If teachers are leaving left and right, is it the principal's fault?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like Shrevewood in Falls Church.

We Shrevewood parents deserve all the scorn we get on DCUM.

If the teachers are asking for transfers, I think that is a sure-fire signal that the principal isn't up to the job. If they are just quitting the profession, that is an entirely different story and could be due to any number of factors.

Lol Shrevewood is a dumpster fire and the parents there are definitely the kindling

Tell us more, I'm a Stenwood parent here for the gossip, especially since our paths may cross at Dunn Loring in 5 or 6 years!!

[Anonymous]

Our principal is awful…. She creates toxic environment. The favoritism is is off the charts insane. Kids don’t even know her bc/ she stays in the office all day. Parents are unhappy as well. She does a crap job of hiring new staff….. she finds the laziest teachers .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals have a huge part in it. The other factors mentioned are part of it, but if you have an admin team that truly has your back, that listens and problem-solves with you, then you are much more likely to stick it out. Principals have a great deal of power and very little oversight. Their supervisors have no idea what they do day to day, unless someone has the guts to go over their head. A friend of mine was repeatedly hit by a sixth-grader and had things thrown at her, and was told by the principal that the child didn’t throw things at other IAs, so she must be the problem. This was a very troubled girl and a highly experienced teacher. You would not believe how principals can sabotage a school and demoralize the staff. If you have a huge turnover each year, which some schools do repeatedly, the principal is the cause. Do region superintendents even hear from HR how many teachers are transferring or leaving each year?

One principal at an elementary school with huge turnover each year told the staff that losing 20-25 teachers each year was normal! I don’t think so.

In my view, this responsive classroom mess started a lot of principals thinking kids would just behave magically and no consequences are needed. Children need boundaries and clear behavior guidelines. A kid kicks the teacher and goes for a walk with the counselor and returns to class, having gotten all that personal attention? At the elementary level, they’ve lost sight of how reinforcing negative behavior works and not having reasonable consequences does not work. I’m a very therapeutic type of teacher, and fully understand that we need to figure out what help the child needs, but saying the teacher should have used a Kagan strategy is not working.

+100
This resonates with me so much as I had a very disruptive student who would always make the entire class late to specials. She refused to cooperate, pack up her things, just follow any directions at all. She was incredibly insolent and disrespectful. When I went to admin looking for solutions, I was told to "take her for a walk around the hallways to have a one-on-one conversation with her". Seriously?? Who is supposed to be watching my class while I waste my time indulging this troublemaker? That was one of the stupidest "solutions" I've ever heard. The principal and AP would take turns coming to observe my class and of course - this girl would behave beautifully while they were there. As soon as they'd leave, she would lock herself in the storage cabinets, or lay on the floor and refuse to get up. There were other disruptive kids in that class, but she was by far the worst. And I felt terrible for the five or so really sweet kids who just wanted to learn but couldn't because of all the distractions. Long story short - I wound up quitting. It is impossible to teach a class full of kids if there aren't consequences for the disrupters. They all know there are no consequences and they can get away with murder.

I also quit last year because of these types of behaviors. Either the students have real health issues and we don’t have the support staff to assist or the students are just entitled and disrespectful. Either way, both of those reasons will cause teachers to quit.

[Anonymous]

This is a huge reason why public schools are failing. There are no consequences for poor behavior. I think class sizes play a role as well as staffing. We have full grade levels struggling due to the behavior of 5-8 kids. We have parents asking teachers how to parent their kids. It is a mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like Shrevewood in Falls Church.

We Shrevewood parents deserve all the scorn we get on DCUM.

If the teachers are asking for transfers, I think that is a sure-fire signal that the principal isn't up to the job. If they are just quitting the profession, that is an entirely different story and could be due to any number of factors.

NP who is also a Shrevewood parent but I am not involved in the PTA. What have they done that's so bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge reason why public schools are failing. There are no consequences for poor behavior. I think class sizes play a role as well as staffing. We have full grade levels struggling due to the behavior of 5-8 kids. We have parents asking teachers how to parent their kids. It is a mess.

Many of my parent teacher conferences end up as parenting classes. "Larlo doesn't like to _____________ "(go to bed, wake up early, go to school, do his homework, etc). If only I could get paid for dispensing parenting advice, I might actually be able to pay all of my bills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge reason why public schools are failing. There are no consequences for poor behavior. I think class sizes play a role as well as staffing. We have full grade levels struggling due to the behavior of 5-8 kids. We have parents asking teachers how to parent their kids. It is a mess.

I think a lot of kids misbehave at school because they know they can get away with crap there that they wouldn’t at home. Teachers ‘ ability to deliver meaningful consequences has been stripped from teachers, and school administrators who are more interested in playing politician than in acknowledging their “in loco parentis” responsibilities, are doing little because they prioritize their own self-interest over the community for which they work.

[Anonymous]

Disagree. Parents are no longer doing their job at home and teaching kids how to behave. And when kids get in trouble elsewhere, they blame every but their kid%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge reason why public schools are failing. There are no consequences for poor behavior. I think class sizes play a role as well as staffing. We have full grade levels struggling due to the behavior of 5-8 kids. We have parents asking teachers how to parent their kids. It is a mess.

I think a lot of kids misbehave at school because they know they can get away with crap there that they wouldn’t at home. Teachers ‘ ability to deliver meaningful consequences has been stripped from teachers, and school administrators who are more interested in playing politician than in acknowledging their “in loco parentis” responsibilities, are doing little because they prioritize their own self-interest over the community for which they work.

Hmmm. Most of my students who get in trouble know that their parents won't care and guess what? They don't care. Many won't even answer the phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Disagree. Parents are no longer doing their job at home and teaching kids how to behave. And when kids get in trouble elsewhere, they blame every but their kid%

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge reason why public schools are failing. There are no consequences for poor behavior. I think class sizes play a role as well as staffing. We have full grade levels struggling due to the behavior of 5-8 kids. We have parents asking teachers how to parent their kids. It is a mess.

Many of my parent teacher conferences end up as parenting classes. "Larlo doesn't like to _____________ "(go to bed, wake up early, go to school, do his homework, etc). If only I could get paid for dispensing parenting advice, I might actually be able to pay all of my bills.

Yup agree I wrote this in a different post about why schools are failing. I had 4 conferences where parents were telling us how they just can't seem to get little Larlo to do anything This is not a teachers problem trust me the class is filled with problems you do your parenting job then we can do the teaching job. It's difficult to teach when you are dealing with behaviors and putting our fires all day. WE are exhausted....I say we because teachers at my school look and say daily how exhausted they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have had multiple teachers quit mid-year - is this because they're not being supported by the principal? The last time this happened, the principal was fired. Is ours likely to get fired too? Should families contact the Exec Principal or Regional Principal?

It is 100% the principal, and/or assistant principal. Keep in mind that bad principals exist mainly because their own higher ups are also bad and don't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Disagree. Parents are no longer doing their job at home and teaching kids how to behave. And when kids get in trouble elsewhere, they blame every but their kid%

I'm a teacher. I've been a teacher for over 30 years. It's not the kids. It's the adults. It's always the adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals have a huge part in it. The other factors mentioned are part of it, but if you have an admin team that truly has your back, that listens and problem-solves with you, then you are much more likely to stick it out. Principals have a great deal of power and very little oversight. Their supervisors have no idea what they do day to day, unless someone has the guts to go over their head. A friend of mine was repeatedly hit by a sixth-grader and had things thrown at her, and was told by the principal that the child didn’t throw things at other IAs, so she must be the problem. This was a very troubled girl and a highly experienced teacher. You would not believe how principals can sabotage a school and demoralize the staff. If you have a huge turnover each year, which some schools do repeatedly, the principal is the cause. Do region superintendents even hear from HR how many teachers are transferring or leaving each year?

One principal at an elementary school with huge turnover each year told the staff that losing 20-25 teachers each year was normal! I don’t think so.

In my view, this responsive classroom mess started a lot of principals thinking kids would just behave magically and no consequences are needed. Children need boundaries and clear behavior guidelines. A kid kicks the teacher and goes for a walk with the counselor and returns to class, having gotten all that personal attention? At the elementary level, they’ve lost sight of how reinforcing negative behavior works and not having reasonable consequences does not work. I’m a very therapeutic type of teacher, and fully understand that we need to figure out what help the child needs, but saying the teacher should have used a Kagan strategy is not working.

I wouldn’t know how to go over my principal’s head. I am pretty sure any attempt I made to report her would end in me being fired. Right now, most of the faculty just try to avoid her. What’s sad is that it takes teachers leaving en masse to even point to a problem. By then it’s too late.

Sorry to say I have taught at schools where teachers left en masse, and it made absolutely no difference. I do think that a lot of parent complaints will eventually stir someone to look into something. Complaints to the school board as well as central admin are more effective than complaints that don't include the school board. In as far as anything is effective, that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge reason why public schools are failing. There are no consequences for poor behavior. I think class sizes play a role as well as staffing. We have full grade levels struggling due to the behavior of 5-8 kids. We have parents asking teachers how to parent their kids. It is a mess.

What consequences do you think would make a difference? I am old enough to remember the days when teachers beat kids in the hallways. Behavior was even worse then than now. I remember feeling much more physically threatened by my own students. I actually think the behavior overall now is better than it was 35 years ago, when I got my first teaching job. The issue I see now that we didn't see then, was kids with severe emotional disabilities being kept in general ed classrooms, along with kids with learning disabilities and whatever else. Way back when, a lot of the really challenging kids (the ones who can ruin a teacher's entire year and make her quit) were not mainstreamed. Just my opinion, and apparently central admins don't agree, but I think mainstreaming kids with learning disabilities was the right thing to do, but mainstreaming kids with severe behavioral problems was not. If the kid is preventing 24 others from learning for every one of 180 days, then the kid needs to not be in that class.