more on teacher shortages

[Anonymous]

The teacher shortage is going to continue unless the school districts start fixing the system. First the administration needs to back off on the administrivia that is piled onto the teachers. The teachers are now putting in as much time handling paperwork, testing, training, documentation as they are in the class. And in many cases, they are doing a lot of this after class. At our school there were regularly teachers showing up 2 hours before school, or staying 2 hours after school daily to handle paperwork. The load of non-classroom related work is absolutely ridiculous.

Then the school system needs to develop better policies for managing the terribly overentitled parents. While I have absolutely sympathy for parents who need to contact the school for behavioral issues, bullying, etc., there are too many parents who are helicoptering and calling, berating, and abusing teachers over grading and classwork. I've see and heard of far too many parents who try to browbeat teachers into changing grades or excusing poor behavior on their kids' parts. The number of kids who don't read any of the information that teachers provide and then wait until the end of the grading period to complain and have their parents complain is just unreasonable.

The combination of unreasonable administration demands and unreasonable kowtowing to parents is chasing teachers away from a profession that most of them love. Let them get back to teaching and you'll get more people interested in joining the profession. Until policies change to start curbing administration policies and parental behavior, you are going to continue to have a greater exodus of teachers from the profession than people joining the profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who said her friend is getting lots of rejections:
My district is getting resumes. Unfortunately, they don't have the appropriate endorsements and aren't qualified to teach in our schools. The other thing we see are people who can't spell, who give terrible interview answers, who have bad references, and more. Are you sure your friend is qualified for the jobs she is seeking? And are you sure she is giving decent enough answers to questions? What does her resume look like? I saw some of the resumes my principal is getting. Some of these have emojis on them. I am not kidding.
Though for us the biggest issue is that we need all our candidates to have an ESL endorsement and people don't have that. I am very surprised the state isn't allowing us to hire people on the condition that they get this endorsement within a few years.

DP. I'm sure that's coming. I just hope they're smarter about it this time around. They'll hire any warm body to "teach" SPED even if you have no relevant degree or experience. You just have to have a Bachelor's in any subject, take an intro class and do some professional development. It's been a huge mistake.

What choice do the districts have? Even after doing this they still don’t have enough sped teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The teacher shortage is going to continue unless the school districts start fixing the system. First the administration needs to back off on the administrivia that is piled onto the teachers. The teachers are now putting in as much time handling paperwork, testing, training, documentation as they are in the class. And in many cases, they are doing a lot of this after class. At our school there were regularly teachers showing up 2 hours before school, or staying 2 hours after school daily to handle paperwork. The load of non-classroom related work is absolutely ridiculous.

Then the school system needs to develop better policies for managing the terribly overentitled parents. While I have absolutely sympathy for parents who need to contact the school for behavioral issues, bullying, etc., there are too many parents who are helicoptering and calling, berating, and abusing teachers over grading and classwork. I've see and heard of far too many parents who try to browbeat teachers into changing grades or excusing poor behavior on their kids' parts. The number of kids who don't read any of the information that teachers provide and then wait until the end of the grading period to complain and have their parents complain is just unreasonable.

The combination of unreasonable administration demands and unreasonable kowtowing to parents is chasing teachers away from a profession that most of them love. Let them get back to teaching and you'll get more people interested in joining the profession. Until policies change to start curbing administration policies and parental behavior, you are going to continue to have a greater exodus of teachers from the profession than people joining the profession.

I would not have quit if they were hounding me about grades and behavior. THAT, I expect. But, as a 1st grade teacher, I was inundated (8 - 17 emails a week) about missing lunch kits, bringing home the wrong folder, their child needs help with their clothing, a 2 hour meeting on learning correct signing and secret checklist folders for a child's bathroom problems (yes, this really happened), parents changing a child's transportation or me collecting a second set of things for a child to go home with another parent 20 MINUTES BEFORE DISMISSAL, angry email's about me removing their child's cricut monogram sticker on a chromebook because they did not read the policy that it is not theirs and I have to remove it before sending it back to warehouse, and my favorite: please use this comb I send in to brush my child's hair before dismissal so that it does not look a mess when I pick her up. I literally counted the hours until this school year and that chapter of my life ended. What a nightmare. Parents, this is just too much. If I ever want to have kids, I vow never to be like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teacher shortage is going to continue unless the school districts start fixing the system. First the administration needs to back off on the administrivia that is piled onto the teachers. The teachers are now putting in as much time handling paperwork, testing, training, documentation as they are in the class. And in many cases, they are doing a lot of this after class. At our school there were regularly teachers showing up 2 hours before school, or staying 2 hours after school daily to handle paperwork. The load of non-classroom related work is absolutely ridiculous.

Then the school system needs to develop better policies for managing the terribly overentitled parents. While I have absolutely sympathy for parents who need to contact the school for behavioral issues, bullying, etc., there are too many parents who are helicoptering and calling, berating, and abusing teachers over grading and classwork. I've see and heard of far too many parents who try to browbeat teachers into changing grades or excusing poor behavior on their kids' parts. The number of kids who don't read any of the information that teachers provide and then wait until the end of the grading period to complain and have their parents complain is just unreasonable.

The combination of unreasonable administration demands and unreasonable kowtowing to parents is chasing teachers away from a profession that most of them love. Let them get back to teaching and you'll get more people interested in joining the profession. Until policies change to start curbing administration policies and parental behavior, you are going to continue to have a greater exodus of teachers from the profession than people joining the profession.

I would not have quit if they were hounding me about grades and behavior. THAT, I expect. But, as a 1st grade teacher, I was inundated (8 - 17 emails a week) about missing lunch kits, bringing home the wrong folder, their child needs help with their clothing, a 2 hour meeting on learning correct signing and secret checklist folders for a child's bathroom problems (yes, this really happened), parents changing a child's transportation or me collecting a second set of things for a child to go home with another parent 20 MINUTES BEFORE DISMISSAL, angry email's about me removing their child's cricut monogram sticker on a chromebook because they did not read the policy that it is not theirs and I have to remove it before sending it back to warehouse, and my favorite: please use this comb I send in to brush my child's hair before dismissal so that it does not look a mess when I pick her up. I literally counted the hours until this school year and that chapter of my life ended. What a nightmare. Parents, this is just too much. If I ever want to have kids, I vow never to be like this.

Why are you on this blog if you don’t have kids? Seems odd. It’s in the name of the site?

The above sounds like normal things for teaching elementary school. Why can’t you remind a kid at dismissal to comb her hair? Or tell the parent that you can’t remind her.
Are the admin really so pro-parent that you would be disciplined for emailing back that you simply cannot meet a parent’s request? Why can’t you set appropriate boundaries like any other professional?
If someone in an office job decides to not meet a customer’s request, either their management is going to support their choice or explain why it’s not allowed to ignore the request. You then have the choice to quit or not.

Why are teachers resentful about parents asking for things when they don’t clearly state that it’s not appropriate and that asking for favors or 2 hours meetings about bathroom issues just won’t be tolerated?

If my child was anxious and upset about toilet issues, I would absolutely ask for a meeting to talk about how maybe we could work together to have them not paralyzed by anxiety over it. If that’s the scenario, wouldn’t you need to make a choice whether you want to deal with the anxious child or whether you want to understand and help the child so both of your days are better?

Any career is filled with the stress of “other duties as assigned” which fill up your workday. If you don’t want to meet those requests or feel it’s not part of your job, it’s the professional thing to communicate that and either have your management back you up or decide whether this job and the “other duties” are right for you.

Shortage or not, no one needs a jaded teacher. I personally don’t feel any other career field will be any less filled with the tedious or eye rolling tasks which fill your day. I’ve filled out a lot of “TPS reports” in my career and I’m not a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who said her friend is getting lots of rejections:
My district is getting resumes. Unfortunately, they don't have the appropriate endorsements and aren't qualified to teach in our schools. The other thing we see are people who can't spell, who give terrible interview answers, who have bad references, and more. Are you sure your friend is qualified for the jobs she is seeking? And are you sure she is giving decent enough answers to questions? What does her resume look like? I saw some of the resumes my principal is getting. Some of these have emojis on them. I am not kidding.
Though for us the biggest issue is that we need all our candidates to have an ESL endorsement and people don't have that. I am very surprised the state isn't allowing us to hire people on the condition that they get this endorsement within a few years.

DP. I'm sure that's coming. I just hope they're smarter about it this time around. They'll hire any warm body to "teach" SPED even if you have no relevant degree or experience. You just have to have a Bachelor's in any subject, take an intro class and do some professional development. It's been a huge mistake.

What choice do the districts have? Even after doing this they still don’t have enough sped teachers.

Hmmm I’m don’t know. Why on earth wouldn’t a qualified person with a Master’s degree work 60+ hour weeks in an incredibly challenging environment in a high COL area for a starting salary of $60,000?

[Anonymous]

Becoming a SpEd teacher is also incredibly hard. I have passed the SpEd praxis but most schools want you to have a masters degree and lots of experience otherwise the school can be liable for not meeting Fed requirements. There is lots of required training throughout the the year to keep up with constant changes in testing and paperwork.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I work in a program for gifted kids outside the public school system. We start our programs in a week. We are only about 80% staffed. Next week, our administrators will be calling parents who signed up for classes and paid big bucks that they can either choose a different class for their kids or get a credit for a future class. This is a program that, 5 years ago, was so, so, so hard to get hired to work in. You pretty much had to know someone. It pays really well, teachers have a ton of autonomy, the kids are generally great and it's a lot of fun to teach these classes. Now? They can't staff them all. I know every field is having issues, but this is pretty shocking to me.

Is this Hopkins CTY?
Pay is too low in my opinion:

https://centerfortalentedyouth.formstack.com/forms/jobdetails_salaries

There is an article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/27/johns-hopkins-cty-canceled/?itid=hp-more-top-stories

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I work in a program for gifted kids outside the public school system. We start our programs in a week. We are only about 80% staffed. Next week, our administrators will be calling parents who signed up for classes and paid big bucks that they can either choose a different class for their kids or get a credit for a future class. This is a program that, 5 years ago, was so, so, so hard to get hired to work in. You pretty much had to know someone. It pays really well, teachers have a ton of autonomy, the kids are generally great and it's a lot of fun to teach these classes. Now? They can't staff them all. I know every field is having issues, but this is pretty shocking to me.

Is this Hopkins CTY?
Pay is too low in my opinion:

https://centerfortalentedyouth.formstack.com/forms/jobdetails_salaries

There is an article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/27/johns-hopkins-cty-canceled/?itid=hp-more-top-stories

+1. I bet they can't staff it with TAs and office assistants. $500 per week before taxes in an expensive area? This is a great program and I'm sorry for the kids who were looking forward to it, but come on. I'd love to know what they're offering custodians and cafeteria workers. I'm sure it's insultingly low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I work in a program for gifted kids outside the public school system. We start our programs in a week. We are only about 80% staffed. Next week, our administrators will be calling parents who signed up for classes and paid big bucks that they can either choose a different class for their kids or get a credit for a future class. This is a program that, 5 years ago, was so, so, so hard to get hired to work in. You pretty much had to know someone. It pays really well, teachers have a ton of autonomy, the kids are generally great and it's a lot of fun to teach these classes. Now? They can't staff them all. I know every field is having issues, but this is pretty shocking to me.

Is this Hopkins CTY?
Pay is too low in my opinion:

https://centerfortalentedyouth.formstack.com/forms/jobdetails_salaries

There is an article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/27/johns-hopkins-cty-canceled/?itid=hp-more-top-stories

5K for 7 weeks works out to be about $750 per week. Are these half day programs? $750 for a half day program for a week is okay, not great money. Especially when you're talking about all the prep that goes into these very heavy duty hands on-best lessons you've ever taught in your whole life kind of programs. I'm the OP. I wasn't talking about CTY but a similar program. 10 years ago, $750 would have been decent money imo. Now? Nah. I'm gonna watch netflix and go get drinks with my friends instead.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad teachers are saying no thanks. I made more than that per week nannying many years ago.

[Anonymous]

My district is paying $75/hr for summer school teachers. Tomorrow marks 1-week until the start of the summer session and the portal shows only 42% of the needed positions are filled.

I've gotten an email each day since school ended reminding me about the bump in pay. The emails are now basically begging & how you don't need to be skilled in the area. They just need a warm body.

Pathetic. Just absolutely pathetic. Once again, the system doesn't care if your kid learns anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teacher shortage is going to continue unless the school districts start fixing the system. First the administration needs to back off on the administrivia that is piled onto the teachers. The teachers are now putting in as much time handling paperwork, testing, training, documentation as they are in the class. And in many cases, they are doing a lot of this after class. At our school there were regularly teachers showing up 2 hours before school, or staying 2 hours after school daily to handle paperwork. The load of non-classroom related work is absolutely ridiculous.

Then the school system needs to develop better policies for managing the terribly overentitled parents. While I have absolutely sympathy for parents who need to contact the school for behavioral issues, bullying, etc., there are too many parents who are helicoptering and calling, berating, and abusing teachers over grading and classwork. I've see and heard of far too many parents who try to browbeat teachers into changing grades or excusing poor behavior on their kids' parts. The number of kids who don't read any of the information that teachers provide and then wait until the end of the grading period to complain and have their parents complain is just unreasonable.

The combination of unreasonable administration demands and unreasonable kowtowing to parents is chasing teachers away from a profession that most of them love. Let them get back to teaching and you'll get more people interested in joining the profession. Until policies change to start curbing administration policies and parental behavior, you are going to continue to have a greater exodus of teachers from the profession than people joining the profession.

I would not have quit if they were hounding me about grades and behavior. THAT, I expect. But, as a 1st grade teacher, I was inundated (8 - 17 emails a week) about missing lunch kits, bringing home the wrong folder, their child needs help with their clothing, a 2 hour meeting on learning correct signing and secret checklist folders for a child's bathroom problems (yes, this really happened), parents changing a child's transportation or me collecting a second set of things for a child to go home with another parent 20 MINUTES BEFORE DISMISSAL, angry email's about me removing their child's cricut monogram sticker on a chromebook because they did not read the policy that it is not theirs and I have to remove it before sending it back to warehouse, and my favorite: please use this comb I send in to brush my child's hair before dismissal so that it does not look a mess when I pick her up. I literally counted the hours until this school year and that chapter of my life ended. What a nightmare. Parents, this is just too much. If I ever want to have kids, I vow never to be like this.

Why are you on this blog if you don’t have kids? Seems odd. It’s in the name of the site?

The above sounds like normal things for teaching elementary school. Why can’t you remind a kid at dismissal to comb her hair? Or tell the parent that you can’t remind her.
Are the admin really so pro-parent that you would be disciplined for emailing back that you simply cannot meet a parent’s request? Why can’t you set appropriate boundaries like any other professional?
If someone in an office job decides to not meet a customer’s request, either their management is going to support their choice or explain why it’s not allowed to ignore the request. You then have the choice to quit or not.

Why are teachers resentful about parents asking for things when they don’t clearly state that it’s not appropriate and that asking for favors or 2 hours meetings about bathroom issues just won’t be tolerated?

If my child was anxious and upset about toilet issues, I would absolutely ask for a meeting to talk about how maybe we could work together to have them not paralyzed by anxiety over it. If that’s the scenario, wouldn’t you need to make a choice whether you want to deal with the anxious child or whether you want to understand and help the child so both of your days are better?

Any career is filled with the stress of “other duties as assigned” which fill up your workday. If you don’t want to meet those requests or feel it’s not part of your job, it’s the professional thing to communicate that and either have your management back you up or decide whether this job and the “other duties” are right for you.

Shortage or not, no one needs a jaded teacher. I personally don’t feel any other career field will be any less filled with the tedious or eye rolling tasks which fill your day. I’ve filled out a lot of “TPS reports” in my career and I’m not a teacher.

Because admin comes back at them when they refuse.

[Anonymous]

I would consider a $75/hr job (my DMV district is paying half that), but because of the sub shortage I am trying to cram every health and home maintenance appointment I skipped this year into my available time off.

[Anonymous]

And adding: School systems have long gotten by on paying teachers much less for the summer, marketing it as "you're only working a half day! The pay is plenty!" But ultimately you are doing almost as much instructional time as during the regular year, with basically no planning time. I am not surprised that the burnout has made more teachers more careful about taking on additional summer work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My district is paying $75/hr for summer school teachers. Tomorrow marks 1-week until the start of the summer session and the portal shows only 42% of the needed positions are filled.

I've gotten an email each day since school ended reminding me about the bump in pay. The emails are now basically begging & how you don't need to be skilled in the area. They just need a warm body.

Pathetic. Just absolutely pathetic. Once again, the system doesn't care if your kid learns anything.

That’s almost exactly my “hourly rate” when I take my contracted pay and divide it by 195 days, 7.5 hours a day. I don’t know what it would take to get me to teach summer school. It would have to be more than that.