Principals Going Rogue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unethical and harmful behavior should be outed.

And FERPA be damned.

[Anonymous]

OMG OMG the sky is falling!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the good principals have long operated a little bit outside the central office guidelines, giving their teachers more discretion where appropriate and ignoring some mandates or guidance. I think that’s hard if you’re a new principal though. I wish central office and the board paid more attention to the things that principals say they need, and even more attention to the things that teachers say they need. It seems like teachers are desperate for subject area curriculum training and tech support that actually works for grading etc,. And instead get training that is not tailored to their grade level/classes and tech solutions that they didn’t ask for, like Remind, or three different email accounts to check.

I would agree with this except to point out that some solutions aren’t just about teachers but about the parents/students/community. Remind is about being able to communicate with all families. I do agree that three different email accounts is ridiculous. There should be a way for them all to forward to one email address.

There is. It’s teacher choice to set it up.

[Anonymous]

As a teacher I have very little interest in Remind. It seems far too focused on getting teachers to use their own smartphones in order to do parent and student communication. It’s just another account and/or app to keep track of. It doesn’t actually replace any other responsibility and just adds a new one. It also doesn’t record our communication. We have to go back into Synergy to log the contact. I gave it a shot and used it a few times, but it’s clearly just more work than what we already have to deal with. Some staff do like it, but they are the staff who are often on their phones all the time already.

Generally speaking I have little respect for tools that make more work with little obvious benefit. A tool by definition should make work more efficient not the opposite.
As a parent I was bothered by the constant messaging to my phone by default.

[Anonymous]

I have always liked working for the principals who go rogue, especially if it’s to protect teachers. I’ve had two like that, and one vanilla rule followed who resented central to his core but wouldn’t fight back about anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the good principals have long operated a little bit outside the central office guidelines, giving their teachers more discretion where appropriate and ignoring some mandates or guidance. I think that’s hard if you’re a new principal though. I wish central office and the board paid more attention to the things that principals say they need, and even more attention to the things that teachers say they need. It seems like teachers are desperate for subject area curriculum training and tech support that actually works for grading etc,. And instead get training that is not tailored to their grade level/classes and tech solutions that they didn’t ask for, like Remind, or three different email accounts to check.

I would agree with this except to point out that some solutions aren’t just about teachers but about the parents/students/community. Remind is about being able to communicate with all families. I do agree that three different email accounts is ridiculous. There should be a way for them all to forward to one email address.

There is. It’s teacher choice to set it up.

Hi. Teacher here. It doesn’t always work and emails aren’t sent. Also, canvas is another one - not technically an email - more like an in-app messaging service. So we actually have 4 separate places to check as many students and parents email there all differently. Plus remind. It’s too much. Drives me nuts! For everyone’s sake we need just ONE. It would be great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the good principals have long operated a little bit outside the central office guidelines, giving their teachers more discretion where appropriate and ignoring some mandates or guidance. I think that’s hard if you’re a new principal though. I wish central office and the board paid more attention to the things that principals say they need, and even more attention to the things that teachers say they need. It seems like teachers are desperate for subject area curriculum training and tech support that actually works for grading etc,. And instead get training that is not tailored to their grade level/classes and tech solutions that they didn’t ask for, like Remind, or three different email accounts to check.

I would agree with this except to point out that some solutions aren’t just about teachers but about the parents/students/community. Remind is about being able to communicate with all families. I do agree that three different email accounts is ridiculous. There should be a way for them all to forward to one email address.

There is. It’s teacher choice to set it up.

Hi. Teacher here. It doesn’t always work and emails aren’t sent. Also, canvas is another one - not technically an email - more like an in-app messaging service. So we actually have 4 separate places to check as many students and parents email there all differently. Plus remind. It’s too much. Drives me nuts! For everyone’s sake we need just ONE. It would be great.

Parent here and I agree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher I have very little interest in Remind. It seems far too focused on getting teachers to use their own smartphones in order to do parent and student communication. It’s just another account and/or app to keep track of. It doesn’t actually replace any other responsibility and just adds a new one. It also doesn’t record our communication. We have to go back into Synergy to log the contact. I gave it a shot and used it a few times, but it’s clearly just more work than what we already have to deal with. Some staff do like it, but they are the staff who are often on their phones all the time already.

Generally speaking I have little respect for tools that make more work with little obvious benefit. A tool by definition should make work more efficient not the opposite.
As a parent I was bothered by the constant messaging to my phone by default.

You don’t need a phone to use remind. It can be used completely online on a computer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher I have very little interest in Remind. It seems far too focused on getting teachers to use their own smartphones in order to do parent and student communication. It’s just another account and/or app to keep track of. It doesn’t actually replace any other responsibility and just adds a new one. It also doesn’t record our communication. We have to go back into Synergy to log the contact. I gave it a shot and used it a few times, but it’s clearly just more work than what we already have to deal with. Some staff do like it, but they are the staff who are often on their phones all the time already.

Generally speaking I have little respect for tools that make more work with little obvious benefit. A tool by definition should make work more efficient not the opposite.
As a parent I was bothered by the constant messaging to my phone by default.

You don’t need a phone to use remind. It can be used completely online on a computer.

It defaults both to parent and teacher phones. Since MCPS does not pay for my phone, it was an invasion of privacy when parents started messaging back and it began coming through to my phone. I turned off permission in Remind to have my personal phone utilized and every time there is a refresh to Remind, my phone is looped in again.

[Anonymous]

My Outlook email is my main system.

My Google email: I have it set up to forward to my Outlook and I can respond from Outlook.

Synergy mail: comes to my Outlook, but to reply, I must log into Synergy.

Canvas mail: I rarely get any, but when I do, it goes to my Outlook address and I can respond from Outlook.

Remind: I have it set up to only go to my Outlook address, but to respond, I must log into Remind.

For all systems other than Synergy, I have to switch to Synergy to log parent contacts.

[Anonymous]

Don’t forget Dojo

[Anonymous]

It's great how principals blame teachers for having poor management skills when students are addicted to their phones. It takes so long and so much effort volunteering to be a teacher and admin will hack us for societal problems beyond our control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher I have very little interest in Remind. It seems far too focused on getting teachers to use their own smartphones in order to do parent and student communication. It’s just another account and/or app to keep track of. It doesn’t actually replace any other responsibility and just adds a new one. It also doesn’t record our communication. We have to go back into Synergy to log the contact. I gave it a shot and used it a few times, but it’s clearly just more work than what we already have to deal with. Some staff do like it, but they are the staff who are often on their phones all the time already.

Generally speaking I have little respect for tools that make more work with little obvious benefit. A tool by definition should make work more efficient not the opposite.
As a parent I was bothered by the constant messaging to my phone by default.

Agree, but do you think all these ES teachers are actually logging their Class Dojo communication back in Synergy?