St Marys versus St Louis

[Anonymous]

Another thing that would be helpful about improving the pipeline of candidates is that it would make the diocese schools more confident about replacing weak or problematic teachers with great teachers.

[Anonymous]

Well, one problem is, there’s ZERO discussion from the school that there’s even a problem! No townhalls, no mention in the weekly Messenger emails, no discussion at HSA meetings. Nothing. No attempt at outreach to parents about the problem or how to solve it.

Just pretending like everything’s hunky - dory, when everyone knows it’s not, and the constant emails asking for $$$$.

So don’t expect the problem to be solved anytime soon! They won’t even acknowledge that there is one!

[Anonymous]

We need a good RECESSION (preferably a depression). Way too much inflation, distortion in the labor markets, $25/hr school bus drivers, housing costs out of control, etc.

A nice, lengthy recession would cleanse and reset the system and solve the “teacher shortage” real nicely.

[Anonymous]

Can someone mention if there are similar problems at St. Louis? All I am reading about is St. Mary’s.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They just gave all the teachers a raise. Pay is still lower than public, though.

I think the problem is that they aren't proactive enough about hiring. St. Mary's is a good school, and it's the biggest parochial school in Virginia. This is a great place to live. The parish is very healthy with lots of families and full pews. It's more appealing than a lot of other Catholic schools, tiny ones, ones in the boonies, ones in dangerous parts of dangerous cities, etc. It shouldn't be that hard to find some good teachers to teach here.

I think 20 years ago, it was easier to hire good teachers without as much effort. Someone retired, you brought in someone new. But now that there's a teacher shortage, the diocese still hasn't adjusted. They are used to doing it with lower effort and they haven't yet ramped up the effort to meet the need.
They aren't out there hustling for talent, recruiting experienced teachers from other areas, figuring out how to do more training and professional development, etc. Instead, they are repeatedly surprised by the turnover and underprepared for it. And they hustle to fill the empty spots at the last minute with unimpressive last-minute candidates. And then they kind of hope that person will just figure it out and get better over time without much training or mentoring.

A lot of these departing teachers go teach at other Catholic schools. Why aren't we hiring IN to the diocese in the same way?

There are some very accomplished retirees from business, government, education who might be interested in teaching for a few years. The school needs some older more experienced teachers. There are some devoted Catholics with great skills who would like to help the diocese meet this need. But the hiring teams haven't thought of this, haven't broadened their horizons, haven't asked the parishes.

Retirees might not be a perfect or a permanent solution. But if they are scrambling to hire unimpressive 23 year olds who leave anyway, they should clearly be casting a broader net.

What about stay-at-home moms who are ready to go back to work now that their kids are older. Moms like this returning to the workforce are a great asset, and can be a better bet than first-time workers. Why aren't we putting the word out? At a minimum, we should be signing up moms from the diocese as substitutes and aides.

It's not enough to just put up a job listing. We need to go recruit! And by the way, public schools are getting worse all the time. The best students are leaving, behavioral problems run rampant, the schools are becoming hyper-political, the parents are mad, the wokeness is oppressive, etc. MOST public school teachers would be unsuitable for Catholic school--we wouldn't want them. But some Catholic public school teachers with great teaching skills and experience are looking for a way out. Why not offer it to them?

Same with the expensive private schools. They are also becoming extremely woke, and some teachers don't like it. They have more behavioral problems, more double standards, more pressure from above to push wokeism, weird and inappropriate educational content being pushed, etc. And the rich entitled parents are more demanding and disrespectful of teachers than ever. We should get the word out that Catholic schools are like some of these privates used to be before they went woke.

And speaking of rich parents, there are more and more college graduates coming out who don't need to take the highest paying job available. If we recruit wisely, we should be able to get some very smart people to come teach. Again, it's not enough for us to just put a listing on the website and on a the bulletin board for parochial schools. We should reach out to the career services office of every college around here and some major Catholic universities around the country. Just get on their radar. We're hiring smart people who want to teach. If the career services offices don't know about us, they can't recommend us to their graduating seniors or their alumni.

And in the short term, if we have an acute need, we might be open to college grads who want to teach for a year or two before grad school.

And what about the current parents? Some of these moms really want to help the school, really want to spend more time inside the school. There are a lot of type A moms spending a lot of time overthinking class parties and teacher gifts and spending way too many hours doing it. Why not redirect some of that energy into instruction? Get some of these experienced, motivated, organized parents involved in solving the teacher shortage. At least get some of them on the substitute teacher list.

And finally, stop pretending hiring is not an issue. Neither administrations nor rectors nor the diocese want to publicly admit that they are struggling with this. But by playing coy and not admitting that they have a need, they are missing the chance to let great parents and parishioners and community members help them solve this problem.

You want fresh grads without education degrees teaching middle school? 40k is too low to get anyone who actually needs the income (i.e. professional teachers), so you get you unqualified aids being promoted

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another thing that would be helpful about improving the pipeline of candidates is that it would make the diocese schools more confident about replacing weak or problematic teachers with great teachers.

Where are you finding an excess of great teachers willing to work for peanuts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone mention if there are similar problems at St. Louis? All I am reading about is St. Mary’s.

Thanks!

St Louis has different problems, but a better administration and none of the turnover that people are complaining about

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone mention if there are similar problems at St. Louis? All I am reading about is St. Mary’s.

Thanks!

St Louis has different problems, but a better administration and none of the turnover that people are complaining about

Could you elaborate on the different problems at St. Louis?

[Anonymous]

the combination of a lack of real differentiation and some kids who really struggle academically slows down some classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the combination of a lack of real differentiation and some kids who really struggle academically slows down some classes

Differentiation from what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, one problem is, there’s ZERO discussion from the school that there’s even a problem! No townhalls, no mention in the weekly Messenger emails, no discussion at HSA meetings. Nothing. No attempt at outreach to parents about the problem or how to solve it.

Just pretending like everything’s hunky - dory, when everyone knows it’s not, and the constant emails asking for $$$$.

So don’t expect the problem to be solved anytime soon! They won’t even acknowledge that there is one!

I agree with this. There is no acknowledgement of the issues or how they are addressing them. The principal did town halls and coffees with younger grades not 6th that was a mess all year or older grades to my knowledge. He avoids issues, when confronted with an issues says it’s the first he’s heard of it.

And people are appearing to retire due to age. One AP was demoted and now has left a year later. The other one is leaving now. The resource director 2 years in a row has left. Multiple teachers and long time aides are leaving. It’s due to the admin and pastors not all due to environmental factors (in the general teaching community). Some teachers lefts for other Arlington diocese schools.

There is no public sharing of the school wide MAPs scores and I know the most get 80% is not accurate that’s published on the website.

I would predict more teachers will continue to leave unless the bishop and admin get involved.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, I think they’ve resigned themselves to being mediocre. What are parents going to do? Leave for public? There are 5 families waiting in line to take their place.

No real competition or incentives to improve. So they’ll just muddle along, emphasize mass and other religious events, deprioritize academics, and tolerate poor teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sadly, I think they’ve resigned themselves to being mediocre. What are parents going to do? Leave for public? There are 5 families waiting in line to take their place.

No real competition or incentives to improve. So they’ll just muddle along, emphasize mass and other religious events, deprioritize academics, and tolerate poor teaching.

As long as the bulk of students get into Ireton and those who realistically want Gonzaga or Visi get into those schools, they'll be fine. I students start getting totally shut out, then things will change

[Anonymous]

The former AP and the current AP both leaving now is a loss. Neither of them is old, neither of them is retiring, both of them were quite impressive and well-liked by parents. If they are having trouble recruiting and retaining people, it seems like a shame to lose well-respected experienced old hands. I imagine that the current AP may be leaving to take a principal job elsewhere. But if the diocese was on top of this and going for excellence, they would have said, "We have a new principal and a barely-staffed middle school. Can we please give you a stay bonus and some even better title to get you to stay for another year and help us right the ship?"

[Anonymous]

This is the problem with parochial. While they are better than public schools, they have one thing in common with public, which is a sort of monopoly status. There is one parochial option in each geographic area, and that's pretty much the only option. So they don't really feel the pressure for continuous improvement.

It's a shame, because St. Mary's easily has the opportunity to be the best school around bar none. All the publics and all the privates in NOVA and DC have become insane tampons-in-the-boys-room type places. And behavior problems are increasing and allowed to persist, because there's an unofficial policy not to discipline members of marginalized groups or children of rich parents. St. Mary's is comparatively free of all those problems.

All St. Mary's has to do is hustle! They have to say to themselves, we can be the best K-8 school in the state. The very fact of being a sane Catholic school already gives them a huge advantage over the competition. They have an amazing population of families, highly educated, professional, nice, committed. They have great kids. And they do have some great faculty and staff, just not quite enough!
Now all they have to do is figure out how to hire, develop, and retain the absolute best quality faculty and staff they can.

I don't think the low pay is that big of a problem. It doesn't help, but it's not an excuse for having less impressive teachers. Yes public pays more, but public is a mess these days. If you are called to teaching, you're not usually in it for the money anyway. And if you are a traditional person or a religious person who wants to teach, you will not fit in with most of your colleagues at most publics or privates in NOVA or DC. St. Mary's should have its pick of the kind of teachers it would want to hire anyway.

But for some reason they don't love hustling. They don't like criticism, so they won't admit problems. They don't feel a sense of competition because they are the only game in (old) town. And I think that they (justifiably) feel holy because of the good work they do in faith formation, but they rest on the laurels of that a little bit. I suspect that if you asked the administration or the rector about teacher quality, teacher hiring, and teacher retention, they would quickly steer the conversation to their good work in faith formation. And it IS good work, but it's not a relevant answer to the question "why aren't we recruiting, developing, and retaining enough great teachers?"