Teachers Resigning Like Crazy?

[Anonymous]

Curious: parents will kids in public and private, are private school teachers leaving mid year?

[Anonymous]

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

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

This was never our experience. I got close with quite a few teachers and when my child was no longer in their classroom (K-2nd grade) the teachers even would babysit for us. Now my kids are in MS and HS and their teachers from ES will come to their games, orchestra performances. Induction into NHS. They still support my kids. No arms length. Our family has stayed close with several teachers from ES. Even some MS teachers still keep in contact with my HSer (and our whole family).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious: parents will kids in public and private, are private school teachers leaving mid year?

Probably not, because there are less meeting, less “county-stuff” and disruptive students are disciplined and/or removed.

[Anonymous]

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

As a teacher, I don’t have a problem with FCPS as an employer. It’s all the other stuff that comes with the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

As a teacher, I don’t have a problem with FCPS as an employer. It’s all the other stuff that comes with the job.

Who do you think piles on all the other stuff that comes with the job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

As a teacher, I don’t have a problem with FCPS as an employer. It’s all the other stuff that comes with the job.

Who do you think piles on all the other stuff that comes with the job?

Reality and laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

As a teacher, I don’t have a problem with FCPS as an employer. It’s all the other stuff that comes with the job.

Who do you think piles on all the other stuff that comes with the job?

Reality and laws.

+1, the federal government and state laws force a lot of this down, but FCPS can control annoying CLT meetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

If salaries aren't frozen AGAIN...

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

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

Right, but if people aren't willing to do the job, then you don't have people doing the job. That's the bottom line.

It's a necessary job, so you have to get it filled somehow. That means more salary or better benefits or something. The benefits and salary are not too much if you can't find people to do it. Obviously -- and I mean obviously -- if it was that great a trade-off, people would go into teaching from other jobs instead of just saying it's a better deal. If it were, they would do it, especially with requirements loosened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

As a teacher, I don’t have a problem with FCPS as an employer. It’s all the other stuff that comes with the job.

Who do you think piles on all the other stuff that comes with the job?

Reality and laws.

The things that annoy teachers are totally different than parents. Some teachers get angry about the calendar, 50% minimum, retakes, SB members, MS start times, etc - but many, many care very little about the things you guys complain about on this forum.

[Anonymous]

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

This is useful data. Everything else is just rumored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Residents voted for this, right?

stop it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are leaving because administrators are refusing to discipline children and school systems are refusing to separate out poorly behaving/severely learning disabled children from the general education classroom. This didn't happen when we were children because kids were disciplined and because kids couldn't handle being in a general education classroom were put in separate schools. We need to go back to that model. Sorry, but equity is not working.

While I agree with some of this, most of our SPED kids are not behavior problems. Only a handful are. Many of our behavior problems are non sped students.

I didn't say all SPED kids, I said severely disabled and I'll be honest that I don't know the appropriate terminology, so I apologize for offensive language. I should have just said any extremely disruptive and violent child regardless of whether they have any sort of diagnosis or not. There's no discipline (and absolutely agree with everyone who says this needs to start with the parents because I know that teachers are not allowed to send kids out of the room anymore and disruptive children just end up being coddled by the administration and we need to fix this).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

As a teacher, I don’t have a problem with FCPS as an employer. It’s all the other stuff that comes with the job.

Who do you think piles on all the other stuff that comes with the job?

Reality and laws.

+1, the federal government and state laws force a lot of this down, but FCPS can control annoying CLT meetings.

Please share one of those Federal laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

The primary problems I see among the kids in my neighborhood and the ones on my children's sports teams are almost all related to poor parenting. These kids are held accountable for nothing, their parents jump in to rescue them from any adversity, and the kids are showered with things rather than given structure. Speaking to the parents at practice or in the neighborhood, I am disgusted to hear them blame others for everything their kids do. The kids aren't expected to take any responsibility for a single thing. The parents especially seem to vilify teachers and schools, which is wrong. Parents need to look in the mirror and directly at their children when evaluating whom is to blame for kids' bad behavior.

I watch my neighbor children intentionally litter their snack wrappers, and their parents excuse it, saying they didn't know to throw away their trash. If your 12-year-old doesn't know to throw away their trash, that's a reflection of your poor parenting.

The way my children's teammates speak to the coach and to their own parents is appalling. If your 10-year-old completely ignores adults speaking to them, that's a reflection of your poor parenting. If your 10-year-old can't even listen to the coach's directions for 3 minutes without rudely interrupting him or bouncing a ball against the wall while the coach is talking, that's a reflection on you as a parent (Before anyone jumps on me and says that some kids are not neutotypical, I am aware of that, but when 50% of the team acts this way, I'm sure it is not all because of neurodivergence.)

When my kids have invited their classmates to a birthday party, I have encountered kids (ages 8+) who have broken all the plastic forks before cake time, parents who have sent demanding lists of foods, music, and activities that their children like or do not like, kids who have thrown temper tantrums when I tell them they may not go through our personal items, and parents who just stand there watching their kids destroy other people's property.


If the above are the types of behaviors schools are encountering from both students and parents, no wonder the teachers are burning out! They must feel so discouraged and frustrated! I know I am, and I only have to deal with this nonsense a few hours per week!

Thank you for this. I am a teacher and 100 percent agree.

Maybe the public schools need to require parents go to "parenting school" for X hours before allowing their children to enter public school each year???? Has this always been a conflict b/t parents and teachers -- that kids are not sufficiently disciplined at home? I really don't know. I went to Catholic school for most of my K-12 schooling and we were taught manners like holding the door for others and standing up to say "good morning, Mrs.... " when someone walked into the room. In the rural states, the teachers are generally respected as part of the "more educated" people in the community. So, maybe there's less respect for school itself, and teachers in general, in an area where parents don't necessarily look up to or regard teachers as better than themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

This was never our experience. I got close with quite a few teachers and when my child was no longer in their classroom (K-2nd grade) the teachers even would babysit for us. Now my kids are in MS and HS and their teachers from ES will come to their games, orchestra performances. Induction into NHS. They still support my kids. No arms length. Our family has stayed close with several teachers from ES. Even some MS teachers still keep in contact with my HSer (and our whole family).

This is so dependent on the school - we have a few teachers in my kids' school who live in the surrounding neighborhoods and are actually part of the community. Our kids are in school and external activities together, we're neighbors, we become friends over time. But the vast majority of teachers absolutely keep us at arm's length and I don't see a problem with that, this is just their job. I am a PA, I don't become friends with my patients. I do my job while being a pleasant human being.