How is FCPS teacher/staff shortage?

[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.

No, they’re not supposed to do it but yes it happens all the time. It used to be more hush hush until covid. This is another reason besides the terrible pay that they can’t get aides for self contained classrooms.

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

Feel this way about all the other government funded organizations that do team building? I have worked as an officer in the Navy and I’ve worked for an I H, these things occur there as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Of course it is!
What’s really annoying is when you have a student that desperately needs the hours and assistance but the parent refuses because they are embarrassed. I see it at least once every couple years.

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

Feel this way about all the other government funded organizations that do team building? I have worked as an officer in the Navy and I’ve worked for an I H, these things occur there as well.

Lol the previous President of the United States of America spent swaths of time each week at the golf course. Principals going for a few hours once a year is not where your scorn needs to be placed.

[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.

It’s done for support in specials, lunch, etc which is general Ed time but support hours. The problem we ran into last year is not having the human bodies to support during pockets of time during the day.

[Anonymous]

Superintendent says 97% staffed.

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/message-superintendent-regarding-fall-planning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Superintendent says 97% staffed.

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/message-superintendent-regarding-fall-planning

Yeah, I call BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superintendent says 97% staffed.

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/message-superintendent-regarding-fall-planning

Yeah, I call BS.

No, sounds right to me. Many schools are fully staffed, some are not, and the usually-slow administration is being very slow getting new hires into the system. But there are still some missing teachers, and we'll have to roll with it -- just like everyone else in other school districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superintendent says 97% staffed.

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/message-superintendent-regarding-fall-planning

Yeah, I call BS.

No, sounds right to me. Many schools are fully staffed, some are not, and the usually-slow administration is being very slow getting new hires into the system. But there are still some missing teachers, and we'll have to roll with it -- just like everyone else in other school districts.

If there are 600 openings and 12,000 instructional employees, that is 5%. Now these are just estimates, but 97% of the positions filled sounds better than 500 open positions with 1/2 of them being SPED related.

[Anonymous]

No way it’s 97% staffed. Way too many vacancies listed. (Plus we know that not all are listed.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Superintendent says 97% staffed.

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/message-superintendent-regarding-fall-planning

Yeah, I call BS.

No, sounds right to me. Many schools are fully staffed, some are not, and the usually-slow administration is being very slow getting new hires into the system. But there are still some missing teachers, and we'll have to roll with it -- just like everyone else in other school districts.

+1 I don't think it's BS, but the on-the-ground reality of 3% vacancies is actually still a lot to deal with because each vacancy represents 20+ kids at the elementary level in an intensive way and 100+ kids at the MS high school level (assuming 4-5 classes per vacancy at 20-25 students). It's not like other businesses where you can more easily distribute workload or put things off for awhile--these are kids that with needs that are in classrooms with legal limits etc. And you might need to dig in deeper on how well are the vacancies filled--how many are filled by teachers in training who might struggle with their full load and need support etc. That means experienced teachers will not only be filling the actual gaps, but also supporting the 'less than ideal' filled vacancies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No way it’s 97% staffed. Way too many vacancies listed. (Plus we know that not all are listed.)

Math is our friend:

13,149 classroom teachers (https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=2&ID2=5101260)

This doesn’t include positions such as counselors, librarians and IAs. So let’s add to that number and make it 13,200 total instructional positions.

At the principals’ briefing yesterday, there were currently 588 vacancies.

13200 - 588 = 12612 filled positions.

12612 / 13200 = 96% filled

So she was off by 1 percent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way it’s 97% staffed. Way too many vacancies listed. (Plus we know that not all are listed.)

Math is our friend:

13,149 classroom teachers (https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=2&ID2=5101260)

This doesn’t include positions such as counselors, librarians and IAs. So let’s add to that number and make it 13,200 total instructional positions.

At the principals’ briefing yesterday, there were currently 588 vacancies.

13200 - 588 = 12612 filled positions.

12612 / 13200 = 96% filled

So she was off by 1 percent.

Yeah, 97% filled sounds much better than 588 vacancies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way it’s 97% staffed. Way too many vacancies listed. (Plus we know that not all are listed.)

Math is our friend:

13,149 classroom teachers (https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=2&ID2=5101260)

This doesn’t include positions such as counselors, librarians and IAs. So let’s add to that number and make it 13,200 total instructional positions.

At the principals’ briefing yesterday, there were currently 588 vacancies.

13200 - 588 = 12612 filled positions.

12612 / 13200 = 96% filled

So she was off by 1 percent.

Yeah, 97% filled sounds much better than 588 vacancies.

112 of those are K-6 classroom teachers. Not IA, SPED or Specials teachers - just classroom teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way it’s 97% staffed. Way too many vacancies listed. (Plus we know that not all are listed.)

Math is our friend:

13,149 classroom teachers (https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=2&ID2=5101260)

This doesn’t include positions such as counselors, librarians and IAs. So let’s add to that number and make it 13,200 total instructional positions.

At the principals’ briefing yesterday, there were currently 588 vacancies.

13200 - 588 = 12612 filled positions.

12612 / 13200 = 96% filled

So she was off by 1 percent.

Yeah, 97% filled sounds much better than 588 vacancies.

112 of those are K-6 classroom teachers. Not IA, SPED or Specials teachers - just classroom teachers.

There are 140 elementary schools. That’s less than one teacher per school.