Are any other high school teachers experiencing worse freshman this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MS teacher here: last year’s 8th graders were pretty awful and allowed to do whatever they want.

Parent here. Did you discuss this with the 7th grade teachers? What did they say? What about the 6th grade teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MS teacher here: last year’s 8th graders were pretty awful and allowed to do whatever they want.

Parent here. Did you discuss this with the 7th grade teachers? What did they say? What about the 6th grade teachers?

What would that accomplish? NP

[Anonymous]

Now it's the covid kids. Before that it was tik tok challenges before that it was no SROs.

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

[Anonymous]

I hope the teacher who was assaulted pressed charges with the police. I'm beginning to think of admins and parents aren't going to do anything, all teachers should press charges, regardless of student age. Our unions aren't worth crap when it comes to this and I don't know why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now it's the covid kids. Before that it was tik tok challenges before that it was no SROs.

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

This is why. It’s the equity ridiculousness. Can’t punish one race too much, so the obvious answer to that is punish no one. Totally makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

I don’t have a feel for the 9th graders at our HS yet, but the hallway issues are mostly individual class avoidance rather than groups of kids. We’ve been focusing on limiting passes and putting extra adults to shooing kids into class at the bell. Still not under control, but not as bad as two years ago.

For folks who aren’t teachers, the cursing at a teacher isn’t acceptable, but administration and security are so overwhelmed with worse behaviors that they have no bandwidth for it. It isn’t worth reacting to as a teacher (when things are this awful). Just ignore the cursing and treat the behavior like you would a toddler having a tantrum. “I can’t hear you until you use polite language and a normal tone of voice.” Grey rock them. It’s not worth your energy to engage. At the end of the day, it’s the kid losing out, not the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now it's the covid kids. Before that it was tik tok challenges before that it was no SROs.

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

I don’t have a feel for the 9th graders at our HS yet, but the hallway issues are mostly individual class avoidance rather than groups of kids. We’ve been focusing on limiting passes and putting extra adults to shooing kids into class at the bell. Still not under control, but not as bad as two years ago.

For folks who aren’t teachers, the cursing at a teacher isn’t acceptable, but administration and security are so overwhelmed with worse behaviors that they have no bandwidth for it. It isn’t worth reacting to as a teacher (when things are this awful). Just ignore the cursing and treat the behavior like you would a toddler having a tantrum. “I can’t hear you until you use polite language and a normal tone of voice.” Grey rock them. It’s not worth your energy to engage. At the end of the day, it’s the kid losing out, not the teacher.

Maybe. But it’s exhausting for the teachers. I’m not a teacher, but having to deal with this kind of disrespect on a daily basis, as a professional (and as someone who is not working as a jail warden) seems too much to ask.

Admin and Central Office need to fix this. For teachers and for the sake of other students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope the teacher who was assaulted pressed charges with the police. I'm beginning to think of admins and parents aren't going to do anything, all teachers should press charges, regardless of student age. Our unions aren't worth crap when it comes to this and I don't know why.

What can parents do? Really.

I’m a parent and we had a horrible student in one of my kid’s ES classes. Parents tried to discuss it with the principal and even went to the cluster super. Nothing productive came of any of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MS teacher here: last year’s 8th graders were pretty awful and allowed to do whatever they want.

Parent here. Did you discuss this with the 7th grade teachers? What did they say? What about the 6th grade teachers?

How would that help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

Yes, society has been in decline for years. People wrote about this trend even a few thousand years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now it's the covid kids. Before that it was tik tok challenges before that it was no SROs.

The actual problem is that mcps has zero consequences for poor behavior.

This is why. It’s the equity ridiculousness. Can’t punish one race too much, so the obvious answer to that is punish no one. Totally makes sense.

Which, in effect, punishes everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my lower SES high school it seems that some freshman are pretty terrible. Cursing out teachers in the hallway. Throwing fits and disrupting class. We learned today that there isn’t really a referral for disrespect at them moment, only if it refers to gender, race or sexual identity. So, “F U Mr./Ms. teacher” doesn’t trigger an immediate consequence.

Is this worse at other school too?

I don’t have a feel for the 9th graders at our HS yet, but the hallway issues are mostly individual class avoidance rather than groups of kids. We’ve been focusing on limiting passes and putting extra adults to shooing kids into class at the bell. Still not under control, but not as bad as two years ago.

For folks who aren’t teachers, the cursing at a teacher isn’t acceptable, but administration and security are so overwhelmed with worse behaviors that they have no bandwidth for it. It isn’t worth reacting to as a teacher (when things are this awful). Just ignore the cursing and treat the behavior like you would a toddler having a tantrum. “I can’t hear you until you use polite language and a normal tone of voice.” Grey rock them. It’s not worth your energy to engage. At the end of the day, it’s the kid losing out, not the teacher.

Fair is fair. Teachers should be allowed to curse and throw things back.

[Anonymous]

Security is busy babysitting the hall walkers. I get that they need to build relationships. But the kids have no reason to go to class when they get so much attention from security without any consequences. So, security and admin is not as available to respond to the disrespect issues.

I wish we could put these hallwalkers somewhere safe where they would not get attention or reinforcement for these negative behaviors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MS teacher here: last year’s 8th graders were pretty awful and allowed to do whatever they want.

Parent here. Did you discuss this with the 7th grade teachers? What did they say? What about the 6th grade teachers?

They said last year’s 8th graders weren’t as bad as the 8th graders the year before (this year’s 10th graders). Really made me worry about MCPS and this particular school.