 30+ year career with full retirement. Even my colleagues 1-3 years away from retiring say they couldn’t have don’t it this long if it had been as bad as it is now.

But that is the thing. She literally has a teacher advisory board. The main focus should be how to retain teachers. Talk to and ask the teachers. There is a lot they can do to off load workloads and to make working in FCPS more desirable.

Has she considered putting her professional and certified staff members into the schools to give real, hands-on help? If not, she does not get it.

They should be in the classrooms before making genuine resource teachers--who do work with kids-do double duty.

They were in the schools last year and probably will be again. Reid drastically reduced the PD for this year in response to strong teacher feedback about too much PD. You can’t just get more teachers to show up, especially special ed (when the feds mandate so much but haven’t come anywhere close to meeting their funding obligations). The system is broken but it’s not at the FCPS level. This is nationwide.

[Anonymous]

I think people also need to understand that all schools do not have the same resources. A small non title 1 school doesn’t have many resource positions. One reading teacher, sbts and aart- who are already on the master. So it hits the harder. And the message to the principals has been, they are not sending help until “ all school resources” have been exhausted. So it’s comments like that that make those of us in schools feel like they don’t really care. It’s very much a figure it out on your own message. It’s also insulting that we are expected to do our regular job ( overwhelming on the best of days) plus teaching/planning/ assessing in these rooms with no additional financial stipend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

She knows it’s bad. You cannot attract new teachers anymore though and the current ones are burning out and leaving early. Very few teachers in the current cohort are going to make it to a 30+ year career with full retirement. Even my colleagues 1-3 years away from retiring say they couldn’t have don’t it this long if it had been as bad as it is now.

But that is the thing. She literally has a teacher advisory board. The main focus should be how to retain teachers. Talk to and ask the teachers. There is a lot they can do to off load workloads and to make working in FCPS more desirable.

Has she considered putting her professional and certified staff members into the schools to give real, hands-on help? If not, she does not get it.

They should be in the classrooms before making genuine resource teachers--who do work with kids-do double duty.

They were in the schools last year and probably will be again. Reid drastically reduced the PD for this year in response to strong teacher feedback about too much PD. You can’t just get more teachers to show up, especially special ed (when the feds mandate so much but haven’t come anywhere close to meeting their funding obligations). The system is broken but it’s not at the FCPS level. This is nationwide.

This is good news for teachers and, by extension, everyone. A responsive leader making a helpful change.

[Anonymous]

FCPS was a hot mess ten years ago. I see nothing has changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people also need to understand that all schools do not have the same resources. A small non title 1 school doesn’t have many resource positions. One reading teacher, sbts and aart- who are already on the master. So it hits the harder. And the message to the principals has been, they are not sending help until “ all school resources” have been exhausted. So it’s comments like that that make those of us in schools feel like they don’t really care. It’s very much a figure it out on your own message. It’s also insulting that we are expected to do our regular job ( overwhelming on the best of days) plus teaching/planning/ assessing in these rooms with no additional financial stipend.

Please follow-up with HR. If you are moved, you are only teaching not both jobs. That is what Gatehouse communicated to the regional superintendents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

She knows it’s bad. You cannot attract new teachers anymore though and the current ones are burning out and leaving early. Very few teachers in the current cohort are going to make it to a 30+ year career with full retirement. Even my colleagues 1-3 years away from retiring say they couldn’t have don’t it this long if it had been as bad as it is now.

But that is the thing. She literally has a teacher advisory board. The main focus should be how to retain teachers. Talk to and ask the teachers. There is a lot they can do to off load workloads and to make working in FCPS more desirable.

Has she considered putting her professional and certified staff members into the schools to give real, hands-on help? If not, she does not get it.

They should be in the classrooms before making genuine resource teachers--who do work with kids-do double duty.

They were in the schools last year and probably will be again. Reid drastically reduced the PD for this year in response to strong teacher feedback about too much PD. You can’t just get more teachers to show up, especially special ed (when the feds mandate so much but haven’t come anywhere close to meeting their funding obligations). The system is broken but it’s not at the FCPS level. This is nationwide.

We have admin at the school level that treat SPED teachers badly too...like not ensuring caseloads are equitable o a team. They turn a blind eye while one or two SPED teachers are drowning. Then they are surprised when those two teachers leave. Ask me how I know!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is so misleading to say we are fully staffed. At our school, we are down 4 teachers. They combined classes so class size is just south of 30 kids and there is a patchwork of coverage. We are talking 4-5 people taking shifts to cover the day. It’s a disaster. I don’t know if Reid understands how bad it is in schools or if she just doesn’t care.

+1. Our school is in the same situation. I'm a SPED teacher and love my job but my caseload has doubled since last year and we keep getting more and more piled on. I am willing to bend over backwards for my students because this is not their fault, but I am sick and tired of bending over forward for the district. It will break my heart but this will probably be my last year unless there are major changes.

This was me last year and I left. I finished the year for the kids but it was not sustainable. My heart broke and let me be clear it WASN'T the kids that made me leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS was a hot mess ten years ago. I see nothing has changed.

NOTHING! I've been in it for 15.....it's gotten worse.