FCPS Outreach to Federal Employees

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may sound good to unemployed feds, but it isn't good for our schools. It's a bunch of completely unqualified people who will work at low pay rates and then quit as soon as they find something better - probably in 4 years, when someone starts putting the government back together. Although it's more likely they will quit as soon as they see how bad the job sucks.

Have them go in as reading assistants for lower ES.

Having more bodies for small group work can only help.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Of all the things in school that are truly difficult to teach and require real experience, education, and expertise, reading is number one. And a bad "helper" can do real damage at that age.

--A career switcher now teaching for about 10 years

Really? Homeschoolers and any parent of kids during the pandemic may differ in their view

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m all about this. Injecting some teachers with actual subject matter expertise will be great for kids.

I’m a career switcher. I’ve been teaching for almost 20 years now after spending time in “the real world.”

I went into teaching thinking it would be a breeze because I’m smart and I had real-world experience.

And then the classroom knocked me down. Hard. Fast. Teaching is SO MUCH MORE than content knowledge. It’s entertaining, presenting, conflict resolving, diversifying, planning, pivoting, motivating, nursing, evaluating, analyzing, mothering, drill-instructoring, disciplining, accommodating… all at the same time.

I know people like to think you can “just teach,” but it is a skilled profession. You need content knowledge, but you also have to know how to run a classroom. A lot of these DCUM posts scare me because they sound like the young, career-switching me who thought I could do so much better than those poor education majors because I was coming in with “real” skills.

I was so wrong. I’ve survived 20 years and I’m really good at what I do, but I certainly wasn’t at first. I had to learn HOW to teach, not just how to be smart.

If new teachers, including career-switching Feds, come in prepared to learn, then they can do well. If you think your experience will get you respect from kids, you’ll learn the lesson the way I did.

it’s more about classroom management and mass production than teaching

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m all about this. Injecting some teachers with actual subject matter expertise will be great for kids.

I’m a career switcher. I’ve been teaching for almost 20 years now after spending time in “the real world.”

I went into teaching thinking it would be a breeze because I’m smart and I had real-world experience.

And then the classroom knocked me down. Hard. Fast. Teaching is SO MUCH MORE than content knowledge. It’s entertaining, presenting, conflict resolving, diversifying, planning, pivoting, motivating, nursing, evaluating, analyzing, mothering, drill-instructoring, disciplining, accommodating… all at the same time.

I know people like to think you can “just teach,” but it is a skilled profession. You need content knowledge, but you also have to know how to run a classroom. A lot of these DCUM posts scare me because they sound like the young, career-switching me who thought I could do so much better than those poor education majors because I was coming in with “real” skills.

I was so wrong. I’ve survived 20 years and I’m really good at what I do, but I certainly wasn’t at first. I had to learn HOW to teach, not just how to be smart.

If new teachers, including career-switching Feds, come in prepared to learn, then they can do well. If you think your experience will get you respect from kids, you’ll learn the lesson the way I did.

it’s more about classroom management and mass production than teaching

No, it isn’t about mass production. Good teaching means finding ways to individually meet the needs of students, even if you have 150 of them. And that’s one of the many reasons this job is so challenging. You may get 2 minutes a day per student, so a lot of that individualization happens on your own time: creating alternatives for students, commenting on papers to focus on individual student’s needs and interests, etc. This is done at home, on your own time.

“Mass production” is exactly what good teachers try to avoid. There’s a TON of misinformation on DCUM about this field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m all about this. Injecting some teachers with actual subject matter expertise will be great for kids.

The best MS/HS teachers that my kids had were second career teachers with real world experience and subject matter expertise. Frankly, many of them were more passionate than some burnt-out career educators.

100% this! Especially in the academies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may sound good to unemployed feds, but it isn't good for our schools. It's a bunch of completely unqualified people who will work at low pay rates and then quit as soon as they find something better - probably in 4 years, when someone starts putting the government back together. Although it's more likely they will quit as soon as they see how bad the job sucks.

Unqualified my ass. I know an engineer who retired from government service to go teach math and physics at a private school. He's getting rave reviews. Better to have a teacher with real world experience.

Just wait until real world experience meets the public school system.

Hun. You are all bureaucrats. I think Feds are actually particularly well suit s to working in public schools.

This is a stereotype. All the feds I know were laid off were not any kind of bureaucrat. They were lawyers, teachers, doctors, pharmacists, scientists, and financial analysts.

Also, teachers are not bureaucrats. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may sound good to unemployed feds, but it isn't good for our schools. It's a bunch of completely unqualified people who will work at low pay rates and then quit as soon as they find something better - probably in 4 years, when someone starts putting the government back together. Although it's more likely they will quit as soon as they see how bad the job sucks.

Have them go in as reading assistants for lower ES.

Having more bodies for small group work can only help.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Of all the things in school that are truly difficult to teach and require real experience, education, and expertise, reading is number one. And a bad "helper" can do real damage at that age.

--A career switcher now teaching for about 10 years

Really? Homeschoolers and any parent of kids during the pandemic may differ in their view

Hardly. If anything, they realized that they can't do it. If they could, we wouldn't have a whole generation of kids who can't read or do math on grade level, because they missed key years during the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m all about this. Injecting some teachers with actual subject matter expertise will be great for kids.

The best MS/HS teachers that my kids had were second career teachers with real world experience and subject matter expertise. Frankly, many of them were more passionate than some burnt-out career educators.

You must have gone to school during a different time. I am a "real world expert" that transitioned to teaching, and the first thing I learned was that I wasn't even allowed to teach anything real. Teachers have to stick to the boring, inaccurate, dumbed-down curriculum from the state and county, and they can't say one word outside of it. Moreover, they usually have to teach to some test. There is no autonomy in teaching anymore. So a real world expert will quickly be disillusioned when they see that what they will be forced to teach isn't even what they actually know from the real field they worked in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may sound good to unemployed feds, but it isn't good for our schools. It's a bunch of completely unqualified people who will work at low pay rates and then quit as soon as they find something better - probably in 4 years, when someone starts putting the government back together. Although it's more likely they will quit as soon as they see how bad the job sucks.

Unqualified my ass. I know an engineer who retired from government service to go teach math and physics at a private school. He's getting rave reviews. Better to have a teacher with real world experience.

Just wait until real world experience meets the public school system.

Hun. You are all bureaucrats. I think Feds are actually particularly well suit s to working in public schools.

This is a stereotype. All the feds I know were laid off were not any kind of bureaucrat. They were lawyers, teachers, doctors, pharmacists, scientists, and financial analysts.

Also, teachers are not bureaucrats. Not even close.

Yup. The job I had until recently was a classic "bureaucrat" job in the negative sense meant above (i.e. no specialized qualifications, revolved around reviewing submissions and then sending back inquiries into areas with issues). My mom was a teacher. It is hard to overstate the difference. I could literally spend weeks without human interaction, because the entire job was about reading and reviewing documents. I suppose you can make a vague connection to grading essays, but the total lack of social skills required is nothing like teaching.

[Anonymous]

I am getting ready for a wave of former Feds coming in with provisional teaching licenses and then leaving a few months in because they realize how hard teaching is - just like all these people did post-Covid. If your child has a fake teacher at the start of next school year, RUN!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am getting ready for a wave of former Feds coming in with provisional teaching licenses and then leaving a few months in because they realize how hard teaching is - just like all these people did post-Covid. If your child has a fake teacher at the start of next school year, RUN!!

Teacher here. I am encouraged by the idea of Feds filling our empty classrooms!

But I do see your point, in one sense. We lose a lot of first-year teachers once reality hits and the challenges start to pile up. It would be up to current teachers to make sure they have the resources and the support they need as they make this transition. But this is true for all new teachers and not just Feds.

But don’t call them fake teachers. If they are willing to take this on, then they deserve every ounce of our gratitude and respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am getting ready for a wave of former Feds coming in with provisional teaching licenses and then leaving a few months in because they realize how hard teaching is - just like all these people did post-Covid. If your child has a fake teacher at the start of next school year, RUN!!

Teacher here. I am encouraged by the idea of Feds filling our empty classrooms!

But I do see your point, in one sense. We lose a lot of first-year teachers once reality hits and the challenges start to pile up. It would be up to current teachers to make sure they have the resources and the support they need as they make this transition. But this is true for all new teachers and not just Feds.

But don’t call them fake teachers. If they are willing to take this on, then they deserve every ounce of our gratitude and respect.

Thanks for this. All the attacks by teachers seem very unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

I was a career switcher. The first 3 years nearly killed me. I’m now 15 years in and haven’t cried at school in 2 years 🤪

I hope we get some solid people out of this, and I also hope they are committed to sticking it out at least a few years to get through the steep learning curve. Veteran teachers don’t have energy to mentor and train a revolving door of people using this as a stop gap for a few months.

But if you really do see possibly making a career out of teaching, YAY! Come join us!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t realize FCPS was this desperate.

Where have you been? All DMV school systems are this desperate, and have been since 2020. Good for FCPS. Thanks for posting, OP.

They are not desperate. I am a veteran teacher and have been interviewing with all the counties recently. I've had offers from quite a few school administrators, but run into trouble with HR when I turned out to be too expensive, or wasn't willing to accept a lower pay step than where I should be based on experience and education. I think they are primarily interested in new teachers or people with no teaching experience because they are much cheaper than experienced teachers. I see this as a bad sign for the teaching profession.

In all fairness, maximum step entry level is posted and if you have X years of teaching experience they put you at the same salary someone who has been in Fairfax all X years gets. I’m in year 15 but step 11. Someone who taught in Arlington for 15 years will also start on step 11 if they move to FCPS. Steps have been frozen a lot.

FWIW, all the hires we’ve done in the past year are veteran teachers (there aren’t many recent education grads to pick from, sadly!). If the school wants you, HR will hire you. There is no negotiating salaries though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am getting ready for a wave of former Feds coming in with provisional teaching licenses and then leaving a few months in because they realize how hard teaching is - just like all these people did post-Covid. If your child has a fake teacher at the start of next school year, RUN!!

Teacher here. I am encouraged by the idea of Feds filling our empty classrooms!

But I do see your point, in one sense. We lose a lot of first-year teachers once reality hits and the challenges start to pile up. It would be up to current teachers to make sure they have the resources and the support they need as they make this transition. But this is true for all new teachers and not just Feds.

But don’t call them fake teachers. If they are willing to take this on, then they deserve every ounce of our gratitude and respect.

Another thank you! I can understand teachers detailing why their jobs are hard, but I don’t know why we need teachers saying derogatory things about feds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t realize FCPS was this desperate.

Where have you been? All DMV school systems are this desperate, and have been since 2020. Good for FCPS. Thanks for posting, OP.

They are not desperate. I am a veteran teacher and have been interviewing with all the counties recently. I've had offers from quite a few school administrators, but run into trouble with HR when I turned out to be too expensive, or wasn't willing to accept a lower pay step than where I should be based on experience and education. I think they are primarily interested in new teachers or people with no teaching experience because they are much cheaper than experienced teachers. I see this as a bad sign for the teaching profession.

In all fairness, maximum step entry level is posted and if you have X years of teaching experience they put you at the same salary someone who has been in Fairfax all X years gets. I’m in year 15 but step 11. Someone who taught in Arlington for 15 years will also start on step 11 if they move to FCPS. Steps have been frozen a lot.

FWIW, all the hires we’ve done in the past year are veteran teachers (there aren’t many recent education grads to pick from, sadly!). If the school wants you, HR will hire you. There is no negotiating salaries though.

Actually I lied, they did away with maximum entry step a couple years ago now that I think about it (which supports them being pretty darn desperate).

School instructional budgets are not based on teacher salaries. They are allotted X full time positions and they can choose to hire a 20 year veteran or a new grad and both use 1 FTE. It’s not like a sports team with a salary cap.

At the county level, sure, they track it, but no one is denied hiring because they are too experienced. It’s one field age discrimination doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. Numerous colleagues have retired from FCPS after 30 years and been hired quickly by PWCS or LCPS to continue working.