Cooper Middle School Math - horrible teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

So you want the people who already do the most to pick up even more work? Where do you think these hours come from? Good teachers are already working around the clock for you.

And who will they find to replace the bad teachers? There’s a shortage out there, if you aren’t aware.

I understand that some parents demand teachers to sacrifice all, but at some point you need to understand that there’s very little left we can give you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

So you want the people who already do the most to pick up even more work? Where do you think these hours come from? Good teachers are already working around the clock for you.

And who will they find to replace the bad teachers? There’s a shortage out there, if you aren’t aware.

I understand that some parents demand teachers to sacrifice all, but at some point you need to understand that there’s very little left we can give you.

I think a unionized workforce (where applicable) should be negotiating and advocating to address issues in their workplace if indeed you are correct that deadweight teachers are a drag on other teachers and contributing to burnout AND that this is something that bothers teachers as much as parents.

Yes, given the choice between a teacher doing more and a student falling behind, I am not willing to suggest we punish students with problem teachers year after year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

So you want the people who already do the most to pick up even more work? Where do you think these hours come from? Good teachers are already working around the clock for you.

And who will they find to replace the bad teachers? There’s a shortage out there, if you aren’t aware.

I understand that some parents demand teachers to sacrifice all, but at some point you need to understand that there’s very little left we can give you.

I think a unionized workforce (where applicable) should be negotiating and advocating to address issues in their workplace if indeed you are correct that deadweight teachers are a drag on other teachers and contributing to burnout AND that this is something that bothers teachers as much as parents.

Yes, given the choice between a teacher doing more and a student falling behind, I am not willing to suggest we punish students with problem teachers year after year.

I give you 65-70 hours a week. I stay after to tutor, my students and the students of others. My own health suffers and my family suffers.

I’m sorry, I just can’t give you more than I already am. I can’t advocate for your child more than I already am. When it comes to his other teachers, that’s going to need to be your responsibility. I just can’t take more on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

So you want the people who already do the most to pick up even more work? Where do you think these hours come from? Good teachers are already working around the clock for you.

And who will they find to replace the bad teachers? There’s a shortage out there, if you aren’t aware.

I understand that some parents demand teachers to sacrifice all, but at some point you need to understand that there’s very little left we can give you.

I think a unionized workforce (where applicable) should be negotiating and advocating to address issues in their workplace if indeed you are correct that deadweight teachers are a drag on other teachers and contributing to burnout AND that this is something that bothers teachers as much as parents.

Yes, given the choice between a teacher doing more and a student falling behind, I am not willing to suggest we punish students with problem teachers year after year.

I give you 65-70 hours a week. I stay after to tutor, my students and the students of others. My own health suffers and my family suffers.

I’m sorry, I just can’t give you more than I already am. I can’t advocate for your child more than I already am. When it comes to his other teachers, that’s going to need to be your responsibility. I just can’t take more on.

Parents ARE advocating for their children when they request them to be moved.

I’m suggesting you advocate for yourself, if teachers really do suffer as much as students from their poor-performing colleagues, that you advocate and organize to hold them accountable. It’s not a reasonable ask of parents to let their kids fall behind in something as essential as algebra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

why is your kid special that s/he should be moved -- can all the kids in that class be moved?

My kid isn’t special but as a parent I will ask- a lot of parent won’t ask because they think nothing can be done. I only care about my kid so I ask. Actually just did it with another subject and my kid was moved right away. The schools knows who the bad teachers are and just wait for parents to speak up

[Anonymous]

Let's say this teacher is removed. Who replaces this teacher? There is a teacher shortage, do you think it is going to be easy to find another teacher? Or that the replacement teacher will be to your standard? It is likely going to be a new teacher, either a career switch or straight out of college. There is going to be a learning curve, are you ok with your child beign in that class? Or are you going to complain, getting the new teacher fired, and starting the cycle.

And the teacher you think is crappy might be good for another kid with a different learning style. Those parents might be upset that the teacher was fired. They loved that teacher.

None of this is black and white or easy.

Help your kid with the class work if you can. Look for other resources to help your kid if you can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

why is your kid special that s/he should be moved -- can all the kids in that class be moved?

My kid isn’t special but as a parent I will ask- a lot of parent won’t ask because they think nothing can be done. I only care about my kid so I ask. Actually just did it with another subject and my kid was moved right away. The schools knows who the bad teachers are and just wait for parents to speak up

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's say this teacher is removed. Who replaces this teacher? There is a teacher shortage, do you think it is going to be easy to find another teacher? Or that the replacement teacher will be to your standard? It is likely going to be a new teacher, either a career switch or straight out of college. There is going to be a learning curve, are you ok with your child beign in that class? Or are you going to complain, getting the new teacher fired, and starting the cycle.

And the teacher you think is crappy might be good for another kid with a different learning style. Those parents might be upset that the teacher was fired. They loved that teacher.

None of this is black and white or easy.

Help your kid with the class work if you can. Look for other resources to help your kid if you can't.

Just noting since this is posted in FCPS board, FCPS has said in media they solved their shortage.

If the teacher I think is bad for my kid is amazing for another, there should be no issue of unbalanced workloads— I understood the teachers to say the problem was that the bad teachers wind up with small rosters and the others have to pick up the slack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's say this teacher is removed. Who replaces this teacher? There is a teacher shortage, do you think it is going to be easy to find another teacher? Or that the replacement teacher will be to your standard? It is likely going to be a new teacher, either a career switch or straight out of college. There is going to be a learning curve, are you ok with your child beign in that class? Or are you going to complain, getting the new teacher fired, and starting the cycle.

And the teacher you think is crappy might be good for another kid with a different learning style. Those parents might be upset that the teacher was fired. They loved that teacher.

None of this is black and white or easy.

Help your kid with the class work if you can. Look for other resources to help your kid if you can't.

You’re making this overly complicated. There are teachers who utterly fail at helping a large number of their students learn the material and refuse to put in any extra effort to help their students succeed.

The kids in their classes deserve better, and if it means some other teachers have larger classes or the principal has to find a new teacher that’s still better than letting kids twist in the wind.

In many cases the immediate reaction of the administration is going to be to point to the small number of students who succeed as evidence of the bad teacher’s competence, because they don’t want to be inconvenienced. They need to be disabused of the notion that this is an acceptable response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's say this teacher is removed. Who replaces this teacher? There is a teacher shortage, do you think it is going to be easy to find another teacher? Or that the replacement teacher will be to your standard? It is likely going to be a new teacher, either a career switch or straight out of college. There is going to be a learning curve, are you ok with your child beign in that class? Or are you going to complain, getting the new teacher fired, and starting the cycle.

And the teacher you think is crappy might be good for another kid with a different learning style. Those parents might be upset that the teacher was fired. They loved that teacher.

None of this is black and white or easy.

Help your kid with the class work if you can. Look for other resources to help your kid if you can't.

Having the school makes a change is looking for other resources.

What you mean when you say “look for other resources” seems to be that parents should just “look” for thousands of dollars or hours of free time. Its an amazingly privileged take considering the vast majority of parents work year round outside the home.

[Anonymous]

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

You clearly do not understand unions. What a joke.
I taught in a school with a teacher who was placed there on probation. The union rules required that the school do that. Our principal and other teachers tried to help her, but it was a disaster.

Many parents demanded their kids be removed from the class--the ones that were paying attention. Others likely did not know how bad it was.

Because of the union protection, a class of kids had a disastrous year.

Nice woman, but highly nervous and emotional.

Do you now why many teachers join the union? Because they offer "protection" for their jobs. Not because of better pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say this teacher is removed. Who replaces this teacher? There is a teacher shortage, do you think it is going to be easy to find another teacher? Or that the replacement teacher will be to your standard? It is likely going to be a new teacher, either a career switch or straight out of college. There is going to be a learning curve, are you ok with your child beign in that class? Or are you going to complain, getting the new teacher fired, and starting the cycle.

And the teacher you think is crappy might be good for another kid with a different learning style. Those parents might be upset that the teacher was fired. They loved that teacher.

None of this is black and white or easy.

Help your kid with the class work if you can. Look for other resources to help your kid if you can't.

Having the school makes a change is looking for other resources.

What you mean when you say “look for other resources” seems to be that parents should just “look” for thousands of dollars or hours of free time. Its an amazingly privileged take considering the vast majority of parents work year round outside the home.

Just like my parents did in the 80s. Mom still helped with homework when we needed help. And she found a tutor in areas that we were struggling, sometimes it was a HS kid who was good at math sometimes it was a reading specialist to help my brother with dyslexia learn to read. You do what you can because the schools cannot meet every kids needs 100% of the time. That is what public school is, trying to meet the baseline needs for the majority of kids.

Today you can use Khan for math help, the schools provide tutors, the district provides tutors. There are ways for parents who are limited on time and/or funds can reach out for help. There are more resources available today then there was when I was a kid. My Mom would have been thrilled to be able to watch a youtube video on solving a math problem with me, it would have saved us hours.