I feel like MCPS sucks the joy out of teaching

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a reason why I felt my joy sucked out today. One of our School Improvement Plan goals — which means a goal that all of our individual teams need to support — is for more Hispanic kids to come to school more often (yes, it specifies Hispanic). So, we are evaluating ourselves on whether parents send their kids to school. Yes, the school has a role in communicating to parents that school is important. But us teachers? If only we were more entertaining, they would come, I guess?

We were told during pre-service our top priority goal this year was to halve the number of office referrals for black males (I teach at a majority black Title 1 MoCo Elem school).

The result so far? Teachers are HIGHLY discouraged to write office referrals! The same out of control behaviors that were present last year are back this year (fighting, throwing materials across the room, cussing out teacher) but instead of going to the office, they now just stay in the classroom! The behaviors have gotten more extreme and there has been an increase in other students starting to mimic the bad behaviors. (And yes I have developed relationships with the students and have good classroom management - this is the first year I truly dread going to work every day.)

This is what is broken about MCPS. They take a metric and try to manipulate the metric, rather than attempting to get at the root-cause of what's behind the metric.

This just causes more harm to the very same group they claim to be helping, as you point out. The behavior doesn't change. It just goes unreported or ignored to make the metric artificially look like it's going down.

Exactly this. And it’s because the root cause is not acceptable to say: children are not blank slates when they come to us at 5, or even at 4. Test scores and behaviors will not be the same between Student A who has been going to preschool and reading books and learning colors and numbers with his parents, and Student B who has been sitting alone on his iPad with an older sibling all day and has never heard English before. We will never reach equality here. Sure, teachers can work miracles if there are some of the Student B’s in their classes. But not if a majority are.

[Anonymous]

How do you think it is going to be in a few months? Even worse!

[Anonymous]

That is not something to look forward to next year

[Anonymous]

Which teachers are not planning to come back next year?

[Anonymous]

I’ll be back. I like my school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be back. I like my school.

I’m leaving my new school- principal is trash.

[Anonymous]

A common theme is that admin hinder/ruin teacher careers by data manipulation and they get promotions from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound really dedicated. I have kids in MCPS and also friends who teach in MCPS. Can you maybe find a mentor to help you make the demands work? My friends aren’t this stressed and they write more college recommendations. I hope you can find joy in your job.

They've probably taught longer and care less. That's a good coping mechanism IMO. I do my work but I rarely ever bring any work home. If it doesn't get done at school, it just doesn't get done.

Trust me, we know the teacher that put in the bare minimum. I wish as parents we could rate teachers and get rid of the bare minimum. Teachers should not have ot be putting in crazy hours but on the flip side the checked out, I'm there for a pay check only teachers need to go.

What you consider “the bare minimum” is what the school system actually pays for.

I work an extra 20-25 hours a week, sometimes more. That’s what is often needed to be a good teacher now since we get no time at work to plan and grade.

So good teachers become burned out teachers, who decide they’ll only do what they are given time at work to do. It’s certainly a coping mechanism, as someone posted above. The alternative is to quit, and plenty are doing that, as well.

The system is broken and many teachers are miserable. I went into this profession knowing it would be hard; I had no idea how impossible and unsustainable the work would become.

[Anonymous]

I just dont understand why admin get promoted after waste fraud and abuse and teachers get fired for going above and betone for low pay. Does it have to do with the end goal of data manipulation and corruption, like the only way you get promoted is to blindly follow legally questionable orders involving safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just dont understand why admin get promoted after waste fraud and abuse and teachers get fired for going above and betone for low pay. Does it have to do with the end goal of data manipulation and corruption, like the only way you get promoted is to blindly follow legally questionable orders involving safety.

It has to do with the end goal of privatizing everything humanly possible including schools. So more politicians make up ridiculous rules and reporting requirements. CO has to spend more time trying to comply while also trying to do the real work. In turn more gets pushed to Principals and Teachers. While all this is going on, funding lessens but all the requirements stay the same. And everything important stays to crack and crumble under the do more with less theme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just dont understand why admin get promoted after waste fraud and abuse and teachers get fired for going above and betone for low pay. Does it have to do with the end goal of data manipulation and corruption, like the only way you get promoted is to blindly follow legally questionable orders involving safety.

Because the current chief of schools got the job by being a career admin getting promoted after waste, fraud and abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just dont understand why admin get promoted after waste fraud and abuse and teachers get fired for going above and betone for low pay. Does it have to do with the end goal of data manipulation and corruption, like the only way you get promoted is to blindly follow legally questionable orders involving safety.

Because the current chief of schools got the job by being a career admin getting promoted after waste, fraud and abuse.

This was at Glenallan ES, where he was principal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just dont understand why admin get promoted after waste fraud and abuse and teachers get fired for going above and betone for low pay. Does it have to do with the end goal of data manipulation and corruption, like the only way you get promoted is to blindly follow legally questionable orders involving safety.

Because the current chief of schools got the job by being a career admin getting promoted after waste, fraud and abuse.

Got any evidence to go with that mud slinging?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just dont understand why admin get promoted after waste fraud and abuse and teachers get fired for going above and betone for low pay. Does it have to do with the end goal of data manipulation and corruption, like the only way you get promoted is to blindly follow legally questionable orders involving safety.

Because the current chief of schools got the job by being a career admin getting promoted after waste, fraud and abuse.

Got any evidence to go with that mud slinging?

The current state of MCPS under his leadership is plenty of evidence of his pathetic incompetence or his blatant corruption.

Haha, mudslinging… what a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A common theme is that admin hinder/ruin teacher careers by data manipulation and they get promotions from it.

100%
They are a bunch of crooks.