incompetent teacher -- what can parents do?

[Anonymous]

Bad news, OP. Even if the principal heartily wants to get rid of this teacher, this process will take at least until the end of this school year.

Our elementary school principal is gung-ho about getting rid of incompetent teachers, but my child nevertheless had a bad one last year, who left at the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any update op? Did you stick with it?

OP here. Short of switching to private school, I don't have much choice BUT to stick with it.

Some related questions. For those of you who know the system, what's the next level above our principal? I don't doubt he's trying, but I want to make more noise about this and I want to know who exactly to go to. And what can I do to support my claims that the teacher doesn't know what she's doing? I'm not in the classroom, and it's not like I can expect my middle schooler to document what is and isn't happening in class, especially when she can't possibly know what is supposed to be happening.

Lastly, how might I go about finding a tutor for this subject so that my child can learn the material? It is NOT math or English or foreign language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it's really that bad, I don't see why the OP doesn't just out the teacher here on a anonymous message board. Now *that* would be a squeaky wheel.

My daughter went through the same thing in 3rd grade with a terrible teacher who couldn't even speak in coherent sentences. We ended up having to hire a tutor (not cheap) 3 days a week to supplement. Again, everyone knew the teacher was incompetent but the Unions still defended her and nobody was allowed to switch classrooms.

After being a lifelong democrat, I now just grab one of those "apple" sheets the teacher unions hand out at the polling places. I vote the exact opposite of their recommendations. Makes choices easy knowing which candidates are in their pocket.

That's as silly as voting straight apple ballot. You're still allowing the teachers' union to make your voting decisions for you.

[Anonymous]

Go to the person who supervises middle schools in your cluster--that name is on the MCPS website. That is your principal's boss. Above him is the community superintendent for your district. You can contact both. Ask central MCPS or a stronger history teacher (or whatever it is) for the curriculum. Follow the assignments and perhaps hire a tutor from another school district in MCPS who teaches the same subject to tutor.
It can't be a tutor who teaches in your cluster. Keep writing and calling too.

[Anonymous]

Keep emailing and calling the principal too--it is his staff that needs to do the documenting of incompetence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any update op? Did you stick with it?

OP here. Short of switching to private school, I don't have much choice BUT to stick with it.

Some related questions. For those of you who know the system, what's the next level above our principal? I don't doubt he's trying, but I want to make more noise about this and I want to know who exactly to go to. And what can I do to support my claims that the teacher doesn't know what she's doing? I'm not in the classroom, and it's not like I can expect my middle schooler to document what is and isn't happening in class, especially when she can't possibly know what is supposed to be happening.

Lastly, how might I go about finding a tutor for this subject so that my child can learn the material? It is NOT math or English or foreign language.

So, it's science or social studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any update op? Did you stick with it?

OP here. Short of switching to private school, I don't have much choice BUT to stick with it.

Some related questions. For those of you who know the system, what's the next level above our principal? I don't doubt he's trying, but I want to make more noise about this and I want to know who exactly to go to. And what can I do to support my claims that the teacher doesn't know what she's doing? I'm not in the classroom, and it's not like I can expect my middle schooler to document what is and isn't happening in class, especially when she can't possibly know what is supposed to be happening.

Lastly, how might I go about finding a tutor for this subject so that my child can learn the material? It is NOT math or English or foreign language.

How do you know the teacher is incompetent if you aren't in the classroom and your child can't report what is happening?

[Anonymous]

Not the OP, but it can become obvious quickly when it's really bad. And you meet the teacher at back to school night, see the graded work (or lack thereof) etc.

[Anonymous]

Is the problem that the teacher doesn't know the subject or doesn't know how to teach it? Both?

[Anonymous]

Op?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op?

Maybe she's busy dusting off her old science or social studies textbooks.

[Anonymous]

Ha! I would guess it's world history....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha! I would guess it's world history....

7th Grade World Studies in MCPS is a tough course. It's not taught sequentially the way that we parents learned history. In fact, it's not even meant to be a history course, but rather a mish mash of history, economics, political science, and geography. It's also much harder than the 6th grade course which has kid friendly topics like Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. It's doubly hard if your DC is taking the advanced course rather than the on-level one.

If OP is willing to come clean, I'm happy to recommend some resources to her for this course. We had to supplement heavily when my DC's teacher went on maternity leave mid year and the long term sub knew nothing.

But if it's science, I can't help you. We were lucky to have excellent science teachers all the way k through 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha! I would guess it's world history....

Here is the seventh grade curriculum.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/socialstudies/middle/grade7/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha! I would guess it's world history....

Here is the seventh grade curriculum.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/socialstudies/middle/grade7/

This isn't the curriculum. It's the public consumption overview of the curriculum. MCPS isn't going to put its intellectual property where the public can easily access it. The only way to see the actual curriculum is to look at the physical binders that teachers use or get an MCPS employee to log you into the password protected curriculum archive. You could also get a teacher who really trusts you to send you a pdf of the curriculum binder (I did that once as a favor to a former coworker whose child was in MCPS).

However, even if you get all four of the curriculum binder for World Studies 7, you'd still need to look at the secured unit tests to know what to emphasize. The old unit tests in the back of the binders have been revised.