Cooper Middle School Math - horrible teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say this teacher is removed. Who replaces this teacher? There is a teacher shortage, do you think it is going to be easy to find another teacher? Or that the replacement teacher will be to your standard? It is likely going to be a new teacher, either a career switch or straight out of college. There is going to be a learning curve, are you ok with your child beign in that class? Or are you going to complain, getting the new teacher fired, and starting the cycle.

And the teacher you think is crappy might be good for another kid with a different learning style. Those parents might be upset that the teacher was fired. They loved that teacher.

None of this is black and white or easy.

Help your kid with the class work if you can. Look for other resources to help your kid if you can't.

Having the school makes a change is looking for other resources.

What you mean when you say “look for other resources” seems to be that parents should just “look” for thousands of dollars or hours of free time. Its an amazingly privileged take considering the vast majority of parents work year round outside the home.

Just like my parents did in the 80s. Mom still helped with homework when we needed help. And she found a tutor in areas that we were struggling, sometimes it was a HS kid who was good at math sometimes it was a reading specialist to help my brother with dyslexia learn to read. You do what you can because the schools cannot meet every kids needs 100% of the time. That is what public school is, trying to meet the baseline needs for the majority of kids.

Today you can use Khan for math help, the schools provide tutors, the district provides tutors. There are ways for parents who are limited on time and/or funds can reach out for help. There are more resources available today then there was when I was a kid. My Mom would have been thrilled to be able to watch a youtube video on solving a math problem with me, it would have saved us hours.

And the first and most obvious is to ask the school to correct the problem and switch the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a particular teacher at Cooper Middle School who is known for being the worst. I won’t say the name. Please don’t use the teachers name when responding or they will delete this thread.

What have other parents done to help their child successfully complete Algebra I Honors when they had this teacher? Did you have to hire a tutor?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cooper MS has several very good teachers. But they also have many horrible teachers. One of the horrible math teacher got many complaints from students. He was moved to another school one year ago. Not sure whether his move was a result of students' complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Demand? Not a bit. If you're happy letting your colleagues freeload off your “tremendous job” and making your family suffer because your colleagues aren’t held accountable, continue as you are. But don’t tell parents they shouldn’t advocate for adequate instruction for their children (which yes they will be doing during their 65-75 hour workweeks) because it’s unfair working conditions for you if you’re not going to put in any effort to advocate for those conditions to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Create a record of your kid trying to get help from this teacher after hours. If the teacher won’t help, or provide additional resources, demand a meeting with the counselor and principal and ask for your kid to be reassigned to a different teacher no later than next quarter.

Teachers are no longer required to provide help after hours.

To the parent - I'm so sorry that your kid got a less effective teacher. Unfortunately that's sometimes how it works and you and your kid will need to figure out a way to get through the year despite the teacher. Im guessing that the other Algebra 1H classes are pretty full, so it's unlikely the counselor will be able to move the schedule.

-Math Teacher at another Middle School

Sink or swim, right?

No wonder so many people are giving up on FCPS.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

Teachers are NOT going to try to get other teachers fired. Do you try on the daily to get your co-workers fired?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC can't transfer out, get a math tutor. It will cost thousands but they can't fall behind.

omg it's not THOUSANDS. And Khan Academy is free.

I pay my DD’s tutor about $2000 per school year, and she’s very reasonably priced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Parents can do that as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC can't transfer out, get a math tutor. It will cost thousands but they can't fall behind.

omg it's not THOUSANDS. And Khan Academy is free.

I pay my DD’s tutor about $2000 per school year, and she’s very reasonably priced.

what is the hourly rate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

Teachers are NOT going to try to get other teachers fired. Do you try on the daily to get your co-workers fired?

I’m a manager— firing poor performers is my responsibility to everyone on my team for exactly the reasons discussed here: if they aren’t fired everyone else has a worse working environment and has to pick up their slack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Parents can do that as well.

Its a one-year problem for a parent— get the kid moved and the bad teacher is no longer your problem. But if you are another teacher picking up the slack this problem will last decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.