What happens when a teacher quits HS teaching mid year?
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Anonymous
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My DS was told in class today that his language teacher left and they were canceling the offering (HS Latin) and he has to pick something else. No notice. No additional teacher hired. They said they did a national search but couldn’t find anyone.
Is this normal? In a case like this what happens to the budget for the teachers salary? Does downtown care? |
Anonymous
| If a teacher quits, they can’t force him/her to work. In theory they should find a replacement but it’s DCPS so they don’t. |
Anonymous
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I would imagine it would be hard to find a Latin teacher in the middle of the year, who is willing to come to DCPS.
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Anonymous
| If your son wants to continue with Latin, is there a self-study option, where a different teacher could just supervise and maybe he could do an online class for the rest of the year? |
Anonymous
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I've only been teaching for five years, but it's happened every year at the two schools where I've worked.
In my DCPS school, two English teachers quit before Christmas break. I wasn't an English teacher at the time, but I have an English certification, so I was forced to switch subjects. I taught an elective class, which wasn't a priority compared to a core subject like English, so my students were all assigned to a different elective. I don't know if they handled the grades by the book or not. For the remainder of the second quarter, they were divvied up between different classes and told to not be disruptive. They received a "pass" grade in my old elective instead of a letter grade for that quarter. Starting with the third quarter, they were officially on the roster for the new class. In my current MD school, we've lost maybe 2-3 teachers mid year every year for the last three years. My principal is trying to shape the school culture, so he seems more willing to let a position remain vacant than to hire "the wrong person." We completely dissolved a few electives. When it was a core class, he hired a long term sub and incentivized teachers from that department to help with grading and lesson plans. |
Anonymous
What do you mean, it's just like any job if someone leaves they leave? |
Anonymous
| For an elective, yeah it’s not unusual. |
Anonymous
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It is unfortunate but administrators are often lazy and don’t want to go through the extra effort of finding a teacher for a subject like Latin.
Also, the HR folk at central are pretty bad so there is not much support. Teachers don’t seem to understand or care what sort of havoc is caused on kids when they quit mid year. |
Anonymous
Legally speaking. You can’t force someone to stay in a job. They may suffer consequences for breaking a contract but can’t be compelled to work. |
Anonymous
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My DD had an English teacher quit at the winter break at a DCPS HS. They had a shorter term sub and then a longer term sub, who went out on maternity leave 10 days before the AP exam. Then another sub. So four teachers in one year.
She had an Algebra 1 teacher quit right before school started so they had a non-math teacher sub for six weeks. Then a new teacher was hired who was terrible and quit at winter break (she gave out a huge packet to do over break but then just didn't come back in January). A short term non-math sub came in for january and February. Finally a new teacher was hired for the rest of the school year. No surprise when kids have trouble with the PARCC exam with kind of inconsistent/nonexistent instruction. And this was an application HS. |
Anonymous
Which one? |
Anonymous
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The school tried to do something - they did not find a qualified candidate. What do you want the school to do?
Would you be pissed if they had an unqualified teacher there? Deal a few years ago wanted to start Arabic as a foreign language option. They could not find a qualified teacher (someone who knew how to teach this language to middle school students) So they decided not to offer the language. |
Anonymous
| My DS had a variety of subs for Spanish for all of one year, plus three teachers in core subjects who took long leaves of absence for a variety of (legit) reasons. Needless to say, it was a very uneven year with lots of report card errors to clean up. |
Anonymous
And also a certified teacher that would match DCPS' requirements -- or be willing to get certified within a year. |
Anonymous
| I would be pretty upset, OP. I would at least ask for a meeting to find another way to continue the Latin class for the year. Would they allow an independent study in Latin on line from the library with access to one of the other high school's Latin teachers for questions and review of the students' work, or something like that? Could your DC go to a neighboring school for the class for first or last period if the timing works? Or dial into the class on Skype? |