Teachers who have been DL for a year - tell us what you haven't had to put up with

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, I lost my second job because there were 3-4 parents who would pick their kids up late every day. I had to wait with the students until their parents showed up. My after-school job fired me because I was late too often. I've been able to tutor online for the last few months and it has helped with my bills.

And those parents probably never learned that their actions affected you negatively.

I don't think they would've cared anyway. They never apologized for being late. When my DS was in school and I was running late (or thought I might be late), I called the school. I was never more than 10 minutes late but at least the school knew I was coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, I lost my second job because there were 3-4 parents who would pick their kids up late every day. I had to wait with the students until their parents showed up. My after-school job fired me because I was late too often. I've been able to tutor online for the last few months and it has helped with my bills.

And those parents probably never learned that their actions affected you negatively.

Probably not.

I didn’t do clubs when my daughters were younger because my students would not get picked up on time and then I would be late picking my own kids up from daycare. The daycare charged $15 for the first 15 min late and then $5 a min after that. My students’ parents would show at 5:15 for 4:30 dismissal from clubs with no more consequences than a warning that if they were an hour late CPS would be called.

There should always be consequences - that's silly.

People will run all over you otherwise. My after-school care charged a $2 a minute for every late pick-up. 32 minutes late = $64. 60 minutes late = $120.

If the parents had more than 5 infractions, they dropped the kid and had someone else from the wait-list.

Quite effective.

[Anonymous]

Parents refusing to pick up students who were so sick that they were throwing up on their desk during a lesson, crying, and feverish and admin allowing them to sit in the back of the class for the rest of the day. Miss that every day!

I think it’s hilarious that parents are angry that teachers don’t actually like being treated poorly. Teachers are “assholes” because they don’t love cleaning up urine or vomit, and they don’t want to spend hours of their free time being forced to babysit children of (always) late parents or running bake sales? Sure.

[Anonymous]

I don't miss the rats, mice, and mold in my classroom. This year, I have been the healthiest in the last 22 years. It is no coincidence that I began teaching 22 years ago. No colds, fevers, pinkeye, hand, foot, and mouth, lice, Fifth disease, stomach bugs, etc. No kids being sent back to my classroom sick after their parents couldn't be reached on any phone number they gave the school. It's interesting that the Class Dojo message I would send to parents would often be checked by the parent but they still would not come to pick up their child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A distant, fond memory - 'accidents' or pee problems

Let’s be honest here. You don’t let some students use the bathroom.

NP. You would be surprised. Some kids had pee problems so y the time they asked it was too late. Some didn’t ask, I’d spot the pee spot.

[Anonymous]

When we go back to school, we will have to have only scheduled breaks to avoid kids from different classes being in the bathroom at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't miss the rats, mice, and mold in my classroom. This year, I have been the healthiest in the last 22 years. It is no coincidence that I began teaching 22 years ago. No colds, fevers, pinkeye, hand, foot, and mouth, lice, Fifth disease, stomach bugs, etc. No kids being sent back to my classroom sick after their parents couldn't be reached on any phone number they gave the school. It's interesting that the Class Dojo message I would send to parents would often be checked by the parent but they still would not come to pick up their child.

Yeah, I don’t miss getting into my car at the end of a day and a roach crawls out of my purse. Do you know how fast a roach can hide in your car?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the discipline issues that eat away at instructional time. The kids with behavioral issues don't show up to class (or rarely). Their parents don't want to deal with them so they don't make them do anything they don't want to do. We still have meetings about them but it usually boils down to poor parenting or lack of parenting and the parents tell us they don't want to deal with them.

I no longer have to wait with students whose parents don't pick them up after school. That was an almost daily occurrence.

I really wonder why some people are teachers.

I really wonder why some people are parents. #Swallow

[Anonymous]

Differentiation. I can just push the advanced students and the struggling learners onto their parents or nannies and focus on the middle ability kids. Much less planning time doing it this way.

[Anonymous]

Would you all prefer to stay DL forever?

[Anonymous]

It does sound like it's much more teaching time. But my kids don't seem to have learned anything really this whole year. They do the work and get good grades. I really hope they do standardized testing to see what the outcome of this year is. Maybe it's just my perception that they are writing more poorly than they did last year.

[Anonymous]

Every so often I still check my own hair for lice out of habit!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you all prefer to stay DL forever?

No. It's 1000 times more work. I'll spend the next few hours trying to contact parents. It's exhausting.

[Anonymous]

I'm dreading going back to public school after this year in private. Distance learning sounds terrible. In school sounds terrible. Why can't we do better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It does sound like it's much more teaching time. But my kids don't seem to have learned anything really this whole year. They do the work and get good grades. I really hope they do standardized testing to see what the outcome of this year is. Maybe it's just my perception that they are writing more poorly than they did last year.

Oh, that they will, don't worry!
And I also believe that there's a huge disconnect between what's being taught and what's actually being learned. Yes, teachers might be able to cover more material than before but it looks like for students, it's really in one ear and out of the other. PowerPoint and Youtube videos just don't cut it for children.