How is FCPS teacher/staff shortage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, the elementary school principals are playing a round of 18 at Wintergreen Resort. While a bunch of them have many vacancies to fill. Think they took leave?

I don't know, but it's such a bad look for FCPS. They get huffy when someone asks why they can't pay aides, custodians, and bus drivers enough to actually live in the county or give employees with more than 20 years' service a nicer bonus than a plastic lanyard, but there's apparently plenty of money to send over 100 people on a $$$ "golf outing".

It is an annual conference put on by the Fairfax Principal’s Association, so I’m pretty sure they pay their own way. But the conference started at 7 tonight and there must have been 40 of them playing golf at 10am this am. And who knows how many others at the spa and pool. Just not a great look to be here all day before it started playing golf with your buddies. I’m sure they thought no one would be watching, but many FCPS parents and staff have second homes there/vacation there. Not a great look to be playing 18 wearing fcps gear on a Wednesday, guys.

Oh so YOU are allowed to go take a relaxing vacation at your second home, but they're not allowed to have a fun bonding experience with their colleagues? Oh, okay. Whatever, lady.

+1,000 do you think that being unhappy and nervous is the way all leaders should be? Or just civil servants? With what seems to be an emphasis on servants in your mind. Corporations can do anything but government must have unhappy employees. What a sad outlook for our society.

+100 I hope my principal and AP are there getting a change of scenery. They worked their a$$es off the past two years. If they are there, I’m sure they’re working as well. I think we have hired all the positions for our school, but if not, most interviews are done on Zoom. (Commenting to a poster who said they should be hiring.)

[Anonymous]

What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

They will take a SPED teacher from somewhere else in the school (one assigned to a Gen Ed classroom).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

They will take a SPED teacher from somewhere else in the school (one assigned to a Gen Ed classroom).

This, although it’s just ends up screwing a different group of students who are also entitled to special ed services and burns out the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Having a luxury golfing vacation is not a good look.

Its simply tone deaf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a luxury golfing vacation is not a good look.

Its simply tone deaf.

There is nothing luxury about Wintergreen, LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a luxury golfing vacation is not a good look.

Its simply tone deaf.

We already shut you down a page ago. People are allowed to have team building experiences. This is a normal thing in the workplace. Nobody except you cares about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a luxury golfing vacation is not a good look.

Its simply tone deaf.

Golfing vacation, lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With a school this large why can’t FCPS just share prepared course material? How many different ways can you teach Because or Winn Dixie or Multiplication?

The prepared material they give us is junk. They hire a handful of teachers each summer to do “curriculum development” work, which produces awkward links sprinkled in pacing guides to random resources around the internet. Anyone with a brain knows it takes a massive team years to create a full curriculum, not 3 people 2 weeks.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve advocated for the past 15 years to create their own teachers pay teachers site of sorts with ecart or another program.

DP. If every school used the same curriculum from a central database, parents would complain and teachers would hate it because it wouldn't fit their classroom/students/what they need. For all those who complain about the lack of textbooks/workbooks, there are those who would complain about being constrained to the textbook/workbook or complain about having to supplement 99% of it because it doesn't suit their needs.

This is a strawman and I did discuss this with multiple school board officials and FCPS staff and was told they were working on fixing ecart so obviously it's been floated and discussed and agreed to mulitple times, just not implemented. Teachers pay Teachers is not a directed curriculum program where you HAVE to use any one document. However if there is a lesson on Because of Winn Dixie or Multiplication that works for you you can use it. See the teacher gets to decide what to post and what to use. Not some admin staff. You seem to be missing this point. And there are ratings in popularity and use so you can see which ones are more effective than others. Doesn't mean you can't use the others. Just means the others are more popular. So it helps you sort and you can sort by subject matter, grade, topic etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

They will take a SPED teacher from somewhere else in the school (one assigned to a Gen Ed classroom).

This, although it’s just ends up screwing a different group of students who are also entitled to special ed services and burns out the teacher.

Agree- this doesnt seem to be a great solution in that it just throws a bunch of data collection on the gen ed teacher and then you have random sub pulling kids who are supposed to have small group accommodations. But I’m not sure there is a better solution at this point. There just aren't enough SpEd teachers in the hiring pipeline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With a school this large why can’t FCPS just share prepared course material? How many different ways can you teach Because or Winn Dixie or Multiplication?

The prepared material they give us is junk. They hire a handful of teachers each summer to do “curriculum development” work, which produces awkward links sprinkled in pacing guides to random resources around the internet. Anyone with a brain knows it takes a massive team years to create a full curriculum, not 3 people 2 weeks.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve advocated for the past 15 years to create their own teachers pay teachers site of sorts with ecart or another program.

DP. If every school used the same curriculum from a central database, parents would complain and teachers would hate it because it wouldn't fit their classroom/students/what they need. For all those who complain about the lack of textbooks/workbooks, there are those who would complain about being constrained to the textbook/workbook or complain about having to supplement 99% of it because it doesn't suit their needs.

This is a strawman and I did discuss this with multiple school board officials and FCPS staff and was told they were working on fixing ecart so obviously it's been floated and discussed and agreed to mulitple times, just not implemented. Teachers pay Teachers is not a directed curriculum program where you HAVE to use any one document. However if there is a lesson on Because of Winn Dixie or Multiplication that works for you you can use it. See the teacher gets to decide what to post and what to use. Not some admin staff. You seem to be missing this point. And there are ratings in popularity and use so you can see which ones are more effective than others. Doesn't mean you can't use the others. Just means the others are more popular. So it helps you sort and you can sort by subject matter, grade, topic etc.

It was actually better for me pre-ecart. Before eCart, our curriculum specialists had a Blackboard course organized by unit. You would click on the unit to get the standards for the unit and a bunch of lessons for the unit that had been created during summer curriculum or otherwise submitted by teachers. They converted some of it and put it on eCart, but it became a jumbled mess and impossible to find. I wish they would just put everything into a Schoology group and allow teachers to submit materials. It also seems like in summer curriculum they have focused on putting together huuuuuge involved PBLs vs. smaller focus lessons that would probably be more useful to a new teacher that probably doesnt feel comfortable enough with the curriculum to embark on. Not to mention a sub, which it seems is how some classes will run at my school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, the elementary school principals are playing a round of 18 at Wintergreen Resort. While a bunch of them have many vacancies to fill. Think they took leave?

I don't know, but it's such a bad look for FCPS. They get huffy when someone asks why they can't pay aides, custodians, and bus drivers enough to actually live in the county or give employees with more than 20 years' service a nicer bonus than a plastic lanyard, but there's apparently plenty of money to send over 100 people on a $$$ "golf outing".

It is an annual conference put on by the Fairfax Principal’s Association, so I’m pretty sure they pay their own way. But the conference started at 7 tonight and there must have been 40 of them playing golf at 10am this am. And who knows how many others at the spa and pool. Just not a great look to be here all day before it started playing golf with your buddies. I’m sure they thought no one would be watching, but many FCPS parents and staff have second homes there/vacation there. Not a great look to be playing 18 wearing fcps gear on a Wednesday, guys.

PP. If the association is indeed paying their own way, I don’t care. If this is being footed even partially by the school district, it’s ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

They might just put a sped aide in instead. In face, a lot of the sped hours are actually filled by aides. I don't know if they are supposed to do that or not, but I know it's done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

They might just put a sped aide in instead. In face, a lot of the sped hours are actually filled by aides. I don't know if they are supposed to do that or not, but I know it's done.

Absolutely done all the time. Some of the aides are better than the teachers at behavior stuff, but they have a harder time with differentiation and meeting learning goals. Really depends on the adults at play and the kids needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens in a situation where they don’t have a teacher for a self-contained special ed class? The hours in that setting are in the IEP— do they still count if there is not a teacher assigned to the class? Just looking at the ms/ha sped vacancies and wondering how that works.

They will take a SPED teacher from somewhere else in the school (one assigned to a Gen Ed classroom).

This, although it’s just ends up screwing a different group of students who are also entitled to special ed services and burns out the teacher.

I wonder if it's a game of chicken where whoever gets a lawyer to enforce their IEP is the one who gets the hours