Real talk: are there going to be enough teachers for summer school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter how many times you say "you're losing me." The fact is that it is not the school district's responsibility to warehouse your children for you in buildings while you work, at all times and in all world conditions. You don't like that. That's a You Problem.

Warehousing children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Threads like this explain why fewer and fewer people want to be teachers. No matter what happens in society, someone figures out a way to blame teachers for it or dump the problem on them. When teachers finally push back then the “lazy teachers” comments roll in.

Nope, DCUM is not why there is a teacher shortage. I know plenty of teachers and the issue is working conditions. I wish the unions would focus on that instead of bashing women who need child care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Threads like this explain why fewer and fewer people want to be teachers. No matter what happens in society, someone figures out a way to blame teachers for it or dump the problem on them. When teachers finally push back then the “lazy teachers” comments roll in.

Nope, DCUM is not why there is a teacher shortage. I know plenty of teachers and the issue is working conditions. I wish the unions would focus on that instead of bashing women who need child care.

Cite MCEA bashing women who need childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It doesn't matter how many times you say "you're losing me." The fact is that it is not the school district's responsibility to warehouse your children for you in buildings while you work, at all times and in all world conditions. You don't like that. That's a You Problem.

DP. It's always weird to read, on DCUM, when a self-identified teacher describes school as "warehousing your children for you in buildings."

That PP didn’t identify themselves as a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My teacher friend just retired early. And I don't blame her--she's not teaching summer school and she's not going back next year.

When you find out you are only a childcare worker, and people really don't care about their kids learning or about the teacher / childcare worker's health, why bother?

Why not retire early? Find another career? Do something people actually seem to value and don't scream at you over? Plenty of jobs out there now.

Oh can it with the child care thing. Do you not like it that women work outside the home? Or is your self-esteem just based entirely on being "more" than a lowly child care worker? I'm sorry that it offends you that the existential threat to women's careers associated with virtual learning is a problem for many families. Maybe have some perspective? Because I support teachers, I think they deserve better pay and more funding for school supplies and less bureaucracy, but as a woman who WOH and respects child care teachers, you lost me on this one.

It's not the school districts responsibility to deal with your childcare issues. What if your child fell seriously ill and couldnt attend school? What if a global pandemic happened and schools closed? Oh wait...

Right, still losing me. Why is it surprising that parents don't care about teachers, when teachers clearly don't care about parents? Oh, you're going to lose your job because you can no longer work without child care, and there were already severe child care shortages before the pandemic so it's not easy to find someone to care for your children? Not only is it not my problem, but IT'S OFFENSIVE TO ME THAT THIS IS STRESSFUL FOR YOU?"

It doesn't matter how many times you say "you're losing me." The fact is that it is not the school district's responsibility to warehouse your children for you in buildings while you work, at all times and in all world conditions. You don't like that. That's a You Problem.

So many ridiculous things in this comment. First, never have parents had the expectation that school systems will "warehouse" their children "at all times". That's just embarrassing that you would try to claim that. Second, child care is an everyone problem. Child care is a public good that has not received the funding that it needs. Even before the pandemic, there were child care shortages that prevented women who wanted to work, from working. Now, given the pandemic, did it make sense to close school buildings while cases were surging? I'm not a public health expert, but let's say yes (closing them all year...is a debate for another thread). Even if it was the right thing to do, you have to at least recognize that taking a major source of child care away from working parents - not just during school hours, but also all the before and after care programs that were shut down (as well as several full day child care providers for young children that operated in schools and were not permitted to reopen for months), put families in a huge bind. So when teachers (REAL TEACHERS) go on Facebook whining about how "school is not child care" and "take care of your children" it sounds really glib and insensitive. You can whine all you want about how it's "not the school system's responsibility" - but that choice, by the school system to essentially wash its hands of this issue until child care providers got together and advocated for a solution for parents (after 5 months) had major negative economic impacts for families, to say nothing of the impact on children.

[Anonymous]

To add, if you have been providing something, whether it be child care, food, housing, etc. historically, it should really come as no surprise that people get upset when you take it away. They have been counting on you providing this thing, and now they don't know where else they can get this thing and haven't planned for the potential additional cost. Claiming parents are neglectful because they're caught in the middle of this is incredibly disingenuous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Threads like this explain why fewer and fewer people want to be teachers. No matter what happens in society, someone figures out a way to blame teachers for it or dump the problem on them. When teachers finally push back then the “lazy teachers” comments roll in.

Nope, DCUM is not why there is a teacher shortage. I know plenty of teachers and the issue is working conditions. I wish the unions would focus on that instead of bashing women who need child care.

MCEA's primary focus is working conditions--class size, planning time, and additional staffing have been priorities in negotiations. I just want more money, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Threads like this explain why fewer and fewer people want to be teachers. No matter what happens in society, someone figures out a way to blame teachers for it or dump the problem on them. When teachers finally push back then the “lazy teachers” comments roll in.

Nope, DCUM is not why there is a teacher shortage. I know plenty of teachers and the issue is working conditions. I wish the unions would focus on that instead of bashing women who need child care.

MCEA's primary focus is working conditions--class size, planning time, and additional staffing have been priorities in negotiations. I just want more money, though.

MCEA has frequently prioritized pay increases over class size reductions. I agree teachers should be paid more in a perfect world, but each year there is a limited amount of funding and MCEA has often gone for the pay increases first, then waged a campaign to increase taxes for class size reductions, which usually fails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if it was the right thing to do, you have to at least recognize that taking a major source of child care away from working parents - not just during school hours, but also all the before and after care programs that were shut down (as well as several full day child care providers for young children that operated in schools and were not permitted to reopen for months), put families in a huge bind. So when teachers (REAL TEACHERS) go on Facebook whining about how "school is not child care" and "take care of your children" it sounds really glib and insensitive. You can whine all you want about how it's "not the school system's responsibility" - but that choice, by the school system to essentially wash its hands of this issue until child care providers got together and advocated for a solution for parents (after 5 months) had major negative economic impacts for families, to say nothing of the impact on children.

It was always a completely disingenuous POV from day one. Those teachers shamed others for not having having childcare when the school buildings closed, while obviously being in position to work from home with their own kids. Those particular teachers, and posters on this board supporting them, are simply clowns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if it was the right thing to do, you have to at least recognize that taking a major source of child care away from working parents - not just during school hours, but also all the before and after care programs that were shut down (as well as several full day child care providers for young children that operated in schools and were not permitted to reopen for months), put families in a huge bind. So when teachers (REAL TEACHERS) go on Facebook whining about how "school is not child care" and "take care of your children" it sounds really glib and insensitive. You can whine all you want about how it's "not the school system's responsibility" - but that choice, by the school system to essentially wash its hands of this issue until child care providers got together and advocated for a solution for parents (after 5 months) had major negative economic impacts for families, to say nothing of the impact on children.

It was always a completely disingenuous POV from day one. Those teachers shamed others for not having having childcare when the school buildings closed, while obviously being in position to work from home with their own kids. Those particular teachers, and posters on this board supporting them, are simply clowns.

Some of those same posters are saying how could you expect teachers to teach in-person and/or summer school without childcare. None of them are credible at all.

[Anonymous]

It’s hard to find teachers because of all the credentialing involved in Maryland. If some of the licensing is relaxed, people will run to get MCPS jobs for the high salaries and amazing benefits. Private schools have no issues finding teachers because they don’t subscribe to the same credentialing rules. And no, you don’t need all those credentials to be a great teacher .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find teachers because of all the credentialing involved in Maryland. If some of the licensing is relaxed, people will run to get MCPS jobs for the high salaries and amazing benefits. Private schools have no issues finding teachers because they don’t subscribe to the same credentialing rules. And no, you don’t need all those credentials to be a great teacher .

If that’s the case, why are MCPS teachers leaving for Howard Co and Frederick?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if it was the right thing to do, you have to at least recognize that taking a major source of child care away from working parents - not just during school hours, but also all the before and after care programs that were shut down (as well as several full day child care providers for young children that operated in schools and were not permitted to reopen for months), put families in a huge bind. So when teachers (REAL TEACHERS) go on Facebook whining about how "school is not child care" and "take care of your children" it sounds really glib and insensitive. You can whine all you want about how it's "not the school system's responsibility" - but that choice, by the school system to essentially wash its hands of this issue until child care providers got together and advocated for a solution for parents (after 5 months) had major negative economic impacts for families, to say nothing of the impact on children.

It was always a completely disingenuous POV from day one. Those teachers shamed others for not having having childcare when the school buildings closed, while obviously being in position to work from home with their own kids. Those particular teachers, and posters on this board supporting them, are simply clowns.

Some of those same posters are saying how could you expect teachers to teach in-person and/or summer school without childcare. None of them are credible at all.

I have never once seen a teacher (either on Facebook, or someone claiming to be a teacher on DCUM) acknowledging that closing school buildings presented a serious and legitimate problem for families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to find teachers because of all the credentialing involved in Maryland. If some of the licensing is relaxed, people will run to get MCPS jobs for the high salaries and amazing benefits. Private schools have no issues finding teachers because they don’t subscribe to the same credentialing rules. And no, you don’t need all those credentials to be a great teacher .

High salaries? My DS just graduated from college last spring. He got his first job right away and made more money in his first year of working than I make in my 16th year of teaching. Maybe they look like high salaries for teachers who have high earning spouses but not for many of us. The benefits are great but I can’t pay my bills with them.

[Anonymous]

I spoke to the AP at my kid's school today and she said that they do not have the staffing needed to run the in-person program at their school. They are looking into combining schools as a possibility. She did tell me that they did open up the positions to the outside of current MCPS teachers because they could not get any MCPS teachers that are interested. She did say MCPS jumped the gun with this one announcing that they would have this in-person program before securing the needed staffing for it. I have already signed my kids up for camps for all the other summer weeks outside of July and do not know if I can even find camps that have openings if they do not get staffing by then.