Teachers Resigning Like Crazy?

[Anonymous]

Things are great here in New Jersey, where the median teacher salary is above $90,000 (versus about $65,000 in Fairfax County). Of course, we pay 2x the property tax you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this happening anywhere else? My DC's ES has has have five teachers resign mid year. Is this normal? What is happening?!

And then doing what for income?? Waitressing?
going back to school?
They are not qualified for anything else

I’m a teacher now. I plan on quitting after I earn a certification or two in coding. My son is teaching me now. He’s 16 and he says I shouldn’t be treated the way I am in a professional job. He’s a kid and he knows what’s what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Things are great here in New Jersey, where the median teacher salary is above $90,000 (versus about $65,000 in Fairfax County). Of course, we pay 2x the property tax you do.

How many years of teaching with a Bachelor’s degree does it take to get up $90k? Just curious. I’m in year 11 in my district and I’m around $81k. I should get to $90k by year 20. That’s nothing to get excited about.

[Anonymous]

I'm in an UMC neighborhood in MoCo and don't see this kind of horrible behavior from kids that people are talking about here. My kids are in private school, and the neighborhood kids (some in private, some in public) are quite well behaved from what I can see. Am I the outlier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this happening anywhere else? My DC's ES has has have five teachers resign mid year. Is this normal? What is happening?!

And then doing what for income?? Waitressing?
going back to school?
They are not qualified for anything else

I’m a teacher now. I plan on quitting after I earn a certification or two in coding. My son is teaching me now. He’s 16 and he says I shouldn’t be treated the way I am in a professional job. He’s a kid and he knows what’s what.

Ten years ago I knew, probably a dozen teachers personally as friends. Now I know one. They've managed to find jobs they like better without any issue; none of them have ever mentioned wanting to go back to teaching. The "doing what for income" poster is out of touch.

[Anonymous]

Teachers — just wanted to say thanks for all that you do. The stories my 6th grader has brought home this week are eye popping. The inability to provide meaningful discipline is leaving teachers with no authority and no respect. If I had to put up with these circumstances, I’d be looking for a new job too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things are great here in New Jersey, where the median teacher salary is above $90,000 (versus about $65,000 in Fairfax County). Of course, we pay 2x the property tax you do.

How many years of teaching with a Bachelor’s degree does it take to get up $90k? Just curious. I’m in year 11 in my district and I’m around $81k. I should get to $90k by year 20. That’s nothing to get excited about.

If salaries aren't frozen AGAIN...

I have a MA+30 and have been teaching over 20 years, but only 16 with FCPS. I barely make $90K. I've had an MA the entire time I've been teaching and added the +30 about 15 years ago, so it isn't as though those are new credentials. We've had salary and step freezes so often that I am not on the step I should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things are great here in New Jersey, where the median teacher salary is above $90,000 (versus about $65,000 in Fairfax County). Of course, we pay 2x the property tax you do.

How many years of teaching with a Bachelor’s degree does it take to get up $90k? Just curious. I’m in year 11 in my district and I’m around $81k. I should get to $90k by year 20. That’s nothing to get excited about.

If salaries aren't frozen AGAIN...

I have a MA+30 and have been teaching over 20 years, but only 16 with FCPS. I barely make $90K. I've had an MA the entire time I've been teaching and added the +30 about 15 years ago, so it isn't as though those are new credentials. We've had salary and step freezes so often that I am not on the step I should be.

I've worked for 30 years professional work and make $100,000 and don't have summers off. Teaching might be harder, but there are real other jobs that make this same amount. I think the safety issues are ridiculous in the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction is we're going to get to essentially a nationwide teacher crisis, which could show in a ton of ways (absurdly high/dangerous class sizes, allowing people with no qualifications teach, have an "aide" watch a class for half the day so a teacher does essentially two classes at once). Only once it reaches truly crisis levels will there be enough pressure on state and local governments to shift their thinking on teachers, dramatically increase teacher pay, and start treating teachers like professionals.

The "pink collar" issue for teachers is terrible - basically, we're still treating teachers like they're women who want to earn a little pocket money and get out of the house while their husbands are supporting the family, rather than like the professionals they are. Major disruption is needed. On the whole, this will be a positive change for society, but the kids who have to deal with this situation in the meantime are kinda screwed.

And for those who are thinking "we're there! This is a crisis!" - No. It can get much, much worse, and it'll have to for the kind of change I'm talking about. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Aren't most public-school teachers making around the median average for the local area per person? I think our starting salary in white collar is $45k. Maybe $50k in hard times. Right out of college. Teachers have better benefit and start above this.

Okay but everyone who left my department in the last 3 years shared they got at least a 50% pay raise on day 1 of the new job. Hard to say $70k is good when you can get paid $110 with no additional education doing something else.

My husband company hires out of college at 70k. Like totally green with minimal skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Parents are fed up with this too. I feel like no one is listening.

I think school administrators are hesitant to discipline because parents are quick to sue and usually win. Too bad teachers can't sue to make sure that their workplaces are safe.

No, they aren’t. They are hesitant to discipline because county leadership and ridiculous people like NAACP Education Chair Sujatha Hampton (herself, a pampered Langley parent) are going to criticize them if there are disparities in the suspension or expulsion rates among different student cohorts at individual schools or within FCPS as a whole.

Agree that both entitled parents who fight any consequences for their kids and far left forces like Sujatha focused only on proportionality are to blame for this.

Who put her there? Voters.

Huh? She’s not an elected official. She is the head of the Fairfax NAACP who constantly attacks board members who don’t do everything she says. She lives in a far left bubble and is out of touch with most Fairfax voters. Not as out of tough as the right wing nuts but still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this happening anywhere else? My DC's ES has has have five teachers resign mid year. Is this normal? What is happening?!

And then doing what for income?? Waitressing?
going back to school?
They are not qualified for anything else

You know very little. They are leaving for office jobs, anyone can do those.

[Anonymous]

My experience when our kids were in FCPS (especially in grade school) was a really long arm's length kept between teachers and parents. I could just feel the barrier without crossing it. Don't come any closer, parent! But I understood why the teachers wanted a very wide boundary, and I respected that boundary. Too many of the parents I met were trying either to inject themselves into the classroom in some way, or they would not take any responsibility for their child's poor behavior. Every parent thought their kid was gifted. Who was this teacher to tell me my kid did that?

I am not surprised teachers are fed up, and feel overwhelmed enough to quit mid year. A person can only take so much disrespect, and feeling like they are not listened to before they bail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers — just wanted to say thanks for all that you do. The stories my 6th grader has brought home this week are eye popping. The inability to provide meaningful discipline is leaving teachers with no authority and no respect. If I had to put up with these circumstances, I’d be looking for a new job too.

Exactly. The public school system is systematically getting crushed.

Effective teaching and learning cannot occur with so many disruptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My experience when our kids were in FCPS (especially in grade school) was a really long arm's length kept between teachers and parents. I could just feel the barrier without crossing it. Don't come any closer, parent! But I understood why the teachers wanted a very wide boundary, and I respected that boundary. Too many of the parents I met were trying either to inject themselves into the classroom in some way, or they would not take any responsibility for their child's poor behavior. Every parent thought their kid was gifted. Who was this teacher to tell me my kid did that?

I am not surprised teachers are fed up, and feel overwhelmed enough to quit mid year. A person can only take so much disrespect, and feeling like they are not listened to before they bail.

still remember the parent that called me to try to organize an effort to get the "mainstreamed" kids out of the class in second grade. I told her my kids loved the teacher AND the teacher who was there for the mainstreamed kids. These two teachers taught as a team and I'm not sure my DD even realized that the other teacher was there because of the mainstreamed kids.
I think this mom's child was a behavior problems and she was blaming it on the mainstreamed kids--when the mom was actually the problem. A couple of the kids who were mainstreamed into that class were placed elsewhere when they were older. But, in second grade, it worked.
And, FWIW, DD was and is in the top tier academically. She was not harmed by having kids who struggled in the class.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is actually on Forbes' 2023 list of the best largest employers based on surveys administered to employees of these organizations/companies around the country. Before you sneeze at it's 229 ranking, it is one of only TWO school districts in the country to even make the top 500 list.