Where are they going to find the teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The posts about the lack of teachers/paucity of applicants for open positions are almost useless unless the poster says the grade or the subject. And please don’t say it’s across the board bc I know of 8-10 recent grads with masters specializing is social studies who are still looking for positions in nova.

DP.

I highly doubt they’ll have any problem finding positions. I’m in MD, and we are definitely short across the board with openings in almost every department. Our admin is worried about filling them over the summer. There are applicants, but many don’t meet minimum requirements.

[Anonymous]

The posts about the lack of teachers/paucity of applicants for open positions are almost useless unless the poster says the grade or the subject. And please don’t say it’s across the board bc I know of 8-10 recent grads with masters specializing is social studies who are still looking for positions in nova.

Yes, you are right, it does depend on the grade and subject. In grades 7-12, social studies jobs are the hardest to get, because there is so much interest and so much competition among qualified applicants and not much turnover. English is close behind--again, lots of qualified people out there who would like to teach it. When you get to science and math, it's harder to find applicants with these certifications who are willing to work for a teacher's salary when they could make so much more doing something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The posts about the lack of teachers/paucity of applicants for open positions are almost useless unless the poster says the grade or the subject. And please don’t say it’s across the board bc I know of 8-10 recent grads with masters specializing is social studies who are still looking for positions in nova.

Yes, you are right, it does depend on the grade and subject. In grades 7-12, social studies jobs are the hardest to get, because there is so much interest and so much competition among qualified applicants and not much turnover. English is close behind--again, lots of qualified people out there who would like to teach it. When you get to science and math, it's harder to find applicants with these certifications who are willing to work for a teacher's salary when they could make so much more doing something else.

I’d say this is outdated info now that the shortage is widespread.

I’m an English teacher. I considered leaving my school recently. I had four offers within two weeks of putting my resume out there. (Offers for employment, not for interviews.)

[Anonymous]

Our Catholic elementary hired several resident teachers (career switched from business, government, military) in years past and most are great. They embraced the given curriculum and added their own life experiences and skills to the lessons. They are able to effectively manage classroom time and plan ahead. Only a few are having trouble staying on track in class or teaching effectively, so we suspect they will voluntarily quit within a year or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our Catholic elementary hired several resident teachers (career switched from business, government, military) in years past and most are great. They embraced the given curriculum and added their own life experiences and skills to the lessons. They are able to effectively manage classroom time and plan ahead. Only a few are having trouble staying on track in class or teaching effectively, so we suspect they will voluntarily quit within a year or two.

A private school has so much less testing and paperwork, it’s a far more attractive option for a career switcher, especially if they won’t get many years in the retirement system.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There is a great supply of new teachers. You are going bonkers, Op.

LOL - clearly you are not in education

Current teacher here: there is not a great—or even passable— supply of new teachers.

low supply and low quality/low experience

NP. Our daughter just graduated with her masters in teaching. She knows not one fellow graduate (bachelors or masters) who is coming to Northern Virginia to teach. Reasons cited were the cost of living and the difficulty in dealing with the admins here and the parents. Word’s out. If folks want a pipeline of qualified teachers you have to pay more (in this expensive area) and build a culture that supports teachers in their primary mission. In the school where she did her student teaching there are a number of FORMER Northern Virginia teachers - they viewed this area as place to survive in, not thrive in. From advisors, colleagues, and fellow students not one was hot on coming to this area.

My nephew graduated with his M.Ed. in secondary education. No one else in his graduating class was even actually going into classroom teaching. All were going into other areas of academics. I found that very interesting. He will begin fulltime teaching this fall but not in this area.

Our admin said, not to worry, they would just fill the vacancies with subs. I guess they’ll just order them off of Amazon. 🤦

Our admin hasn't said it, but I think they're thinking the same thing. We could never fill sub jobs this year either.

Two SPED teachers at my school resigned and the admin hired "resident" teachers for next year. That will be a fun year!

My spouse had 2 residents at his school this year. Neither made it past spring break and those classes now have a parade of long term subs.

But there are plenty teachers around!

What is a “resident”? Is that someone doing a career switcher program? What does it mean?

Basically yes. It’s someone who’s not yet a certified teacher but has met some requirements and is verifiably working on the rest.

Sadly, many seem to have believed that teaching would be an easy, do-something-until-I-retire job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a great supply of new teachers. You are going bonkers, Op.

LOL - clearly you are not in education

Current teacher here: there is not a great—or even passable— supply of new teachers.

low supply and low quality/low experience

NP. Our daughter just graduated with her masters in teaching. She knows not one fellow graduate (bachelors or masters) who is coming to Northern Virginia to teach. Reasons cited were the cost of living and the difficulty in dealing with the admins here and the parents. Word’s out. If folks want a pipeline of qualified teachers you have to pay more (in this expensive area) and build a culture that supports teachers in their primary mission. In the school where she did her student teaching there are a number of FORMER Northern Virginia teachers - they viewed this area as place to survive in, not thrive in. From advisors, colleagues, and fellow students not one was hot on coming to this area.

My nephew graduated with his M.Ed. in secondary education. No one else in his graduating class was even actually going into classroom teaching. All were going into other areas of academics. I found that very interesting. He will begin fulltime teaching this fall but not in this area.

Our admin said, not to worry, they would just fill the vacancies with subs. I guess they’ll just order them off of Amazon. 🤦

Our admin hasn't said it, but I think they're thinking the same thing. We could never fill sub jobs this year either.

Two SPED teachers at my school resigned and the admin hired "resident" teachers for next year. That will be a fun year!

what's a resident teacher?

NP

Someone with a bachelors but no teaching license. No formal education training, student teaching experience, etc. Bachelors in marketing? Teach 3rd grade. Bachelors in literature? Cool, how ‘bout ESOL?

ugh, thanks. my kids' school hired some career switchers over the past few years. i assumed they had gotten their licenses but now i'm wondering if they were resident teachers. they have not worked out well at all.

[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:There is a great supply of new teachers. You are going bonkers, Op.

LOL - clearly you are not in education

Current teacher here: there is not a great—or even passable— supply of new teachers.

low supply and low quality/low experience

NP. Our daughter just graduated with her masters in teaching. She knows not one fellow graduate (bachelors or masters) who is coming to Northern Virginia to teach. Reasons cited were the cost of living and the difficulty in dealing with the admins here and the parents. Word’s out. If folks want a pipeline of qualified teachers you have to pay more (in this expensive area) and build a culture that supports teachers in their primary mission. In the school where she did her student teaching there are a number of FORMER Northern Virginia teachers - they viewed this area as place to survive in, not thrive in. From advisors, colleagues, and fellow students not one was hot on coming to this area.

My nephew graduated with his M.Ed. in secondary education. No one else in his graduating class was even actually going into classroom teaching. All were going into other areas of academics. I found that very interesting. He will begin fulltime teaching this fall but not in this area.

Our admin said, not to worry, they would just fill the vacancies with subs. I guess they’ll just order them off of Amazon. 🤦

Our admin hasn't said it, but I think they're thinking the same thing. We could never fill sub jobs this year either.

Two SPED teachers at my school resigned and the admin hired "resident" teachers for next year. That will be a fun year!

what's a resident teacher?

NP

Someone with a bachelors but no teaching license. No formal education training, student teaching experience, etc. Bachelors in marketing? Teach 3rd grade. Bachelors in literature? Cool, how ‘bout ESOL?

ugh, thanks. my kids' school hired some career switchers over the past few years. i assumed they had gotten their licenses but now i'm wondering if they were resident teachers. they have not worked out well at all.

I am a career switcher and every single one of the 10 graduates that I kept in touch with from my program are still teaching. They appreciate it because they have worked corporate and non-profit jobs and the grass is not always greener.

[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:There is a great supply of new teachers. You are going bonkers, Op.

LOL - clearly you are not in education

Current teacher here: there is not a great—or even passable— supply of new teachers.

low supply and low quality/low experience

NP. Our daughter just graduated with her masters in teaching. She knows not one fellow graduate (bachelors or masters) who is coming to Northern Virginia to teach. Reasons cited were the cost of living and the difficulty in dealing with the admins here and the parents. Word’s out. If folks want a pipeline of qualified teachers you have to pay more (in this expensive area) and build a culture that supports teachers in their primary mission. In the school where she did her student teaching there are a number of FORMER Northern Virginia teachers - they viewed this area as place to survive in, not thrive in. From advisors, colleagues, and fellow students not one was hot on coming to this area.

My nephew graduated with his M.Ed. in secondary education. No one else in his graduating class was even actually going into classroom teaching. All were going into other areas of academics. I found that very interesting. He will begin fulltime teaching this fall but not in this area.

Our admin said, not to worry, they would just fill the vacancies with subs. I guess they’ll just order them off of Amazon. 🤦

Our admin hasn't said it, but I think they're thinking the same thing. We could never fill sub jobs this year either.

Two SPED teachers at my school resigned and the admin hired "resident" teachers for next year. That will be a fun year!

what's a resident teacher?

NP

Someone with a bachelors but no teaching license. No formal education training, student teaching experience, etc. Bachelors in marketing? Teach 3rd grade. Bachelors in literature? Cool, how ‘bout ESOL?

ugh, thanks. my kids' school hired some career switchers over the past few years. i assumed they had gotten their licenses but now i'm wondering if they were resident teachers. they have not worked out well at all.

In the past they likely had either received licensure or were provisionally licensed. The last couple years is really when the push has come for letting anyone and everyone into the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our Catholic elementary hired several resident teachers (career switched from business, government, military) in years past and most are great. They embraced the given curriculum and added their own life experiences and skills to the lessons. They are able to effectively manage classroom time and plan ahead. Only a few are having trouble staying on track in class or teaching effectively, so we suspect they will voluntarily quit within a year or two.

Of course they can manage a classroom when there are actual consequences for student behavior. It's a Catholic school! My kid got detention once in his Catholic MS for "taking a tone" with a sub. He admits that he probably was a bit sassy but for that, he got a week of detention. I teach in a private school and I can't give detention after school. I can only do lunch detention and that means I never get a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The posts about the lack of teachers/paucity of applicants for open positions are almost useless unless the poster says the grade or the subject. And please don’t say it’s across the board bc I know of 8-10 recent grads with masters specializing is social studies who are still looking for positions in nova.

We have had a high school math position open for a month with no qualified applicants. Not applicants who just aren’t great, but literally no one who holds or is eligible for a teaching license in math.

We are now rearranging the master schedule to try to absorb the position by giving staff an extra course, increasing class sizes, and trying to get a teacher in another department to take the algebra praxis to take over a section or two of that course. Ideally someone will show up in July, but we need a plan b if they don’t.

It’s a mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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I mean, the teachers already just teach from slides someone else made, with assignments and pacing someone else made.

This is patently untrue.

I've done LT subbing jobs in both EL and Resource/Sped, which are both push-in, and in my experience its mostly true. All the teachers in the same grade and school are teaching the same thing on the same day from the same slides. They all give the same assignemnts and assessments. Same with subject matter teachers in MS. I haven't subbed in HS yet. Also when my kids ask their teachers about assignments or questions on tests that don't make sense, the teachers will openly tell them, "I'm not sure, Mrs. So-and-so made that test." So they didn't even read the test they are giving??!? This is in LCPS by the way. Its pretty shocking and disappointing. I would move them in a heartbeat but they are socially ingrained and would be furious at me.

It’s not like that in APS

We do actually use a similar system at our APS school. PP/LCPS sub, have you considered why they use that system? The reasons are, IME:
1. Admins want consistency (often due to parent whining about why Larlo’s class is doing something different than their cousin’s dentist’s nephew Larla down the hall).
2. It’s way too much work for one person otherwise. Good lessons — and we’re making whole-class and small-group ones — take hours to plan, especially when working with district resources that are either lacking or not well aligned to our state standards. So please accept my heartfelt apologies for not having an answer for every phrase when “Mrs. So-and-so made that test."
I’m not sure how you get to label this “pretty shocking and disappointing.”

PP is a parent who also subs. She's part of the entitled Nova parents crowd that makes teachers not want to teach here. Apparently in her world teachers should each spend every waking moment personally designing customized lesson plans for her little Larlo and Larla. Nothing off off the shelf for her snowflakes!

Any literate warm body can read from slides someone else made and link to kahoots and google doc assingments someone else made. If that is all we are asking of teachers, we don't need them to have so much training, nor do we need to pay them so much. So yes, we'd like a little more than that and it doesn't make us entitled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think if admin has a bad reputation and and they are failing to recruit and retain teachers, then they should be reassigned.

Um. Who exactly is going to be the new admin?

Depends on district and how they treat school-based admin. When the school-based admin is under constant threat, you have a different environment than when school-based admin can support good teachers.

When school-based admin are pompous, short-sighted and self-aggrandizing, good teachers will flee.

When district admin, school board and parents want to blame every problem
On the planet on teachers, good teachers will flee and you’re left with idiots or the well-intentioned who will wreck themselves early.

We -everyone- needs to start making decisions that benefit children and support teachers.

So sick of this. No, I don’t blame teachers. I blame bloated, useless leadership @ Gatehouse with misplaced priorities. I blame useless principals and APs who won’t back their teachers up when they need support. I blame worthless curricula that neither engage nor educate students. I blame the discipline policies like RJ and ISS that aren’t even punitive. American public schools are circling the drain and the New Bay Area here in the DMV is already in the sewer.

[Anonymous]

All one needs to do is glance at this thread:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/885/1104288.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I mean, the teachers already just teach from slides someone else made, with assignments and pacing someone else made.

This is patently untrue.

I've done LT subbing jobs in both EL and Resource/Sped, which are both push-in, and in my experience its mostly true. All the teachers in the same grade and school are teaching the same thing on the same day from the same slides. They all give the same assignemnts and assessments. Same with subject matter teachers in MS. I haven't subbed in HS yet. Also when my kids ask their teachers about assignments or questions on tests that don't make sense, the teachers will openly tell them, "I'm not sure, Mrs. So-and-so made that test." So they didn't even read the test they are giving??!? This is in LCPS by the way. Its pretty shocking and disappointing. I would move them in a heartbeat but they are socially ingrained and would be furious at me.

It’s not like that in APS

We do actually use a similar system at our APS school. PP/LCPS sub, have you considered why they use that system? The reasons are, IME:
1. Admins want consistency (often due to parent whining about why Larlo’s class is doing something different than their cousin’s dentist’s nephew Larla down the hall).
2. It’s way too much work for one person otherwise. Good lessons — and we’re making whole-class and small-group ones — take hours to plan, especially when working with district resources that are either lacking or not well aligned to our state standards. So please accept my heartfelt apologies for not having an answer for every phrase when “Mrs. So-and-so made that test."
I’m not sure how you get to label this “pretty shocking and disappointing.”

PP is a parent who also subs. She's part of the entitled Nova parents crowd that makes teachers not want to teach here. Apparently in her world teachers should each spend every waking moment personally designing customized lesson plans for her little Larlo and Larla. Nothing off off the shelf for her snowflakes!

Any literate warm body can read from slides someone else made and link to kahoots and google doc assingments someone else made. If that is all we are asking of teachers, we don't need them to have so much training, nor do we need to pay them so much. So yes, we'd like a little more than that and it doesn't make us entitled.

The fact you think that’s what teachers do is a large part of why teachers are leaving. Have fun homeschooling, though- I’m sure you’ll be great at it.