How is FCPS teacher/staff shortage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal does not post openings and handles departures/hirings behind the scenes...even senior staff are often kept in the dark about what's actually going on. I guess she thinks the high turnover reflects poorly on her, or doesn't want to bother with hiring committees, etc.? Anyway there are WAY more vacancies than the ones listed.

This! We have a classroom teacher opening not even posted. Don’t assume anything. There will be a lot of kids starting the year with subs 😢

My best friend's FCPS 8th grader had 3 long-term subs this year. This means a "teacher" (bless them) who's getting lesson, tests, etc. from the content team and passing them along to students via Schoology to "read the stuff" and "do the slides," not teaching. And it's going to get worse?

I'm a secondary teacher and am desperately trying to do the math that lets me stay home and homeschool my own 2 kids rather than have them in this mess of non-education. Never comsidered it before now but am seriously worried about both my job effectiveness and my kids' actual learning.

I think the next 5 years will be rough with staffing unless collective bargaining begins and real changes are made for compensation and work load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal does not post openings and handles departures/hirings behind the scenes...even senior staff are often kept in the dark about what's actually going on. I guess she thinks the high turnover reflects poorly on her, or doesn't want to bother with hiring committees, etc.? Anyway there are WAY more vacancies than the ones listed.

This! We have a classroom teacher opening not even posted. Don’t assume anything. There will be a lot of kids starting the year with subs 😢

My best friend's FCPS 8th grader had 3 long-term subs this year. This means a "teacher" (bless them) who's getting lesson, tests, etc. from the content team and passing them along to students via Schoology to "read the stuff" and "do the slides," not teaching. And it's going to get worse?

I'm a secondary teacher and am desperately trying to do the math that lets me stay home and homeschool my own 2 kids rather than have them in this mess of non-education. Never comsidered it before now but am seriously worried about both my job effectiveness and my kids' actual learning.

My former colleague is a 4th grade teacher who had to provide content for a similar situation. The home room had 2 long-term subs, then a teacher who just moved to the area and quit after a couple months, then a student teacher-turned-LTS.

Yeah, normal year. Nothing to see here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal does not post openings and handles departures/hirings behind the scenes...even senior staff are often kept in the dark about what's actually going on. I guess she thinks the high turnover reflects poorly on her, or doesn't want to bother with hiring committees, etc.? Anyway there are WAY more vacancies than the ones listed.

This! We have a classroom teacher opening not even posted. Don’t assume anything. There will be a lot of kids starting the year with subs 😢

My best friend's FCPS 8th grader had 3 long-term subs this year. This means a "teacher" (bless them) who's getting lesson, tests, etc. from the content team and passing them along to students via Schoology to "read the stuff" and "do the slides," not teaching. And it's going to get worse?

I'm a secondary teacher and am desperately trying to do the math that lets me stay home and homeschool my own 2 kids rather than have them in this mess of non-education. Never comsidered it before now but am seriously worried about both my job effectiveness and my kids' actual learning.

I think the next 5 years will be rough with staffing unless collective bargaining begins and real changes are made for compensation and work load.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal does not post openings and handles departures/hirings behind the scenes...even senior staff are often kept in the dark about what's actually going on. I guess she thinks the high turnover reflects poorly on her, or doesn't want to bother with hiring committees, etc.? Anyway there are WAY more vacancies than the ones listed.

This! We have a classroom teacher opening not even posted. Don’t assume anything. There will be a lot of kids starting the year with subs 😢

My best friend's FCPS 8th grader had 3 long-term subs this year. This means a "teacher" (bless them) who's getting lesson, tests, etc. from the content team and passing them along to students via Schoology to "read the stuff" and "do the slides," not teaching. And it's going to get worse?

I'm a secondary teacher and am desperately trying to do the math that lets me stay home and homeschool my own 2 kids rather than have them in this mess of non-education. Never comsidered it before now but am seriously worried about both my job effectiveness and my kids' actual learning.

I think the next 5 years will be rough with staffing unless collective bargaining begins and real changes are made for compensation and work load.

+1

Another +1. There will have to be changes even sooner in SPED or the DOE will have to take over. If staffing doesn’t force the issue, massive lawsuits will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal does not post openings and handles departures/hirings behind the scenes...even senior staff are often kept in the dark about what's actually going on. I guess she thinks the high turnover reflects poorly on her, or doesn't want to bother with hiring committees, etc.? Anyway there are WAY more vacancies than the ones listed.

This! We have a classroom teacher opening not even posted. Don’t assume anything. There will be a lot of kids starting the year with subs 😢

My best friend's FCPS 8th grader had 3 long-term subs this year. This means a "teacher" (bless them) who's getting lesson, tests, etc. from the content team and passing them along to students via Schoology to "read the stuff" and "do the slides," not teaching. And it's going to get worse?

I'm a secondary teacher and am desperately trying to do the math that lets me stay home and homeschool my own 2 kids rather than have them in this mess of non-education. Never comsidered it before now but am seriously worried about both my job effectiveness and my kids' actual learning.

I think the next 5 years will be rough with staffing unless collective bargaining begins and real changes are made for compensation and work load.

+1

Another +1. There will have to be changes even sooner in SPED or the DOE will have to take over. If staffing doesn’t force the issue, massive lawsuits will.

If anything DOE will have to do rule making to loosen standards. There aren't enough SPED teachers to meet demand and no amount of lawsuits will change that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the WSHS pyramid. Looked at the elementary feeder schools. All of them only have 1-3 openings. Even the high school only has 2 openings. Obviously, the staff shortage is not uniform across the county. And morale is high both at our base elementary school and our AAP center school.

FCPS certainly has challenges in front of it and ahead of it, but this "sky is falling" or "Titanic" mentality is sheer hyperbole.

Title 1 schools have early hiring preference, by law, for the most highly qualified and experienced teachers and instructional assistants as they come into FCPS. This means that over time the Title 1 schools will be taking in the best applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the WSHS pyramid. Looked at the elementary feeder schools. All of them only have 1-3 openings. Even the high school only has 2 openings. Obviously, the staff shortage is not uniform across the county. And morale is high both at our base elementary school and our AAP center school.

FCPS certainly has challenges in front of it and ahead of it, but this "sky is falling" or "Titanic" mentality is sheer hyperbole.

Title 1 schools have early hiring preference, by law, for the most highly qualified and experienced teachers and instructional assistants as they come into FCPS. This means that over time the Title 1 schools will be taking in the best applicants.

lol. The best applicants are not going to title 1 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the WSHS pyramid. Looked at the elementary feeder schools. All of them only have 1-3 openings. Even the high school only has 2 openings. Obviously, the staff shortage is not uniform across the county. And morale is high both at our base elementary school and our AAP center school.

FCPS certainly has challenges in front of it and ahead of it, but this "sky is falling" or "Titanic" mentality is sheer hyperbole.

Title 1 schools have early hiring preference, by law, for the most highly qualified and experienced teachers and instructional assistants as they come into FCPS. This means that over time the Title 1 schools will be taking in the best applicants.

lol. The best applicants are not going to title 1 schools.

There are a lot of title 1 schools, so they end up competing with each other first. But most teachers will try to work closer to their homes to avoid commute times. That means suburban neighborhoods have an easier time getting SpEd teachers. SpEd teachers also dont want to be overwhelmed so might seek out easier less poverty stricken schools with fewer behavior problems. The trade off being more demanding parents/expectations.

[Anonymous]

Why don't special ed and other specialized teachers get paid more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are only 2 at my DD's school.

It's still early....my school has had teachers give notice in summer and we were scrambling to interview over the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many people posted that having one listing could mean multiple vacancies. So 1-3 vacancies could be 5-8.

This!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent here. I checked the vacancy list and there are many openings at Sleepy Hollow, where DD goes.

I work for the county and the amount of vacancies is nothing that I have seen before. Also - the school board reported on their premier workforce goal and they admitted that they had made no progress towards their goal of having 5 highly qualified candidates apply for each teaching position.

I wonder if they mean they aren’t getting 5 highly qualified applicants or 5 applicants total. I wouldn’t be shocked either way

One specific school I am thinking about is having to hire all provisionally licensed sped staff - By highly qualified I guess they mean fully licensed and experienced? I am not sure of the criteria.

Provisional is not always bad. You could have a teacher with 20 years who needs a provisional because they just moved here from out of state. The worry comes when you are hiring warm bodies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't special ed and other specialized teachers get paid more?

Because people don't like paying taxes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent here. I checked the vacancy list and there are many openings at Sleepy Hollow, where DD goes.

I work for the county and the amount of vacancies is nothing that I have seen before. Also - the school board reported on their premier workforce goal and they admitted that they had made no progress towards their goal of having 5 highly qualified candidates apply for each teaching position.

I wonder if they mean they aren’t getting 5 highly qualified applicants or 5 applicants total. I wouldn’t be shocked either way

One specific school I am thinking about is having to hire all provisionally licensed sped staff - By highly qualified I guess they mean fully licensed and experienced? I am not sure of the criteria.

Provisional is not always bad. You could have a teacher with 20 years who needs a provisional because they just moved here from out of state. The worry comes when you are hiring warm bodies.

Yeah, most of the ones I’ve worked with have been warm bodies or leave after a year or two before they finish the required licensing requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been teaching for FCPS for almost 30 years. I've been considering retiring after my 30th year. One reason is because while at the top of the pay scale, my pay has been fairly stagnant the past few years and I figure any future raises will be small. With no more steps the only raise would be any market scale adjustment, which when we get them are typically small. The announcement that those at the top of the scale with get a step increase next year instead of continuing at the same step has the decision scale tipping a little bit more back towards staying beyond 30.
We'll see.

Yeah right. You make good money now and don’t have to do anything new. Use the same old tired lessons plans year after year. You have your curriculum down and the experience to not care what parents think. You aren’t going anywhere because right now you have a cush position.

Not the teacher you are responding to, but this shows how ignorant you are. Schools are always being forced to reinvent the wheel. This is actually one of the major problems with education. Just when teachers think they've got it down, a new program comes around or the curriculum has changed.