Part time teachers?
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Anonymous
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A few thoughts:
The AP classes will likely go to established teachers. That’s how it has always worked at the schools I’ve taught at. I had to work my way to teaching AP. Part time teaching may actually be 40 hours of work, especially at the AP level. I often work close to 70 as a full-time teacher. I work with a part-time teacher who says she frequently works over 40. There’s a lot more to teaching than content knowledge. You need to be able to deliver that content to a disinterested and sometimes hostile audience, and you are evaluated on how well you can do that. |
Anonymous
| I’ve never seen part-time elementary classrooms teachers at any public school. Maybe ESOL or something outside of a classroom. |
Anonymous
| Yes there could theoretically be a .2 (one class) position open anywhere. It will never be an AP class, maybe Chinese though because there's a need. Everyone wants to teach AP. If you really want to help, teach a lower level subject area like Algebra. Don't do it if you're not committed. |
Anonymous
| I’m a 0.6 - I teach 3 science classes and absolutely it’s almost full time work for me, but I’m experienced. If you are interested in teaching but don’t necessarily need the money or don’t want to go through the certification process (it’s required) than subbing or volunteering would work. The AAAS used to have a program that brought science professionals into the classroom. Not sure if it still exists post pandemic but it was a great way to get experienced people in to help demonstrate more advanced concepts and help show the kids more real world applications of what they are learning. |
Anonymous
Sorry that wasn’t helpful. There are people who teach one class (0.2) or two (0.4), however, these are often a position only available for a semester or a year due to fluctuations in enrollment or teachers going on leave. |
Anonymous
Unless you want to do a partnership that places you in an open spot with a provisional cert, certification by Praxis is the place to start. The rest of the process such as the background check and your paperwork working through MCPS takes multiple months anyway. That said, MCPS doesn’t place its new hires based on academic credentials. You will be sent where there is need. If you cert in secondary mathematics or science and only want to teach one class, you may end up with offers for lower performing schools initially. You can decline, but it could take years before a single section of an upper level STEM course is offered because it takes a perfect storm to create that need. |
Anonymous
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I think the OP is saying that the school system should be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. OP may have a point there but even teaching one class is a lot of work. Content planning for K-12 is not easy. You may be an expert in your subject but figuring out how to communicate it effectively to teenagers with a wide range of abilities is challenging. I think it will be a much bigger time commitment than OP is expecting.
And when will OP be available to help students outside of class. And some kids need extended time and other accommodations. The teacher cannot just teach one class and then book it out of school. A half day schedule would be more realistic |
Anonymous
OP’s idea of having qualified people teach part time isn’t a bad one. The reality is simply a bit messy. The AP classes won’t be the ones available, but if part-time teachers are willing to take on Algebra 1, I’m sure it could work. Interested applicants would need to be aware that content knowledge is actually a small part of the requirements. Getting kids to sit down, listen, and understand? That’s the real challenge and it’s a bit of an art. You get better at that with practice. A lot of practice. |
Anonymous
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There is a need in certain subjects, higher level computer science, math, science and language courses are often not offered because there are not qualified teachers and/or not enough students ready for the course to justify the use of an allocated teacher- a principal won’t have on level classes at 30+ to offer a section of an above level course for 15.
OPs idea could work, especially in the form of a partnership where an extra teacher was available one period a day to teach the course. Would experienced teachers push back, possibly, but in thinking about deploying this to the highest levels where there are few qualified teachers it could work. Said teachers would teach and grade, but not have hone rooms or other duties assigned. They would likely teach first period or maybe last period so as to not completely take over their day. Many colleges have teachers for just one course- granted it’s a totally different structure, but with the teaching shortage and lack of rigor to keep some advanced kids engaged, we need to try something! |
Anonymous
Experienced teacher here. I could see this potentially working and wouldn’t really care if AP-level classes go to someone new. My question, though: What type of training do you envision these part-time teachers would receive? I believe this is a huge misconception many people have about teaching. Teachers deal with A LOT , even in AP classes. (Teenagers are teenagers, after all.) The job is much, much harder than people expect and it only gets easier with experience and an accumulated bag of tricks. I wouldn’t want somebody to go through the preparation to teach just to quit in the first year. I’ve lost two teachers in my department already this fall, both burned out experienced teachers. How do we keep someone new to the pressures of this field from doing the same? |
Anonymous
Focus, Academic Intervention, ELD/ESOL, Special Ed |
Anonymous
| It’s a good idea. Right now the ESOL teacher at the middle where I work is teaching Chinese. Not her area or interest, but she speaks the language and there’s a need. For a class where there aren’t as many possible hires, they might do it. Right now they’re taking staff who want to teach one subject and having them sometimes do 2 or 3 different preps, whether or not they want to. Know you might choose to teach a class close to home and get settled and then get shuttled to a school that changes your commute. Last in, first out, with part time teachers most at risk of being transferred. You will get a lot of people on here telling you there is more to teaching than knowing the content, and there is, but most of what you learn will be on the job and MCPS could use more subject area experts. That’s underrated I think. I also think they could do some kind of boot camp with you and others like you and have staff development specialists help if this would fill an emergency shortage. Long way of saying I think it’s a good idea, but I imagine you’d have to jump through some certification hoops, and maybe commit to working toward certification. You’d also need the usual background checks and the like. I would sub to see if you even like working in a school first. Even though it fills a need, the system would be investing time and energy in you, and it’s not worth it if you teach one class one semester and peace out. |
Anonymous
The “problem” with that isn’t MCPS. The “problem” is state and federal regulations regarding certified teachers. Those exist to protect students. Otherwise high FARMS schools would be staffed almost entirely by people for whom teaching is largely a vanity hobby. I’m not saying that is OP’s motivation, but it’s often the case for people I meet who express interest in teaching one class. We had a teacher like that when I taught at a W feeder MS. She taught two sections of Chinese. However, due to her “very important real job”, she was unavailable when the schedules were adjusted due to delayed starts or early dismissals. We ended up covering her classes a lot. FWIW, I am an alt-cert career changer who is ABD in an academic field and holds advanced degrees and certificates in two others. To teach AP, I had to have several years of successful teaching under my belt and attend week-long workshops about pedagogy and specific writing approaches. Each was about $1500 in tuition and there were travel and lodging expenses on top. MCPS reimbursed only 75% of the tuition. When I taught AP, I spent at least 15 hours a week outside of school on planning and grading. It is a huge time commitment, OP. Plus, while AP students typically don’t curse you out or get into fistfights, many are deeply anxious about academic performance which results sometimes in academic dishonesty, bullying peers, and even harassing teachers. You may have a student with self-harm ideation or behavior that you are expected to discreetly hover near, impairing your ability to engage individually with the other 29 students. I haven’t even mentioned some parent behaviors. |
Anonymous
Subs are only paid in full or half day increments. So even if they just cover 1-2 classes they get paid the half day rate. If they cover 4 classes for a Pt teacher, the sun gets a full day of pay. |
Anonymous
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Even PT teachers have to cover advisory, attend team and department meetings, biweekly PD meetings and after school staff meetings. You also have to write quarterly reports for any kid with an IEP/504. You have to write SLO’s and you’re on the same type of evaluation cycle as full time teachers.
This doesn’t count other duties like study halls, etc. schools utilize every adult in the building. Working PT in MCPS sucks. |