Teachers Resigning Like Crazy?

[Anonymous]

For me it’s not about the inability to pee on my schedule. It’s about how my district and my administration tells the teachers that the reason we have a racial achievement gap is our implicit biases. That if we just tried harder then our students would all have exactly the same outcomes regardless of their hugely different home experiences and innate abilities.

[Anonymous]

Don't know if any of you watch "Abbott Elementary," but one area it is very unrealistic in is the lunch period. They portray the teachers as having a long, leisurely lunch every day, in which they can leave (to get mani/pedis!) or just relax in the teachers' lounge. AS IF!

Reality is having 30 minutes - if you're lucky and nothing else comes up - to shove your lunch from home down and head back to pick the class up at the cafeteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not about the inability to pee on my schedule. It’s about how my district and my administration tells the teachers that the reason we have a racial achievement gap is our implicit biases. That if we just tried harder then our students would all have exactly the same outcomes regardless of their hugely different home experiences and innate abilities.

Agreed, that’s infuriating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not about the inability to pee on my schedule. It’s about how my district and my administration tells the teachers that the reason we have a racial achievement gap is our implicit biases. That if we just tried harder then our students would all have exactly the same outcomes regardless of their hugely different home experiences and innate abilities.

+100

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:FCPS just released the results from the employee engagement survey, lol. One question was a type in answer, "describe your job in 1 word". The top 4 results were:

Overwhelmed
Stressed
Exhausted
Frustrated

Yayyyyyyyyyyy!

The question: “I am optimistic about the future” didn’t fare so well.

I'm not a teacher, but I think we need to rethink how education is structured centered around what will help teachers thrive. Students will be more likely to thrive with teachers that do. Any demands on teachers--for supporting students, for admin, for adjusting to changing needs--need to be considered in the context of how can that be achieved while not undermining the fundamental need for teachers to thrive. There may be some unmet needs that it is the responsibility of society as a whole to figure out how to fund and meet those needs, not unfunded mandates placed upon schools.

US Society as a whole is a failure. Schools are supposed to educate, but we also have to feed, clothe and parent students; the minute we’re not available to do those things (see: April 2020 onward) it’s OUR fault, but the minute we suggest shifting that burden to another part of the societal safety net, the same people who screamed about closing school buildings, scream that we can’t spend the money on that type of thing.

Until teachers can get back to being teachers and not substitute parents things are just going to get worse.

It's not just parenting issues, but also ever expanding content, more access to teachers via technology from students and parents, and more expectations for teachers to post everything online/grade quickly, more requirements to provide accommodations for students with a range of learning needs etc. Each one of these things might seem reasonable but on whole the demands are unsustainable. Before new legislation is passed requiring anything or an admin creates a policy, a review of the new addition in light of a teacher's full job needs to considered--if we add this new thing, what gets taken away. If we require this, when does the time to do it during contracted hours occur?

This is getting ridiculous. Teachers used to grade things all the time. You can say that things are getting harder, but we all know that we received more grades from our teachers than our kids do.

Ok I'll say it....teachers didn't have all the extra demands from the count and ridiculous parent demands we have now. When kids were sent to the office they were dealt with and principals weren't afraid of giving consequences. Parents supported teachers and admin not question there every movement. Parents be parents tell your kids no-tell them when their behavior is not ok. I spend 85% of my day dealing with behaviors. ENOUGH! And I'm done with the do nothings in Gatehouse-we have enough of them doing nothing but creating more for teachers to do-teachers who are not in quiet office. You know what we don't have time to do TEACH-and it's not just the extras from the county it's because parents are not parenting. We shouldn't be spending more than half our day talking to your children about their behavior. For those parents who parent-thank you we see you.

+100
I was subbing the other day in a specials class and the teacher brought her class in. She looked absolutely haggard, wiped out, and exhausted as she handed me a list of her "behavioral" problems and asked me to score them while they were with me. I had them for half an hour and can't even imagine what her days are like with these kids. There couldn't possibly be any learning going on in that classroom - and not because of her. These kids need to be removed and taught separately. It is beyond unfair to pile them into a mainstream class and expect that teacher to deal with them all day, every day.

+1. This right here is the utter failure of the school board and administrators. Nothing will improve until you fix the root cause. That means voting very differently than we’re accustomed. Anyone ready for that?

Yes, because the GOP is so supportive of special education and has solutions for addressing their needs. As a reminder, here is the link for two GOP candidates for the FCPS schoolboard who withdrew after laughing at a child with autism who sang the national anthem: https://wjla.com/newsletter/fairfax-county-school-board-candidates-drops-out-youtube-national-anthem-controvery-harry-jackson-stephanie-lundquist-arora-republican-gop-november-election-gov-glenn-youngkin

Yes, the GOP is on top of special education alright.

DP. Not sure that clip has anything to do with anyone except the two people involved. You probably think the best way to teach special needs kids is by mainstreaming them, right? That has proven to be a failure. Neither the special needs kids nor the mainstream kids are learning anything. Do better.

Mainstreaming is the law. And it hasn't proven to be a failure--what happened before was criminal to SpEd kids--their outcomes were much, much worse. Mainstreaming has been a HUGE success when you look at the overall outcomes for kids with special needs. The issue is that it is an unfunded mandate that is hard to support and it challenging for teachers to implement. Also, there needs to be more clear guidance on a process for establishing least restricted environment that doesn't just attend to what the parents of the child with Special Needs and their advocates want, but also the impact on the classroom community when these are percieved as in conflict.

Continued violence in the classroom is a HUGE failure. Any child with a history of violence must not be allowed in any mainstream classroom, unless a responsible parent can accompany their child.

Mainstreaming has been a success for the vast number of Special Needs students. It has created high profile issues and tensions for a tiny percentage of students with emotional disabilities that may make them prone to violence.


People of all political persuasion wish that we could quickly make an alternative placement for the rare situation of a child with special needs who poses a threat to others, but if the child has documented special needs there are processes that federal laws say must be followed. There is required documentation that can take a long time unless the parent is willing. Least Restrictive Environment is a federal law that has been around since 1975, but the lawsuits since then have tightened up implementation requirements so much that it has made it so that schools have to carefully document repeated instances in order to change the placement of a given student. If a parent does not want their child in an alternative placement, schools have zero alternative but to follow the documentation process to demand it. They also sometimes need to follow this long process in order to use the funds for an alternative placement as the costs are very high and there are not enough therapeutic facilities so they need to be saved for those kids who pose a risk to themselves or others, not just who might benefit from therapeutic services.

I don't think people understand how much school boards, schools, principals, teachers have their hands tied around this--it's federal law, not some wishy-washiness about discipline or something.

This. We have had many parents refuse placement changes. While I absolutely respect parents advocating for their kids, if a teacher cannot teach because of a child, the school should have the power to change their placement. 1 kid does not have the right to affect 26 other kids.

Nor does any student have the right to threaten teachers and students. THAT is NOT part of the law. Administrators are blatantly lying about that. Enough is enough.

+1

[Anonymous]

My DW teaches in an elementary school. They received an email from their administrators reminding them of their contract hours and the expectation that they be in the building during those hours through today. My DW puts in many more than her “contract hours” on a daily basis and she said they had no meetings. She said what she did at the school could have been done from home if she wanted to.

She’s salaried. I told her they are treating her like an hourly employee. They shouldn’t do both. If they treat her as an hourly employee as they did in that email then she really shouldn’t volunteer to do any other work outside of those hours. I know she can’t get her job done and won’t do that, but the morale sure does take a hit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS just released the results from the employee engagement survey, lol. One question was a type in answer, "describe your job in 1 word". The top 4 results were:

Overwhelmed
Stressed
Exhausted
Frustrated

Yayyyyyyyyyyy!

Sums up my day perfectly!

Look, I am sympathetic. I am. But the result is not to NOT grade work or provide appropriate feedback to students. You're not doing your job in that instance and there is nothing you will say to change my mind on that.

Maybe if you did your job as a parent and I didn’t have to be a full-in parent to 120+ students, I’d have more time to hold your hand as well.

But you are not, so I don’t.

DP. I get that teachers are overworked and overwhelmed with too many responsibilities and too many behaviors. But attacking parents who ask for their kids to get feedback on assignments is off base.

Its also off base to demand things when you aren’t their boss and don’t really understand the job requirements.

DP, but you can't have it both ways. If it's ultimately parents' responsibility to educate their kids and make sure that they are learning what is being taught at school, parents need access to timely information about how their kids are doing. If timely communication isn't possible, then kids' failures are the teachers' responsibility. That's the source of the conflict. Parents can't control teacher working conditions. If you tell them that they have no right to timely information about what is going on in school, which is the purpose of quizzes and tests, then it's no wonder there is a lack of trust. You can't teach kids that grades and timely completion of work matter if the adults in their lives aren't held to the same standards.

Will it really make a difference in the way you are parenting your child if the essay they wrote on Beloved is returned in 2 weeks instead of 1?

It makes a huge difference if you have an ADHD kid who is working on executive functions skills and you are establishing a routine and rewards and consequences for school work issues. You can't appropriately monitor your kid if all the work gets graded at the end of the quarter (as per professional therapists we worked with). As another example, my son had a middle school teacher who returned quizzes after the unit test. So yes, a lack of timely feedback has consequences.

Wouldn't the executive functioning skill be for the child to turn in the work? Not the actual grading of the work? If it's so dire that they need accommodations that require immediate feedback I'd suggest getting an IEP that documents your child must see scores in x days or they won't be able to process.

+1

+2
person with ADHD, parenting a kid with ADHD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Of course they aren't ! Not any more than other positions. They really have no other skills or opportunities except retail or daycare.

Not true, I know plenty of teachers who left and went directly into office jobs. Anyone can send emails, edit documents, sit in meetings, etc.

People doing the jobs you describe are not even making remotely the salary of an FCPS teacher. Our administrative assistant makes 40k and works 9-5, scheduling meetings, editing documents, sending letters, contracts, taking calls, scheduling travel and reimbursements for work-related expenses, etc. If that's your idea of a good job then I wouldn't want you being a teacher in FCPS anyway

Who said admin assistant? Those I knew as colleagues left to go into HR, change management, training, recruiting.

The people you are describing are glorified secretaries.

Sweetheart, can you please just admit that you have never been in an office and have no idea what people who work in offices do.

The minute you typed “sweetheart,” you lost. Oh, and I’m not a teacher and most assuredly have worked in multiple offices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS just released the results from the employee engagement survey, lol. One question was a type in answer, "describe your job in 1 word". The top 4 results were:

Overwhelmed
Stressed
Exhausted
Frustrated

Yayyyyyyyyyyy!

The question: “I am optimistic about the future” didn’t fare so well.

I'm not a teacher, but I think we need to rethink how education is structured centered around what will help teachers thrive. Students will be more likely to thrive with teachers that do. Any demands on teachers--for supporting students, for admin, for adjusting to changing needs--need to be considered in the context of how can that be achieved while not undermining the fundamental need for teachers to thrive. There may be some unmet needs that it is the responsibility of society as a whole to figure out how to fund and meet those needs, not unfunded mandates placed upon schools.

US Society as a whole is a failure. Schools are supposed to educate, but we also have to feed, clothe and parent students; the minute we’re not available to do those things (see: April 2020 onward) it’s OUR fault, but the minute we suggest shifting that burden to another part of the societal safety net, the same people who screamed about closing school buildings, scream that we can’t spend the money on that type of thing.

Until teachers can get back to being teachers and not substitute parents things are just going to get worse.

It's not just parenting issues, but also ever expanding content, more access to teachers via technology from students and parents, and more expectations for teachers to post everything online/grade quickly, more requirements to provide accommodations for students with a range of learning needs etc. Each one of these things might seem reasonable but on whole the demands are unsustainable. Before new legislation is passed requiring anything or an admin creates a policy, a review of the new addition in light of a teacher's full job needs to considered--if we add this new thing, what gets taken away. If we require this, when does the time to do it during contracted hours occur?

This is getting ridiculous. Teachers used to grade things all the time. You can say that things are getting harder, but we all know that we received more grades from our teachers than our kids do.

Ok I'll say it....teachers didn't have all the extra demands from the count and ridiculous parent demands we have now. When kids were sent to the office they were dealt with and principals weren't afraid of giving consequences. Parents supported teachers and admin not question there every movement. Parents be parents tell your kids no-tell them when their behavior is not ok. I spend 85% of my day dealing with behaviors. ENOUGH! And I'm done with the do nothings in Gatehouse-we have enough of them doing nothing but creating more for teachers to do-teachers who are not in quiet office. You know what we don't have time to do TEACH-and it's not just the extras from the county it's because parents are not parenting. We shouldn't be spending more than half our day talking to your children about their behavior. For those parents who parent-thank you we see you.

+100
I was subbing the other day in a specials class and the teacher brought her class in. She looked absolutely haggard, wiped out, and exhausted as she handed me a list of her "behavioral" problems and asked me to score them while they were with me. I had them for half an hour and can't even imagine what her days are like with these kids. There couldn't possibly be any learning going on in that classroom - and not because of her. These kids need to be removed and taught separately. It is beyond unfair to pile them into a mainstream class and expect that teacher to deal with them all day, every day.

+1. This right here is the utter failure of the school board and administrators. Nothing will improve until you fix the root cause. That means voting very differently than we’re accustomed. Anyone ready for that?

Stop trying to make this political. Republicans aren't automatically going to put the special ed and ADHD kids in their own classroom. Republicans are the ones who started this crap with No Child Left Behind and making everyone teach to and give constant assessments instead of teaching to kids' strengths and weaknesses. Republicans are the ones who ruined textbooks. Saying "vote for republicans" isn't going to do anything except ban some books and take away diversity from lessons.

DP. You sound absolutely loony. What we currently have is a slate of all Democrats on the SB - and with them "in charge" we've seen the focus go very rapidly from academics to issues of "equity" and "social justice". Electing a few Republicans to balance out the madness only makes sense. I bet Republican candidates would suggest separating behavioral issue kids OUT of mainstream classes so that everyone has a chance to learn. I also bet Democrats would shoot down that idea immediately because of "equity" nonsense. And Democrats are the ones who REMOVED textbooks from the class and insist that online "textbooks" are just as good. WRONG. So incredibly misguided. As for "diversity" lessons, spare us all. Most of us - parents AND teachers - just want our kids to focus on academics. Is that really so much to ask?

Completely agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they aren't ! Not any more than other positions. They really have no other skills or opportunities except retail or daycare.

Not true, I know plenty of teachers who left and went directly into office jobs. Anyone can send emails, edit documents, sit in meetings, etc.

I'm so curious about people like you -- what exactly do you think those of us who work in an "office job" actually do all day long. Do you think we all have the exact same job? Do you think every company is Dundler Mifflin? Please tell us more about the typical "office job"!!

I'd settle for just being able to go to the bathroom when I need to instead of praying for some random adult to walk past my classroom at the end of the hall.

This sounds like my nightmare. Are you an elementary teacher?

I’ve had to do much the same in HS. 6 minute class break to try to pee, but 1 minute to the nearest faculty bathroom and 1 minute back, and there’s only one stall that’s serving 10-12 classrooms so there’s usually a wait.

Most of the Office Jobs Über Alles crew wouldn’t last a week.

I mean, it's so disheartening to hear this. If school administrators can't figure out a way to allow teachers to use the bathroom when they need to, what hope is there that they can tackle more difficult problems.

I know people complain about this on this board, but it isn’t something I hear teachers mention IRL. I’ve been teaching 30 years and IME there isn’t much anxiety over this. I go at 6:40 when I get up, 12:00, and again before I leave or when I get home.

I take a meditation that is a diuretic. I have to go all day long as often as every 30-40 minutes. It can be a sad piece of stress since there is nobody near me to help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not about the inability to pee on my schedule. It’s about how my district and my administration tells the teachers that the reason we have a racial achievement gap is our implicit biases. That if we just tried harder then our students would all have exactly the same outcomes regardless of their hugely different home experiences and innate abilities.

This would piss me off too, but the fact that you’re attributing at least part of the racial achievement gap to these students’ innate abilities suggests that you do have a lot of implicit bias. You’re making it sound like you believe that different races have different innate abilities.

I do think that regardless of your biases, you and other teachers aren’t responsible for fixing the racial achievement gap. That’s ridiculous. But just beware that the language you use might make the admin think that they are onto something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they aren't ! Not any more than other positions. They really have no other skills or opportunities except retail or daycare.

Not true, I know plenty of teachers who left and went directly into office jobs. Anyone can send emails, edit documents, sit in meetings, etc.

I'm so curious about people like you -- what exactly do you think those of us who work in an "office job" actually do all day long. Do you think we all have the exact same job? Do you think every company is Dundler Mifflin? Please tell us more about the typical "office job"!!

I'd settle for just being able to go to the bathroom when I need to instead of praying for some random adult to walk past my classroom at the end of the hall.

This sounds like my nightmare. Are you an elementary teacher?

I’ve had to do much the same in HS. 6 minute class break to try to pee, but 1 minute to the nearest faculty bathroom and 1 minute back, and there’s only one stall that’s serving 10-12 classrooms so there’s usually a wait.

Most of the Office Jobs Über Alles crew wouldn’t last a week.

I mean, it's so disheartening to hear this. If school administrators can't figure out a way to allow teachers to use the bathroom when they need to, what hope is there that they can tackle more difficult problems.

I know people complain about this on this board, but it isn’t something I hear teachers mention IRL. I’ve been teaching 30 years and IME there isn’t much anxiety over this. I go at 6:40 when I get up, 12:00, and again before I leave or when I get home.

I take a meditation that is a diuretic. I have to go all day long as often as every 30-40 minutes. It can be a sad piece of stress since there is nobody near me to help.

Of course a medical reason makes a difference. That’s not what I’m talking about here. People post making it sound like not being able to use the restroom is some daily struggle for most teachers and that has not been my experience in my ES teaching career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me it’s not about the inability to pee on my schedule. It’s about how my district and my administration tells the teachers that the reason we have a racial achievement gap is our implicit biases. That if we just tried harder then our students would all have exactly the same outcomes regardless of their hugely different home experiences and innate abilities.

This would piss me off too, but the fact that you’re attributing at least part of the racial achievement gap to these students’ innate abilities suggests that you do have a lot of implicit bias. You’re making it sound like you believe that different races have different innate abilities.

I do think that regardless of your biases, you and other teachers aren’t responsible for fixing the racial achievement gap. That’s ridiculous. But just beware that the language you use might make the admin think that they are onto something.

PP here and I’d like to add something else: our principal has a god-awful white savior complex and her big goal of as a principal since she got the job 13 years ago is equity. Her approach to that has been focusing on hiring staff and teachers of color (which to me is great) and blaming white teachers for the equity gap, with lots of implicit bias training and all that. Since she has been in the position the equity gap has increased.

There are several schools around us with similar demographics who run by Black women, and they are dealing with the equity gap by giving kids who are behind extra support, and somehow they have managed to get a handle on classroom management so the teachers can actually teach. Lo and behold, their equity gaps are decreasing.

I’m all for some implicit bias training but if that’s your only of dealing with the equity gap, I think you’re an ineffective administrator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they aren't ! Not any more than other positions. They really have no other skills or opportunities except retail or daycare.

Not true, I know plenty of teachers who left and went directly into office jobs. Anyone can send emails, edit documents, sit in meetings, etc.

I'm so curious about people like you -- what exactly do you think those of us who work in an "office job" actually do all day long. Do you think we all have the exact same job? Do you think every company is Dundler Mifflin? Please tell us more about the typical "office job"!!

I'd settle for just being able to go to the bathroom when I need to instead of praying for some random adult to walk past my classroom at the end of the hall.

This sounds like my nightmare. Are you an elementary teacher?

I’ve had to do much the same in HS. 6 minute class break to try to pee, but 1 minute to the nearest faculty bathroom and 1 minute back, and there’s only one stall that’s serving 10-12 classrooms so there’s usually a wait.

Most of the Office Jobs Über Alles crew wouldn’t last a week.

I mean, it's so disheartening to hear this. If school administrators can't figure out a way to allow teachers to use the bathroom when they need to, what hope is there that they can tackle more difficult problems.

I know people complain about this on this board, but it isn’t something I hear teachers mention IRL. I’ve been teaching 30 years and IME there isn’t much anxiety over this. I go at 6:40 when I get up, 12:00, and again before I leave or when I get home.

I take a meditation that is a diuretic. I have to go all day long as often as every 30-40 minutes. It can be a sad piece of stress since there is nobody near me to help.

Of course a medical reason makes a difference. That’s not what I’m talking about here. People post making it sound like not being able to use the restroom is some daily struggle for most teachers and that has not been my experience in my ES teaching career.

m

Everyone has different struggles. Remember that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they aren't ! Not any more than other positions. They really have no other skills or opportunities except retail or daycare.

Not true, I know plenty of teachers who left and went directly into office jobs. Anyone can send emails, edit documents, sit in meetings, etc.

I'm so curious about people like you -- what exactly do you think those of us who work in an "office job" actually do all day long. Do you think we all have the exact same job? Do you think every company is Dundler Mifflin? Please tell us more about the typical "office job"!!

I'd settle for just being able to go to the bathroom when I need to instead of praying for some random adult to walk past my classroom at the end of the hall.

This sounds like my nightmare. Are you an elementary teacher?

I’ve had to do much the same in HS. 6 minute class break to try to pee, but 1 minute to the nearest faculty bathroom and 1 minute back, and there’s only one stall that’s serving 10-12 classrooms so there’s usually a wait.

Most of the Office Jobs Über Alles crew wouldn’t last a week.

I mean, it's so disheartening to hear this. If school administrators can't figure out a way to allow teachers to use the bathroom when they need to, what hope is there that they can tackle more difficult problems.

I know people complain about this on this board, but it isn’t something I hear teachers mention IRL. I’ve been teaching 30 years and IME there isn’t much anxiety over this. I go at 6:40 when I get up, 12:00, and again before I leave or when I get home.

I take a meditation that is a diuretic. I have to go all day long as often as every 30-40 minutes. It can be a sad piece of stress since there is nobody near me to help.

Of course a medical reason makes a difference. That’s not what I’m talking about here. People post making it sound like not being able to use the restroom is some daily struggle for most teachers and that has not been my experience in my ES teaching career.

m

Everyone has different struggles. Remember that.

Yes, of course. I attested to that in my post. No doubt. Once again, my point is this is not a widespread difficulty that most teachers experience.