MCEA and Jennifer Martin act like a bunch of lunatics at Council yesterday

[Anonymous]

Regardless, I think the point is that they didn’t think you had what it took to be a tenured teacher. MCPS, based on the recommendation of your principal, decided to cut their losses before you were tenured and they would have had to jump through hoops to fire you. Maybe that was the right call, and maybe it wasn’t, but regardless, it means they didn’t have confidence that you could be a successful MCPS teacher. I don’t think your input will be viewed in the same way as the input from longtime, successful MCPS teachers. I wish you luck but don’t think this forum is the right place for you to be posting if you want to feel validated.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps youre right. I wont return no matter how much they raise pay. Its too risky safety wise. Its just tough we teachers don't know what we need to do to be supported and maybe it might take all teachers leaving and the rest to teach classes of 50+ students and severe shortages and educational levels dropping before we are adequately supported. I just don't know why principals and the public always to blame teacher scapegoats instead of considering systemic problems instead of the "you suck" type of gaslighting. It's unsustainable. Good luck with your oversized classes and gaslighting the new recruits who can't deal with the problems that have become ubiquitous. Just know the more and more teachers that leave will take their stories and their first amendment rights with them. And they won't return.

[Anonymous]

Or maybe the successful teachers got in before cellphones came out and you can't let them go. I feels sorry for their predicament because now they are stuck.

[Anonymous]

Is the moral of the story- you can have glowing marks by state universities, be called a Rockstar and be commended as a "hero" as you drop 40-50k on a masters learning to be a master teacher etc. But when you get out you will be coerced to make great optics in a crime riddled district or you get the axe. The proof is in the pudding. People are leaving because they feel helpless and the goal seems to be to fool the public on how schools are really run and to gaslight teachers who were trained and passed the array requirement asked of them. Well if I was given a 4.0 how am I underqalified now that I expect a living wage and support. I thought very long for free, actually I paid 50k plus to teach for free for prolonged periods of time. There was never a class that gave parameters of the best way to inflate grades. That was not in our training.

[Anonymous]

Why do you think the teacher attrition is at crisis levels?
Why do you think students in university are not choosing teaching?

Any thoughts on the attrition/ pipeline epidemic?

[Anonymous]

Yall call us statistics and pass guilt but what reasons do you attribute to 50% of teachers leave in the first 5 years? Let's nip this truth in the bud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yall call us statistics and pass guilt but what reasons do you attribute to 50% of teachers leave in the first 5 years? Let's nip this truth in the bud.

It’s not due to grade inflation.

First of all, lots of jobs have high attrition in the first few years. Teachers have relatively high rates of people leaving the profession (as opposed to switching jobs within the profession) but that is to be expected given the relative lack of variety between teaching jobs.

Why is it as high as it is in those early years? While top-end teaching pay is pretty good, starting salaries are pretty poor. It’s a particularly tough job in the early years, as you’re adapting lesson plans and materials, and most schools don’t adequately offset that with increased support/planning time.

[Anonymous]

I would say you must clearly be a higher up of some sort yourself because you are clearly way out of touch. For one classroom behavior is off the charts dangerous. I am sure you would be the type that would blame the teacher for poor classroom management skills and punish them. The kids have such poor discipline because they see that their are really no structures or expectation of being a law abiding citizen.

How can you teach kids that have no natural consequence. Again we see the powers that be pass blame. This again is why teachers get the blame on everything. We are the scapegoats that will do your grade inflation optics oriented bidding even though it borders in the category of fraud IMHO. That is stressful for teacher. The violence is stressful for teachers. The shunning of reporting violence and behavior is stressful. The extreme lack of any support when we do report is stressful. The helplessness is stressful. The out of pocket expenses is stressful. Being attacked physically by students is stressful. Being retaliated by bosses and corrupt status quo officials is stressful.

This is why education is in a downward spiral and literally everyone knows it except for the higher-ups who bury their heads in the sand in shame of how they abused their constituent base for so long they created a system of disrespect, chaos, violence, etc in the name of blaming teacher and not hurting the feelings of students.

You are clearly on the side of the powers that mistreat teachers so debating seems futile so good luck dealing with the reality of not having enough teachers in classrooms. When these teachers experience the culture that has been established they will leave too. How bad does education have to get until someone blames the captain of the sinking ship? Is their ever an instance where the people giving order is changed? Many times teachers are just following the ridiculous orders that were handed them in teaching classes. Alot of times they are crafted by out of touch people like yourselves and we are punished and retaliated when your lackluster initiatives don't work. Yall don't treat us Ike professionals. And yes this is another reason why you don't deserve a teaching staff. You guys throw teachers under the bus so you can climb the ladder and say " that teacher didn't carry out my ridiculously poor plans well enough". And yes this too is stressful.

You can try to improve the optics and lure green horned unsuspecting idealist teachers back to the classroom. But my guess is this retaliation oriented pc blame the teacher spare the juvenile delinquent bs has been going on so long the kids know to stay far far away or education will lure them in with promises of respect and equity but it is disrespect and chaos if they fall for the trap.

[Anonymous]

Do you blame the teachers who have passed away at the hands of students ? Do you blame the teacher who got shot by a 6 year old in Virginia? I really want to know. Were her management skills sub par?

[Anonymous]

In regard to planning time, many times we get no planning time because we are covering classes due to the extreme crisis level shortage. Many times we are punished and retaliated for not having good enough plans. We'll maybe if we had our contract mandated planning times we would have better plans. The fact that the union doesn't respect or protect contract stipulations is another big stressor.

How much do you get paid to degrade and disrespect teachers?

[Anonymous]

Do you blame the teachers who have passed away at the hands of students ? Do you blame the teacher who got shot by a 6 year old in Virginia? I really want to know. Were her management skills sub par?

[Anonymous]

My big question that I have that was not addressed is why admin are not held accountable but promoted when they hold back crime and violence information from the cops? It seems like a double standard because when teachers report because, we are legally required to; we are punished and perhaps retaliated again. Why do you think this double standard exists?

[Anonymous]

I am an experienced MCPS teacher. If the author of the past few posts taught with the same "effectiveness" of her ranting posts, I can definitely see why she was let go.

[Anonymous]

Wow. That statement is gaslighting. The public wants answers as to why teachers are unsupported in a toxic climate and your statement is gaslighting. Well I guess it's par for the course thus supporting my thesis. Teachers are not on the same page. New teachers will be ganged up on if they don't shut their mouths and go with it

Your apathy when your industry is in crisis is frightening.

[Anonymous]

Teachers want to leave because of absurd administration and parents. Bottom line. Administration and the insane amount of micromanaging that occurred this year....all for all of their plans to fail. Not sure what the messaging from central office was, but this year was a disaster. Parents are a huge problem as well. Don't expect schools to raise your kid for you. You need to do this as well. Also, it's 2023...the parents still clinging to the "it's because of the pandemic" excuse are jokes.