Incentives to Keep Teachers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.

Exactly. They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already. And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Congratulations! I took 3 years off when my children were younger. The stress, fatigue, and anxiety melted away. I forgot how bad it was, which is why I came back. I won’t be making it much longer and I’ll be kissing full pension goodbye. I don’t care. It isn’t worth my health and happiness.

The posters who love to remind us about the amazing benefits haven’t actually tried the job. The benefits aren’t worth it. At all.

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.

Exactly. They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already. And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Congratulations! I took 3 years off when my children were younger. The stress, fatigue, and anxiety melted away. I forgot how bad it was, which is why I came back. I won’t be making it much longer and I’ll be kissing full pension goodbye. I don’t care. It isn’t worth my health and happiness.

The posters who love to remind us about the amazing benefits haven’t actually tried the job. The benefits aren’t worth it. At all.

Teaching isn't the only difficult job in the county. Lots of difficult jobs in social service for example. But, you work 10 months, we work 12 months. You get a pension, we don't. You get far better health care than we do, etc. So, yup, try changing jobs to what others do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.

Exactly. They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already. And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Most jobs have constant changes and demands. The only difference is you don’t have to be worried about being terminated for no good reason.

People who haven’t taught should stop commenting on the job because you don’t know it. Sure, other jobs have changes (challenges, you mean?) and demands. Some of them are even hard jobs. But they aren’t teaching, which comes with a unique set of challenges.

I’ve worked other jobs AND I’ve taught.

You think social workers, police, fire fighters, EMT's have it easy? Why don't you try being child welfare investigator for a week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.

Exactly. They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already. And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Congratulations! I took 3 years off when my children were younger. The stress, fatigue, and anxiety melted away. I forgot how bad it was, which is why I came back. I won’t be making it much longer and I’ll be kissing full pension goodbye. I don’t care. It isn’t worth my health and happiness.

The posters who love to remind us about the amazing benefits haven’t actually tried the job. The benefits aren’t worth it. At all.

Teaching isn't the only difficult job in the county. Lots of difficult jobs in social service for example. But, you work 10 months, we work 12 months. You get a pension, we don't. You get far better health care than we do, etc. So, yup, try changing jobs to what others do.

Okay, but why don’t YOU try changing jobs since teaching is such a dream? We are desperate for people and you are jealous of the pay and benefits, so please join us. Luckily, you can start this Fall with just the degree you have.

[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:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

We need TAs for the students who need help but we also need bouncers to get rid of the ones who don't want to learn. It's my dream to have a sweep of these students like in the movie Lean on Me. Get rid of them. Someone else (not the teachers) can offer alternatives for them but they need to be removed from the gen ed classroom.

Unfortunately, in public schools, you cannot get rid of students , per se. That is another big issue. I think having consequences where the child disrupting needs parents to pick them up- if it happens regularly, mandate psych eval and then go from there.

My DC 14 told me the other day that there are a couple of students that get detention / have to eat lunch with the VP every single day- doesn’t change a thing- behavior is still the same. So the consequences currently being implanted are not effective. The Board with parent input need to find more consistent and different consequences for disruptive behavior. Also, imo, it needs to be the same all across MCPS- no school and principal dependent.

But there are zero expectations of parents. There is no expectation that they answer the phone when admin calls them about their child’s behavior. If I had a time for every pissed off parents screaming, “He’s not my problem when he’s at school!” “Stop calling me!”

But it is the school's responsibility to provide services necessary to manage a student's disability. If a disruptive behavior is a manifestation of a disability, then the school needs to provide additional supportive services. They can't simply send the student home, although sometimes they try.

The schools simply don’t have the staff. Yes, it’s required, but the frank truth is that SpEd is near impossible to fully staff. A school can’t pull blood from stone, no matter how much the remaining staff may try. That’s why current teachers are blaze-of-glory burning out, trying to provide what’s required for MANY students. One person is just one person, though, and can only do so much.

They don't have the staff because MCPS hasn't prioritized SpEd positions.

It also doesn't help that there are 4X as many SpED cases than there were 10 years ago.

Yet they haven't been willing to increase SpEd positions according to the needs of current students.

Schools can’t fill existing positions. What would be the point of creating new ones? There aren’t lines of SpEd-certified teachers clamoring for positions.

I hear that but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe with HS teachers that require significant training for advanced STEM or special ed.

Most don’t have significant training. They understand the material. They aren’t in the stem world. My kid took a computer science class in ms and the teacher had barely any knowledge and we had lots of issues as they were wrong on several things. Our math teacher regularly gets problems wrong.

I’m sure your expertise would be appreciated. Why don’t you sign up? As people on this thread will tell you, it’s a super easy job with AMAZING benefits.

Because I work in an equally hard field so if I give up my job, will you do it?

[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:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

We need TAs for the students who need help but we also need bouncers to get rid of the ones who don't want to learn. It's my dream to have a sweep of these students like in the movie Lean on Me. Get rid of them. Someone else (not the teachers) can offer alternatives for them but they need to be removed from the gen ed classroom.

Unfortunately, in public schools, you cannot get rid of students , per se. That is another big issue. I think having consequences where the child disrupting needs parents to pick them up- if it happens regularly, mandate psych eval and then go from there.

My DC 14 told me the other day that there are a couple of students that get detention / have to eat lunch with the VP every single day- doesn’t change a thing- behavior is still the same. So the consequences currently being implanted are not effective. The Board with parent input need to find more consistent and different consequences for disruptive behavior. Also, imo, it needs to be the same all across MCPS- no school and principal dependent.

But there are zero expectations of parents. There is no expectation that they answer the phone when admin calls them about their child’s behavior. If I had a time for every pissed off parents screaming, “He’s not my problem when he’s at school!” “Stop calling me!”

But it is the school's responsibility to provide services necessary to manage a student's disability. If a disruptive behavior is a manifestation of a disability, then the school needs to provide additional supportive services. They can't simply send the student home, although sometimes they try.

The schools simply don’t have the staff. Yes, it’s required, but the frank truth is that SpEd is near impossible to fully staff. A school can’t pull blood from stone, no matter how much the remaining staff may try. That’s why current teachers are blaze-of-glory burning out, trying to provide what’s required for MANY students. One person is just one person, though, and can only do so much.

They don't have the staff because MCPS hasn't prioritized SpEd positions.

It also doesn't help that there are 4X as many SpED cases than there were 10 years ago.

Yet they haven't been willing to increase SpEd positions according to the needs of current students.

Schools can’t fill existing positions. What would be the point of creating new ones? There aren’t lines of SpEd-certified teachers clamoring for positions.

I hear that but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe with HS teachers that require significant training for advanced STEM or special ed.

Most don’t have significant training. They understand the material. They aren’t in the stem world. My kid took a computer science class in ms and the teacher had barely any knowledge and we had lots of issues as they were wrong on several things. Our math teacher regularly gets problems wrong.

I’m sure your expertise would be appreciated. Why don’t you sign up? As people on this thread will tell you, it’s a super easy job with AMAZING benefits.

Because I work in an equally hard field so if I give up my job, will you do it?

But if you switch you can have a much better life. Why complain about your difficult job if you can move to such an easy one which will give you better benefits and be a service to your community?

[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:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

We need TAs for the students who need help but we also need bouncers to get rid of the ones who don't want to learn. It's my dream to have a sweep of these students like in the movie Lean on Me. Get rid of them. Someone else (not the teachers) can offer alternatives for them but they need to be removed from the gen ed classroom.

Unfortunately, in public schools, you cannot get rid of students , per se. That is another big issue. I think having consequences where the child disrupting needs parents to pick them up- if it happens regularly, mandate psych eval and then go from there.

My DC 14 told me the other day that there are a couple of students that get detention / have to eat lunch with the VP every single day- doesn’t change a thing- behavior is still the same. So the consequences currently being implanted are not effective. The Board with parent input need to find more consistent and different consequences for disruptive behavior. Also, imo, it needs to be the same all across MCPS- no school and principal dependent.

But there are zero expectations of parents. There is no expectation that they answer the phone when admin calls them about their child’s behavior. If I had a time for every pissed off parents screaming, “He’s not my problem when he’s at school!” “Stop calling me!”

But it is the school's responsibility to provide services necessary to manage a student's disability. If a disruptive behavior is a manifestation of a disability, then the school needs to provide additional supportive services. They can't simply send the student home, although sometimes they try.

The schools simply don’t have the staff. Yes, it’s required, but the frank truth is that SpEd is near impossible to fully staff. A school can’t pull blood from stone, no matter how much the remaining staff may try. That’s why current teachers are blaze-of-glory burning out, trying to provide what’s required for MANY students. One person is just one person, though, and can only do so much.

They don't have the staff because MCPS hasn't prioritized SpEd positions.

It also doesn't help that there are 4X as many SpED cases than there were 10 years ago.

Yet they haven't been willing to increase SpEd positions according to the needs of current students.

Schools can’t fill existing positions. What would be the point of creating new ones? There aren’t lines of SpEd-certified teachers clamoring for positions.

I hear that but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe with HS teachers that require significant training for advanced STEM or special ed.

Most don’t have significant training. They understand the material. They aren’t in the stem world. My kid took a computer science class in ms and the teacher had barely any knowledge and we had lots of issues as they were wrong on several things. Our math teacher regularly gets problems wrong.

I’m sure your expertise would be appreciated. Why don’t you sign up? As people on this thread will tell you, it’s a super easy job with AMAZING benefits.

Because I work in an equally hard field so if I give up my job, will you do it?

Can I go to the bathroom when I need to, or do I have to wait 15-20 minutes for someone to cover me? If I get sick, can I just take leave or do I have to spend 2 hours making sub plans? Can I get paperwork done AT work, or will it be assumed I work every evening and 8-10 hours every Sunday? If I need 10 minutes to get myself together at the start of the day, can I get it or should I assume there are over 30 combative people in my office already waiting for me?

I’ll take my chances. Let’s trade!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.

Exactly. They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already. And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Most jobs have constant changes and demands. The only difference is you don’t have to be worried about being terminated for no good reason.

People who haven’t taught should stop commenting on the job because you don’t know it. Sure, other jobs have changes (challenges, you mean?) and demands. Some of them are even hard jobs. But they aren’t teaching, which comes with a unique set of challenges.

I’ve worked other jobs AND I’ve taught.

You think social workers, police, fire fighters, EMT's have it easy? Why don't you try being child welfare investigator for a week?

I live with a police officer. I just asked. He says he has it easier.

[Anonymous]

We need a system that motivates students to learn the material rather than just do enough assignments to pass. When students do not learn the material, they do not have the knowledge needed at the next level. They then act out or skip school. Policies to rethink:

1. Get a C for one quarter in high school and pass the semester - causes students to only work 1 quarter, learn nothing the 2nd quarter, and therefore not be prepared for 3rd quarter.

2. No final exam rule - causes students to have a "cram for the test" approach rather than a "I need to know this" view

3. 50% rule - causes students to focus on a few assignments and mentally skip the harder ones - for example, do the project or do well enough on the quizzes and just take a 50% on the tests - now they know even less


On top of the above items, we need natural consequences for students who make poor choices. Right now, we are just hoping that a high school student will operate with a maturity beyond their age. Examples of these policies that are not encouraging students to make better decisions are the current cell phone policy and the attendance policy. While we may have a policy on paper, in practice the policy is to just keep asking the student over and over to please do the right thing, with documentation that we have also communicated with family.



Teachers are tired. I greatly appreciate the question about what incentives to keep teachers. However, I think we need a total overhaul of what we are currently doing. I feel bad for all the students and teachers who are trying to do the right thing every day because current policies make is so difficult to learn / teach.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I'm a "let the whole system burn" teacher. I don't care what happens to it anymore. Truly. 3 years and I'm done. I truly believe there's going to be a whole meltdown, there'll be entire schools that have to close and or class sizes in the 40's or 50's, and eventually special ed will have to be taken over through private insurance. But again, I don't care anymore. This system has chewed me up and spit me out. Let it burn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I'm a "let the whole system burn" teacher. I don't care what happens to it anymore. Truly. 3 years and I'm done. I truly believe there's going to be a whole meltdown, there'll be entire schools that have to close and or class sizes in the 40's or 50's, and eventually special ed will have to be taken over through private insurance. But again, I don't care anymore. This system has chewed me up and spit me out. Let it burn.

I’ve seen far too many teachers get chewed up and spit out. I’m sorry this has happened to you and I completely understand why you feel the way you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I'm a "let the whole system burn" teacher. I don't care what happens to it anymore. Truly. 3 years and I'm done. I truly believe there's going to be a whole meltdown, there'll be entire schools that have to close and or class sizes in the 40's or 50's, and eventually special ed will have to be taken over through private insurance. But again, I don't care anymore. This system has chewed me up and spit me out. Let it burn.

There's a small group of posters that get hard at the thought of getting children with special needs out of public schools so that they and their kids won't have to see them anymore.

Keep it in your pants. It isn't going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.

Exactly. They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already. And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Most jobs have constant changes and demands. The only difference is you don’t have to be worried about being terminated for no good reason.

People who haven’t taught should stop commenting on the job because you don’t know it. Sure, other jobs have changes (challenges, you mean?) and demands. Some of them are even hard jobs. But they aren’t teaching, which comes with a unique set of challenges.

I’ve worked other jobs AND I’ve taught.

You think social workers, police, fire fighters, EMT's have it easy? Why don't you try being child welfare investigator for a week?

I live with a police officer. I just asked. He says he has it easier.

Depends on his actual job. Mine was not.

[Anonymous]

They can put cots in the gyms so teachers can keep a roof over their head and stay at work 24/7 to grade their oversized classes. It's very rare to be able to afford these essentials on a teachers salary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I'm a "let the whole system burn" teacher. I don't care what happens to it anymore. Truly. 3 years and I'm done. I truly believe there's going to be a whole meltdown, there'll be entire schools that have to close and or class sizes in the 40's or 50's, and eventually special ed will have to be taken over through private insurance. But again, I don't care anymore. This system has chewed me up and spit me out. Let it burn.

There's a small group of posters that get hard at the thought of getting children with special needs out of public schools so that they and their kids won't have to see them anymore.

Keep it in your pants. It isn't going to happen.

That wasn’t the PP’s point AT ALL. She’s an overworked, mistreated, burned-out teacher at the end of her rope. My guess is she just put in 3 miserable years the likes of which you can’t imagine, trying to put out many fires simultaneously and seeing very few results (and being disrespected for her efforts). She works in a system designed to fail, and she the one keeping it together through late nights and exhausting days.

This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with trying to get students with special needs out of schools. Stop assuming the worst and accept that teachers are burning out as they try to make something with nothing for your children. The only correct thing to say is “thank you for your 3 years and I’m sorry.”