Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
Middle school has 2 20 minute blocks per week for students to meet with teachers. It’s “mascot time”.
Your middle school has that. Every school is different and ours did not. Nor does our hs.
Name a middle school that doesn’t.
Name the one that does it. Every school does the scheduling different.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Newsflash: MCEA is advocating for more time. It’s been a part of their campaign for a long time. But I guess you just like to fly off the handle and blame the weakest link.
Newsflash: MCEA is by no means the weakest link in the MCPS food chain, parents are because they don't have the benefit of an organized labor union like the teachers do.
And if the MCEA has been advocating for more time and they're still not getting it, that's an issue for teachers to take up with their union because it means MCEA is not being effective in their negotiations with MCPS. That's not parents' fault. Which is why posters were saying if teachers are upset with their working conditions to not blame it on parents and say that parents need to advocate on their behalf, and instead focus their energy and ire on their own union and MCPS.
News flash: it still is your problem. I have been teaching in the district for years and I never have had parent complaints like this. You are definitely the problem.
It's clear that you will refuse to hold your union accountable and instead want to shift the burden to parents, who have to volunteer their time and energy to advocate and even when they do bother to do that, routinely get ignored by the BOE and MCPS.
You're barking up the wrong tree but you know that and you don't care. You just want someone else to blame so you're punching down on parents, who again, are the ONLY MCPS stakeholders without a union in the MCPS ecosystem. Shame on you.
DP. Nobody on this thread is shifting burdens to parents. I posted way above that parents and teachers shouldn’t be at odds with each other; we share a common goal. I suppose the only “burden” I’ve placed on *a couple* parents is a request to stop the rude attacks on this thread, especially since so much of this is out of a teacher’s control. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request.
And your shaming of a teacher above is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. I agree with that teacher: your attitude is part of the problem. And I’ll call it out right along with her. Teachers are working in a failing system right now. They are the duct tape holding what’s left together. They seem like an odd group for you to go to war with.
I disagree that "nobody on this thread" has shifted the burden to parents. The posters advocating that parents need to be the ones to push for more prep/grading time definitely shifted the burden.
Even IF that statement was made in good faith, TEACHERS via their union would need to take the lead here, because it is a workplace requirement for THEM. And if they wanted to enlist parent support, they would partner with the MCCPTA, which is the largest parent advocacy group we have within MCPS.
But instead, you and your ilk are swatting down individual parents who share experiences on this forum where teachers gave no feedback on assignments or took weeks or months to grade assignments, etc.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Do you forget the nightmare that was Open MCPS that advocated all the way to the governor’s office? Parents absolutely have the loudest voice. Believe me. We get written up, put on action plans, demoted, given unfair performance evaluations (via observations), get put in transfer lists, are forced to change subjects or grades we teach with little notice, are ignored when asked for support….shall I go on?
Look what happened with the Farquhar scandal. We ARE NOT LISTENED TO. And if we do speak up? Then we pay for it. So please knock it off. Teachers have way more to lose than you realize. We are asking for help! And we are getting excuses and pushback and shame. Just like we get from MCPS. So now maybe we can understand why education is going down a path it might not recover from when no one of any substance is willing to teach anymore.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
1. Teachers don’t carry weight, either. As one who has spoken to the BOE, I should know.
3. Teachers are parents, too. Our children also are impacted by poor curricula, teachers who don’t grade, etc. We understand this happens, but we don’t denigrate all teachers because of the actions of a few. We know that isn’t useful behavior.
4. See #3. We are working parents. We also work full-time jobs (and then some). We can’t advocate while we are at work because we are too busy doing our jobs. I can barely eat lunch, let alone find time to stand outside my principal’s office and demand she fix problems she didn’t cause, either.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Do you forget the nightmare that was Open MCPS that advocated all the way to the governor’s office? Parents absolutely have the loudest voice. Believe me. We get written up, put on action plans, demoted, given unfair performance evaluations (via observations), get put in transfer lists, are forced to change subjects or grades we teach with little notice, are ignored when asked for support….shall I go on?
Look what happened with the Farquhar scandal. We ARE NOT LISTENED TO. And if we do speak up? Then we pay for it. So please knock it off. Teachers have way more to lose than you realize. We are asking for help! And we are getting excuses and pushback and shame. Just like we get from MCPS. So now maybe we can understand why education is going down a path it might not recover from when no one of any substance is willing to teach anymore.
Re: Open MCPS. At this point, the people who were advocating to reopen schools sooner were right and those who were advocating to remain closed were wrong. So how is that example helpful? And despite that group's efforts, MCPS was one of the school districts in the nation that remained closed the longest. So how is that helping your cause?
In terms of Farquahar: Teachers won that fight! It was anonymous teacher complaints, complete with statements from MCEA, that made its way to the Washington Post and brought Beidleman down! How is that an example that teachers lack power and influence in MCPS???
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
1. Teachers don’t carry weight, either. As one who has spoken to the BOE, I should know.
3. Teachers are parents, too. Our children also are impacted by poor curricula, teachers who don’t grade, etc. We understand this happens, but we don’t denigrate all teachers because of the actions of a few. We know that isn’t useful behavior.
4. See #3. We are working parents. We also work full-time jobs (and then some). We can’t advocate while we are at work because we are too busy doing our jobs. I can barely eat lunch, let alone find time to stand outside my principal’s office and demand she fix problems she didn’t cause, either.
Great. So if you agree that parents are as powerless as you believe teachers to be, how about we direct our ire back at those who make the decisions (MCPS, BOE, MCEA) instead of telling parents they need to advocate and speak up for more grading/planning time for teachers?
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Do you forget the nightmare that was Open MCPS that advocated all the way to the governor’s office? Parents absolutely have the loudest voice. Believe me. We get written up, put on action plans, demoted, given unfair performance evaluations (via observations), get put in transfer lists, are forced to change subjects or grades we teach with little notice, are ignored when asked for support….shall I go on?
Look what happened with the Farquhar scandal. We ARE NOT LISTENED TO. And if we do speak up? Then we pay for it. So please knock it off. Teachers have way more to lose than you realize. We are asking for help! And we are getting excuses and pushback and shame. Just like we get from MCPS. So now maybe we can understand why education is going down a path it might not recover from when no one of any substance is willing to teach anymore.
Re: Open MCPS. At this point, the people who were advocating to reopen schools sooner were right and those who were advocating to remain closed were wrong. So how is that example helpful? And despite that group's efforts, MCPS was one of the school districts in the nation that remained closed the longest. So how is that helping your cause?
In terms of Farquahar: Teachers won that fight! It was anonymous teacher complaints, complete with statements from MCEA, that made its way to the Washington Post and brought Beidleman down! How is that an example that teachers lack power and influence in MCPS???
Oh bless your heart.
Please research before you type. The only reason why MCPS responded was because an undercover substitute teacher exposed them on a national level! Otherwise there would be a sexual predator in charge of your kids! But I guess that would be the teachers fault too.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Do you forget the nightmare that was Open MCPS that advocated all the way to the governor’s office? Parents absolutely have the loudest voice. Believe me. We get written up, put on action plans, demoted, given unfair performance evaluations (via observations), get put in transfer lists, are forced to change subjects or grades we teach with little notice, are ignored when asked for support….shall I go on?
Look what happened with the Farquhar scandal. We ARE NOT LISTENED TO. And if we do speak up? Then we pay for it. So please knock it off. Teachers have way more to lose than you realize. We are asking for help! And we are getting excuses and pushback and shame. Just like we get from MCPS. So now maybe we can understand why education is going down a path it might not recover from when no one of any substance is willing to teach anymore.
Re: Open MCPS. At this point, the people who were advocating to reopen schools sooner were right and those who were advocating to remain closed were wrong. So how is that example helpful? And despite that group's efforts, MCPS was one of the school districts in the nation that remained closed the longest. So how is that helping your cause?
In terms of Farquahar: Teachers won that fight! It was anonymous teacher complaints, complete with statements from MCEA, that made its way to the Washington Post and brought Beidleman down! How is that an example that teachers lack power and influence in MCPS???
Oh bless your heart.
Please research before you type. The only reason why MCPS responded was because an undercover substitute teacher exposed them on a national level! Otherwise there would be a sexual predator in charge of your kids! But I guess that would be the teachers fault too.
How does Alexandra Robbins being an undercover substitute teacher and one of the authors of the WaPo stories that brought Beidleman, MCPS and McKnight down negate my point that teachers won that fight?
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Do you forget the nightmare that was Open MCPS that advocated all the way to the governor’s office? Parents absolutely have the loudest voice. Believe me. We get written up, put on action plans, demoted, given unfair performance evaluations (via observations), get put in transfer lists, are forced to change subjects or grades we teach with little notice, are ignored when asked for support….shall I go on?
Look what happened with the Farquhar scandal. We ARE NOT LISTENED TO. And if we do speak up? Then we pay for it. So please knock it off. Teachers have way more to lose than you realize. We are asking for help! And we are getting excuses and pushback and shame. Just like we get from MCPS. So now maybe we can understand why education is going down a path it might not recover from when no one of any substance is willing to teach anymore.
Re: Open MCPS. At this point, the people who were advocating to reopen schools sooner were right and those who were advocating to remain closed were wrong. So how is that example helpful? And despite that group's efforts, MCPS was one of the school districts in the nation that remained closed the longest. So how is that helping your cause?
In terms of Farquahar: Teachers won that fight! It was anonymous teacher complaints, complete with statements from MCEA, that made its way to the Washington Post and brought Beidleman down! How is that an example that teachers lack power and influence in MCPS???
Oh bless your heart.
Please research before you type. The only reason why MCPS responded was because an undercover substitute teacher exposed them on a national level! Otherwise there would be a sexual predator in charge of your kids! But I guess that would be the teachers fault too.
How does Alexandra Robbins being an undercover substitute teacher and one of the authors of the WaPo stories that brought Beidleman, MCPS and McKnight down negate my point that teachers won that fight?
Are you from central? You sure sound like the miscreants from there. The point is, since it has to be spelled out for you, is that should not have been a fight to begin with if MCPS had effective leadership to address concerns promptly. Which they didn’t. And still do not. Or did you not read the outside legal reports?
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
Do you forget the nightmare that was Open MCPS that advocated all the way to the governor’s office? Parents absolutely have the loudest voice. Believe me. We get written up, put on action plans, demoted, given unfair performance evaluations (via observations), get put in transfer lists, are forced to change subjects or grades we teach with little notice, are ignored when asked for support….shall I go on?
Look what happened with the Farquhar scandal. We ARE NOT LISTENED TO. And if we do speak up? Then we pay for it. So please knock it off. Teachers have way more to lose than you realize. We are asking for help! And we are getting excuses and pushback and shame. Just like we get from MCPS. So now maybe we can understand why education is going down a path it might not recover from when no one of any substance is willing to teach anymore.
Re: Open MCPS. At this point, the people who were advocating to reopen schools sooner were right and those who were advocating to remain closed were wrong. So how is that example helpful? And despite that group's efforts, MCPS was one of the school districts in the nation that remained closed the longest. So how is that helping your cause?
In terms of Farquahar: Teachers won that fight! It was anonymous teacher complaints, complete with statements from MCEA, that made its way to the Washington Post and brought Beidleman down! How is that an example that teachers lack power and influence in MCPS???
Oh bless your heart.
Please research before you type. The only reason why MCPS responded was because an undercover substitute teacher exposed them on a national level! Otherwise there would be a sexual predator in charge of your kids! But I guess that would be the teachers fault too.
How does Alexandra Robbins being an undercover substitute teacher and one of the authors of the WaPo stories that brought Beidleman, MCPS and McKnight down negate my point that teachers won that fight?
Are you from central? You sure sound like the miscreants from there. The point is, since it has to be spelled out for you, is that should not have been a fight to begin with if MCPS had effective leadership to address concerns promptly. Which they didn’t. And still do not. Or did you not read the outside legal reports?
Absolutely agreed that "should not have been a fight to begin with if MCPS had effective leadership to address concerns promptly." But again, that does not negate the fact that the teachers and MCEA won that fight.
When teachers and their unions act, things happen.
Prince George's County Public Schools will soon be without a superintendent, after the school system announced Thursday night that the Board of Education agreed to "separate their employment relationship" with Millard House II.
The superintendent's last day will be June 18, according to PGCPS.
The agreement between House and the Board of Education, comes just over one week after Prince George's County's largest teachers' union issued a vote of no-confidence against the superintendent.
Again: In the hierarchy of public education, teachers and their unions have more power and weight than their parent counterparts do.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
Bro, you need to take your own advice. It isn't the teacher's job to teach your kid study skills and time management. That's YOUR job as their parent (this is what chores are for: time management and responsibilities training). Once again, for the learning-impaired: Algebra class is about algebra, not study skills.
Anonymous wrote:Stop blaming teachers. By HS, students know what they need to do, the just choose not to do it. They think sports is a priority, their phone, their friends, etc., not their school work.
What did we do before parentvue?
Parents need to take responsibility of their kids. Show teachers some respect, then students will learn to respect teachers.
Before ParentVUE we had textbooks and not a blizzard of mishmash handouts for every class.
We had handouts in the 80s. Xeroxed. I remember at the end of the year, throwing away folders of papers. Don't act like we didn't have handouts before. You gotta move into the new century. We all gotta keep up with technology.
It's not technology that is holding us back, it's parents who don't discipline their kids, kids who don't respect adults, too many phones during class time.
Parents taking kids on vacation during the school year and expecting the teacher to follow up with the kids individually. We didn't take a vacation during the school year. We focused on school.
Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.
Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.
Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.
Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.
The other four are giving you what they are paid for.
Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.
I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:
I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.
And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.
So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.
So… SHOULD this be my job?
How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?
I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.
As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.
Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.
“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”
The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.
I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.
If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.
DP here.
I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?
Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.
Did you think this through, PP?
Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.
Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.
And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.
Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?
I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.
In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.
It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.
Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.
Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.
Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.
My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.
As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.
This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.
And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.
Again, those are things you, your coworkers and union need to advocate for. Testify at the BOE, write letters, push the union to handle it. Stop putting it on parents.
Correct. It's insane that some teachers seem to expect more from parents to improve their work environment rather than the union that they pay dues to and holds far more power and influence with MCPS than parents.
Chat, what is a democracy? Why can’t I can’t get top tier service at rock bottom prices without paying any attention?
MCPS is not a democracy. It's a fiefdom, and the teachers' union, which is staffed with paid employees and has the leverage of a contractual agreement with MCPS, carries more weight and heft than the all-volunteer MCCPTA, which is the closest thing parents have to a union in MCPS and carries none of the contractual heft and weight that the labor agreements MCEA has with MCPS.
Or teachers can keep doing the job they were paid to do and you can keep crying about it anonymously on a message board instead of engaging with the School Board hearings or Central Office outreach.
School board and central office ignore parents. Many of us have tried.
Correct. Which is the point I tried to make to the teachers that they don't seem to get. MCPS and the BOE can ignore parents because:
1) Individual parents don't carry enough weight
2) There's no legal or financial consequence to ignoring a local PTA or MCCPTA
3) Parents cycle out of schools as their kids make their way through the system, so MCPS/BOE can just wait out pesky parents
4) Parents have to fit their advocacy on top of their full-time jobs, so there isn't always the capacity to do that work (you'd think the folks who are complaining they have to grade school work in their personal time would grasp this but alas....)
The county council can hold them accountable but they are incompetent.
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