How is FCPS teacher/staff shortage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Self-contained should be on a separate pay scale, full stop. There's no reason a PE teacher should be on the same pay scale as a teacher who works in an EAC classroom. The requirements to work in self contained should be a lot higher though, too.

The reality is that no one wants to work in a self contained class. If you raise the requirements, you won’t be able to fill positions.

The laws of economics say otherwise. Raise the pay until you get qualified applicants. If we are paying entry level teachers 100k to work in those classes, so be it.

That assumes there is much more wiggle room in the budget than there actually is. Unless you want to jam even more kids into gen ed class rooms, where do you propose getting the funding?

Honestly, I don't really care where the money comes from. Gatehouse is a good place to start. Lots of waste to be cut. The fact is, they are legally obligated to have teachers in those classes. They can't find teachers. They need to pay more. If you pay enough, you will get teachers. (Even if pp isn't motivated by money, if you pay enough--there will be other qualified people willing to do the job).

Gatehouse has fat, but not that much fat. The largest line items on the budget are facilities and gen ed students. I think FCPS has decided to let parents who think their rights are being violated sue rather than cut from those areas.

How about - and I know this isn’t going to happen but I am going to throw it out there - just get rid of IEPs? They all contain the same kinds of things - x percent more time, self-advocacy, breaks when they need them, blah blah blah. The time and attention spent on these cookie cutter documents, all the meetings, all the “legal” obligations attached to them… sheesh. Then again, I give extra time, help, breaks, etc to any student who asks for them and explains to me why she needs them, IEP or no IEP, so they seem frivolous documents to me. Maybe some teachers don’t account for individual learning needs? I mean isn’t that what all teachers learn they should do in the pedagogy classes we had to take?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Self-contained should be on a separate pay scale, full stop. There's no reason a PE teacher should be on the same pay scale as a teacher who works in an EAC classroom. The requirements to work in self contained should be a lot higher though, too.

The reality is that no one wants to work in a self contained class. If you raise the requirements, you won’t be able to fill positions.

The laws of economics say otherwise. Raise the pay until you get qualified applicants. If we are paying entry level teachers 100k to work in those classes, so be it.

That assumes there is much more wiggle room in the budget than there actually is. Unless you want to jam even more kids into gen ed class rooms, where do you propose getting the funding?

Honestly, I don't really care where the money comes from. Gatehouse is a good place to start. Lots of waste to be cut. The fact is, they are legally obligated to have teachers in those classes. They can't find teachers. They need to pay more. If you pay enough, you will get teachers. (Even if pp isn't motivated by money, if you pay enough--there will be other qualified people willing to do the job).

Gatehouse has fat, but not that much fat. The largest line items on the budget are facilities and gen ed students. I think FCPS has decided to let parents who think their rights are being violated sue rather than cut from those areas.

How about - and I know this isn’t going to happen but I am going to throw it out there - just get rid of IEPs? They all contain the same kinds of things - x percent more time, self-advocacy, breaks when they need them, blah blah blah. The time and attention spent on these cookie cutter documents, all the meetings, all the “legal” obligations attached to them… sheesh. Then again, I give extra time, help, breaks, etc to any student who asks for them and explains to me why she needs them, IEP or no IEP, so they seem frivolous documents to me. Maybe some teachers don’t account for individual learning needs? I mean isn’t that what all teachers learn they should do in the pedagogy classes we had to take?

1) that’s illegal. IEPs are a federally mandated thing
2) extra time and breaks would be a 504 if that’s the only thing. They are IEPs because there are some sort of extra services being provided, not just accommodations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Self-contained should be on a separate pay scale, full stop. There's no reason a PE teacher should be on the same pay scale as a teacher who works in an EAC classroom. The requirements to work in self contained should be a lot higher though, too.

The reality is that no one wants to work in a self contained class. If you raise the requirements, you won’t be able to fill positions.

The laws of economics say otherwise. Raise the pay until you get qualified applicants. If we are paying entry level teachers 100k to work in those classes, so be it.

That assumes there is much more wiggle room in the budget than there actually is. Unless you want to jam even more kids into gen ed class rooms, where do you propose getting the funding?

Honestly, I don't really care where the money comes from. Gatehouse is a good place to start. Lots of waste to be cut. The fact is, they are legally obligated to have teachers in those classes. They can't find teachers. They need to pay more. If you pay enough, you will get teachers. (Even if pp isn't motivated by money, if you pay enough--there will be other qualified people willing to do the job).

Gatehouse has fat, but not that much fat. The largest line items on the budget are facilities and gen ed students. I think FCPS has decided to let parents who think their rights are being violated sue rather than cut from those areas.

They should get rid of instructional coaches - not gatehouse. They should get rid of resource teachers who do not work directly with kids all day. There is a lot of waste. The biggest is instructional coaches.

[Anonymous]

I know that next year at my school is going to a sh!tshow.

Several teachers left the profession completely.

We couldn't fill a few empty positions for the 2021-2022 school year (2nd, 4th, and 5th grades), so I am not confident that even more empty positions will be filled.

The kids in classes without teachers are being shortchanged. If my kid was in one of these classes, I'd demand a transfer. If the school refused, I'd do anything in my power to get them out of that school and into any kind of private that I could afford.

Some of the kids who didn't have a permanent sub or teacher this past year had not been in a classroom since 2nd and 3rd grade. I know there is at least one class of 5th graders going to middle school wildly unprepared. And if that 5th grade teaching spot isn't filled over the summer, there's a chance that kids who had no permanent teacher in 4th grade could suffer the same fate in 5th grade.

Can you imagine kids going into middle school in 2023 who have not had a real teacher or stable classroom experience since their 2nd grade year of instruction? Just completely outrageous.

The DMV area really fcked over our kids. My sister is a teacher in a state that did not go virtual in 2020-2021 (it was an option for any immunocompromised kids, though). We compare notes all the time and the kids that I teach have so many more struggles compared to the kids she teaches. She teaches 2nd grade and her experiences this past 2021-2022 school year are so vastly different from those of my coworker friend who teaches 2nd grade here. My friend has had to do so much reteaching of topics that her kids didn't learn last year doing virtual schooling. I mean, there were several kids who started the school year this year who should have been held back. The 2nd grade kids here also had many more behavior problems because the last time most were in a classroom was back in March 2020 as Kindergarteners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Self-contained should be on a separate pay scale, full stop. There's no reason a PE teacher should be on the same pay scale as a teacher who works in an EAC classroom. The requirements to work in self contained should be a lot higher though, too.

The reality is that no one wants to work in a self contained class. If you raise the requirements, you won’t be able to fill positions.

The laws of economics say otherwise. Raise the pay until you get qualified applicants. If we are paying entry level teachers 100k to work in those classes, so be it.

That assumes there is much more wiggle room in the budget than there actually is. Unless you want to jam even more kids into gen ed class rooms, where do you propose getting the funding?

Honestly, I don't really care where the money comes from. Gatehouse is a good place to start. Lots of waste to be cut. The fact is, they are legally obligated to have teachers in those classes. They can't find teachers. They need to pay more. If you pay enough, you will get teachers. (Even if pp isn't motivated by money, if you pay enough--there will be other qualified people willing to do the job).

Gatehouse has fat, but not that much fat. The largest line items on the budget are facilities and gen ed students. I think FCPS has decided to let parents who think their rights are being violated sue rather than cut from those areas.

LOL at the notion gatehouse doesn’t have that much fat. They have a person who does nothing but send out weather updates even though his job is in instructional technology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Self-contained should be on a separate pay scale, full stop. There's no reason a PE teacher should be on the same pay scale as a teacher who works in an EAC classroom. The requirements to work in self contained should be a lot higher though, too.

The reality is that no one wants to work in a self contained class. If you raise the requirements, you won’t be able to fill positions.

The laws of economics say otherwise. Raise the pay until you get qualified applicants. If we are paying entry level teachers 100k to work in those classes, so be it.

That assumes there is much more wiggle room in the budget than there actually is. Unless you want to jam even more kids into gen ed class rooms, where do you propose getting the funding?

Honestly, I don't really care where the money comes from. Gatehouse is a good place to start. Lots of waste to be cut. The fact is, they are legally obligated to have teachers in those classes. They can't find teachers. They need to pay more. If you pay enough, you will get teachers. (Even if pp isn't motivated by money, if you pay enough--there will be other qualified people willing to do the job).

Gatehouse has fat, but not that much fat. The largest line items on the budget are facilities and gen ed students. I think FCPS has decided to let parents who think their rights are being violated sue rather than cut from those areas.

How about - and I know this isn’t going to happen but I am going to throw it out there - just get rid of IEPs? They all contain the same kinds of things - x percent more time, self-advocacy, breaks when they need them, blah blah blah. The time and attention spent on these cookie cutter documents, all the meetings, all the “legal” obligations attached to them… sheesh. Then again, I give extra time, help, breaks, etc to any student who asks for them and explains to me why she needs them, IEP or no IEP, so they seem frivolous documents to me. Maybe some teachers don’t account for individual learning needs? I mean isn’t that what all teachers learn they should do in the pedagogy classes we had to take

No, some teachers don’t even follow the IEPs or 504s. They could care less what some kids need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Self-contained should be on a separate pay scale, full stop. There's no reason a PE teacher should be on the same pay scale as a teacher who works in an EAC classroom. The requirements to work in self contained should be a lot higher though, too.

The reality is that no one wants to work in a self contained class. If you raise the requirements, you won’t be able to fill positions.

The laws of economics say otherwise. Raise the pay until you get qualified applicants. If we are paying entry level teachers 100k to work in those classes, so be it.

That assumes there is much more wiggle room in the budget than there actually is. Unless you want to jam even more kids into gen ed class rooms, where do you propose getting the funding?

Honestly, I don't really care where the money comes from. Gatehouse is a good place to start. Lots of waste to be cut. The fact is, they are legally obligated to have teachers in those classes. They can't find teachers. They need to pay more. If you pay enough, you will get teachers. (Even if pp isn't motivated by money, if you pay enough--there will be other qualified people willing to do the job).

Gatehouse has fat, but not that much fat. The largest line items on the budget are facilities and gen ed students. I think FCPS has decided to let parents who think their rights are being violated sue rather than cut from those areas.

They should get rid of instructional coaches - not gatehouse. They should get rid of resource teachers who do not work directly with kids all day. There is a lot of waste. The biggest is instructional coaches.

Amen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that next year at my school is going to a sh!tshow.

Several teachers left the profession completely.

We couldn't fill a few empty positions for the 2021-2022 school year (2nd, 4th, and 5th grades), so I am not confident that even more empty positions will be filled.

The kids in classes without teachers are being shortchanged. If my kid was in one of these classes, I'd demand a transfer. If the school refused, I'd do anything in my power to get them out of that school and into any kind of private that I could afford.

Some of the kids who didn't have a permanent sub or teacher this past year had not been in a classroom since 2nd and 3rd grade. I know there is at least one class of 5th graders going to middle school wildly unprepared. And if that 5th grade teaching spot isn't filled over the summer, there's a chance that kids who had no permanent teacher in 4th grade could suffer the same fate in 5th grade.

Can you imagine kids going into middle school in 2023 who have not had a real teacher or stable classroom experience since their 2nd grade year of instruction? Just completely outrageous.

The DMV area really fcked over our kids. My sister is a teacher in a state that did not go virtual in 2020-2021 (it was an option for any immunocompromised kids, though). We compare notes all the time and the kids that I teach have so many more struggles compared to the kids she teaches. She teaches 2nd grade and her experiences this past 2021-2022 school year are so vastly different from those of my coworker friend who teaches 2nd grade here. My friend has had to do so much reteaching of topics that her kids didn't learn last year doing virtual schooling. I mean, there were several kids who started the school year this year who should have been held back. The 2nd grade kids here also had many more behavior problems because the last time most were in a classroom was back in March 2020 as Kindergarteners.

There are FCPS elementaries that end in 5th grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that next year at my school is going to a sh!tshow.

Several teachers left the profession completely.

We couldn't fill a few empty positions for the 2021-2022 school year (2nd, 4th, and 5th grades), so I am not confident that even more empty positions will be filled.

The kids in classes without teachers are being shortchanged. If my kid was in one of these classes, I'd demand a transfer. If the school refused, I'd do anything in my power to get them out of that school and into any kind of private that I could afford.

Some of the kids who didn't have a permanent sub or teacher this past year had not been in a classroom since 2nd and 3rd grade. I know there is at least one class of 5th graders going to middle school wildly unprepared. And if that 5th grade teaching spot isn't filled over the summer, there's a chance that kids who had no permanent teacher in 4th grade could suffer the same fate in 5th grade.

Can you imagine kids going into middle school in 2023 who have not had a real teacher or stable classroom experience since their 2nd grade year of instruction? Just completely outrageous.

The DMV area really fcked over our kids. My sister is a teacher in a state that did not go virtual in 2020-2021 (it was an option for any immunocompromised kids, though). We compare notes all the time and the kids that I teach have so many more struggles compared to the kids she teaches. She teaches 2nd grade and her experiences this past 2021-2022 school year are so vastly different from those of my coworker friend who teaches 2nd grade here. My friend has had to do so much reteaching of topics that her kids didn't learn last year doing virtual schooling. I mean, there were several kids who started the school year this year who should have been held back. The 2nd grade kids here also had many more behavior problems because the last time most were in a classroom was back in March 2020 as Kindergarteners.

There are FCPS elementaries that end in 5th grade?

Yes. Holmes, Poe and Glasgow are 6-8 middle schools. All of the ES that feed into them are K-5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think stipends should happen for SPED and Gen Ed teachers. SPED teachers with more than 5 IEPS should get a stipend per extra kid. Classroom teachers should get a stipend per kid when class size goes above 25.

That would be quite nice, but that would mean essentially all teachers would receive that stipend.

When I was a special education teacher, I had 50-60 IEPs (10-12 per class). Almost all of those had 3-5 goals for which I was responsible (reading comprehension, basic reading, written expression, organization, and/or behavior), so I was responsible for tracking between 120-300`goals.

I switched to general education several years ago. I now have between 135-150 students each year. It is rare to have classes smaller than 25, and most classes have 28-32 students. As a general education teacher, I usually have 5-8 students with IEPs (usually for speech, writing, organization, and/or behavior) on my roster, another 10-12 who are on my coteacher's roster, and at least a dozen 504 plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think stipends should happen for SPED and Gen Ed teachers. SPED teachers with more than 5 IEPS should get a stipend per extra kid. Classroom teachers should get a stipend per kid when class size goes above 25.

That would be quite nice, but that would mean essentially all teachers would receive that stipend.

When I was a special education teacher, I had 50-60 IEPs (10-12 per class). Almost all of those had 3-5 goals for which I was responsible (reading comprehension, basic reading, written expression, organization, and/or behavior), so I was responsible for tracking between 120-300`goals.

I switched to general education several years ago. I now have between 135-150 students each year. It is rare to have classes smaller than 25, and most classes have 28-32 students. As a general education teacher, I usually have 5-8 students with IEPs (usually for speech, writing, organization, and/or behavior) on my roster, another 10-12 who are on my coteacher's roster, and at least a dozen 504 plans.

Ok

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think stipends should happen for SPED and Gen Ed teachers. SPED teachers with more than 5 IEPS should get a stipend per extra kid. Classroom teachers should get a stipend per kid when class size goes above 25.

That would be quite nice, but that would mean essentially all teachers would receive that stipend.

When I was a special education teacher, I had 50-60 IEPs (10-12 per class). Almost all of those had 3-5 goals for which I was responsible (reading comprehension, basic reading, written expression, organization, and/or behavior), so I was responsible for tracking between 120-300`goals.

I switched to general education several years ago. I now have between 135-150 students each year. It is rare to have classes smaller than 25, and most classes have 28-32 students. As a general education teacher, I usually have 5-8 students with IEPs (usually for speech, writing, organization, and/or behavior) on my roster, another 10-12 who are on my coteacher's roster, and at least a dozen 504 plans.

Ok

LOL. I thought the same thing. There is no way that she had 50 IEPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think stipends should happen for SPED and Gen Ed teachers. SPED teachers with more than 5 IEPS should get a stipend per extra kid. Classroom teachers should get a stipend per kid when class size goes above 25.

That would be quite nice, but that would mean essentially all teachers would receive that stipend.

When I was a special education teacher, I had 50-60 IEPs (10-12 per class). Almost all of those had 3-5 goals for which I was responsible (reading comprehension, basic reading, written expression, organization, and/or behavior), so I was responsible for tracking between 120-300`goals.

I switched to general education several years ago. I now have between 135-150 students each year. It is rare to have classes smaller than 25, and most classes have 28-32 students. As a general education teacher, I usually have 5-8 students with IEPs (usually for speech, writing, organization, and/or behavior) on my roster, another 10-12 who are on my coteacher's roster, and at least a dozen 504 plans.

Ok

LOL. I thought the same thing. There is no way that she had 50 IEPs.

yeah no lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think stipends should happen for SPED and Gen Ed teachers. SPED teachers with more than 5 IEPS should get a stipend per extra kid. Classroom teachers should get a stipend per kid when class size goes above 25.

That would be quite nice, but that would mean essentially all teachers would receive that stipend.

When I was a special education teacher, I had 50-60 IEPs (10-12 per class). Almost all of those had 3-5 goals for which I was responsible (reading comprehension, basic reading, written expression, organization, and/or behavior), so I was responsible for tracking between 120-300`goals.

I switched to general education several years ago. I now have between 135-150 students each year. It is rare to have classes smaller than 25, and most classes have 28-32 students. As a general education teacher, I usually have 5-8 students with IEPs (usually for speech, writing, organization, and/or behavior) on my roster, another 10-12 who are on my coteacher's roster, and at least a dozen 504 plans.

Ok

LOL. I thought the same thing. There is no way that she had 50 IEPs.

NP. Why don’t you believe this? If she was a high school teacher and team taught 5 different classes 50+ is easily possible. I’m a general ed teacher, I didn’t have any team taught classes and I had over 20 students in my classes this year with IEPs or 504s. It could have been closer to 30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think stipends should happen for SPED and Gen Ed teachers. SPED teachers with more than 5 IEPS should get a stipend per extra kid. Classroom teachers should get a stipend per kid when class size goes above 25.

That would be quite nice, but that would mean essentially all teachers would receive that stipend.

When I was a special education teacher, I had 50-60 IEPs (10-12 per class). Almost all of those had 3-5 goals for which I was responsible (reading comprehension, basic reading, written expression, organization, and/or behavior), so I was responsible for tracking between 120-300`goals.

I switched to general education several years ago. I now have between 135-150 students each year. It is rare to have classes smaller than 25, and most classes have 28-32 students. As a general education teacher, I usually have 5-8 students with IEPs (usually for speech, writing, organization, and/or behavior) on my roster, another 10-12 who are on my coteacher's roster, and at least a dozen 504 plans.

Ok

LOL. I thought the same thing. There is no way that she had 50 IEPs.

yeah no lol

Sure you can. Maybe not on your caseload, but if you teach English, you’re responsible for tracking the reading/writing goals. And basically every kid has reading comprehension/writing goals (let alone the basic reading or organization or behavior goals) if you’re a special education English teacher! Coding goals at the end of the quarter takes hours.