How is FCPS teacher/staff shortage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need some drastic moves recruit and retain high quality teachers. One bold move would be to go to a 4-day school week for kids. Increase T-F by 30 minutes. Kids do async work on Monday’s. Teachers plan, have pd on Monday’s. That means less time away from kids T-F. There are other models to accomplish this.

Parents will have to decide whether they want 5 days of school with a crappy, unqualified teacher in a large class or figure out childcare one day a week and get a high quality teacher in a decent sized class.

https://www.edsurge.com/amp/news/2022-06-22-can-four-day-school-weeks-keep-teachers-from-leaving

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/19/texas-schools-four-day-weeks/amp/

I’m in full support of a 4-day in-person week with Monday planning time for teachers while students use digital tools. I know for a fact this would be a huge boost for retention and the well-being of our staff

[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 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.

Are they still getting paid aide pay while teaching and managing a full class? Insane.

[Anonymous]

Teachers want a 4 day workweek?! They already have summer off, winter break, spring break and tons of holidays. Most people work all week and all year. And they want students to have online learning one day a week?!

We need to get teachers from other countries like some districts have done. They are willing to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need some drastic moves recruit and retain high quality teachers. One bold move would be to go to a 4-day school week for kids. Increase T-F by 30 minutes. Kids do async work on Monday’s. Teachers plan, have pd on Monday’s. That means less time away from kids T-F. There are other models to accomplish this.

Parents will have to decide whether they want 5 days of school with a crappy, unqualified teacher in a large class or figure out childcare one day a week and get a high quality teacher in a decent sized class.

https://www.edsurge.com/amp/news/2022-06-22-can-four-day-school-weeks-keep-teachers-from-leaving

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/19/texas-schools-four-day-weeks/amp/

As COVID has highlighted in bright Technicolor, they want the latter. Warehousing their kids is their absolute priority. But…but…MAH JOB!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers want a 4 day workweek?! They already have summer off, winter break, spring break and tons of holidays. Most people work all week and all year. And they want students to have online learning one day a week?!

We need to get teachers from other countries like some districts have done. They are willing to work.

Yawwwwwnnnnn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need some drastic moves recruit and retain high quality teachers. One bold move would be to go to a 4-day school week for kids. Increase T-F by 30 minutes. Kids do async work on Monday’s. Teachers plan, have pd on Monday’s. That means less time away from kids T-F. There are other models to accomplish this.

Parents will have to decide whether they want 5 days of school with a crappy, unqualified teacher in a large class or figure out childcare one day a week and get a high quality teacher in a decent sized class.

https://www.edsurge.com/amp/news/2022-06-22-can-four-day-school-weeks-keep-teachers-from-leaving

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/19/texas-schools-four-day-weeks/amp/

I agree with a 4 day work week. I bet the mental health benefits would be worth it alone.

I am all for a 4 day work week - if we can mandate it for every sector or if on day 5 the kids will be in recreational/arts, etc. programs that we fully fund and staff.

But that's not why school districts went to 4 day work weeks. It's because they don't have MONEY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need some drastic moves recruit and retain high quality teachers. One bold move would be to go to a 4-day school week for kids. Increase T-F by 30 minutes. Kids do async work on Monday’s. Teachers plan, have pd on Monday’s. That means less time away from kids T-F. There are other models to accomplish this.

Parents will have to decide whether they want 5 days of school with a crappy, unqualified teacher in a large class or figure out childcare one day a week and get a high quality teacher in a decent sized class.

https://www.edsurge.com/amp/news/2022-06-22-can-four-day-school-weeks-keep-teachers-from-leaving

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/19/texas-schools-four-day-weeks/amp/

That’s ridiculous. Everyone clowned on all the states and districts that had to resort to this during the recession. A 4 day school week doesn’t solve the problems. What would solve long term staffing issues is increasing teacher pay across the board and especially for the hard to fill positions. And stop asking teachers to do more with less all the time. They shouldn’t have to give up their planning and admin time for bogus meetings and “professional development.” Just let them teach and treat them like real professionals, not micromanaged and underpaid babies.

Thisxamillion

--a teacher

This. They need better pay and they need to be able to teach. DRASTIC changes need to be made to special education. Every student having an IEP and expecting an individual, one on one, classroom experience with a teacher (who has 25+ kids that also need teaching) isn’t feasible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers want a 4 day workweek?! They already have summer off, winter break, spring break and tons of holidays. Most people work all week and all year. And they want students to have online learning one day a week?!

We need to get teachers from other countries like some districts have done. They are willing to work.

Shut up

[Anonymous]

Answers to a couple questions in the last 10 pages or so:

1. If a MS/HS teacher has more than 150 students, they are considered on an AT contract. That contract pays 17% more than their current salary (the teacher's load is considered to be 6 classes, rather than 5).

2. Some of the ideas on the table to cover classes is for central office staff to teach, for specialists to teach (instructional coaches, resource teachers, program managers): if you have a license to teach a certain content area, and said content area has a vacancy, then you may be teaching a class or two (e.g. if your instructional coach is certified to teach English, and you have an English opening, s/he may end up teaching a/some section(s) of English), and perhaps even for admins to teach. If you have a license and you need a teacher for that subject, you are next-man-up.

3. Special education openings may end up being staffed by a teacher who has taken the first course in the SPED license program. They have to continue to pursue a SPED license (i.e. take the rest of the classes), but they can teach in that position if they have taken the first class.

4. More than 1/2 of the positions still to be filled are ES and/or SPED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here’s my question:

What is the plan? There are 588 missing teachers. That’s roughly 18,000 kids (30 per class) without a teacher.

What are the levers?
- Do they just make the classes bigger?
- move teachers around to share the pain between schools? Seems unfair to have some schools fully staffed while others are at 50%
- Put kids into the cafeteria all day?

Seriously, what is the PLAN?

Yes to the first. Combine classes so that there may be grades combined. Also resource teachers will be placed in classrooms to start the year. And central office staff. It will be done on a school by school basis.

Yep- I’ve heard central office resource teachers will be assigned to schools (which, good- it’s about time) and possibly folks who were classroom teachers last year but took other jobs this year May be put back in the classroom (ICs are the position I specifically keep hearing, which, again, good!)

What are IC positions??

instructional coaches

This would make me happy, so they can see that some of their ideas are t always practical in reality.

I guess that I am troubled by the fact that these solutions are just a band-aid and that they do not address the systemic problem in K-12 education. What is going to happen next year when more people leave again because these solutions are short-term? At some point, FCPS will run out of people. FCPS has failed to respond to a crisis that people in the trenches saw coming a long time ago. I remember even back in my 2010 grad classes the professors were talking about a significant decrease in the people coming into teacher prep programs.

Why do you think FCPS can fix a teacher pipeline shortage? They already heavily promote the grow your own program. This is a much larger issue than FCPS.

Unfortunately it plays right into political attempts to destroy public education. Let’s just hope VA doesn’t go the way of FL by allowing unqualified people to teach just because they are military spouses.

That's pretty myopic. Teachers have been saying very loudly what needed to change for quite a while. FCPS could have at least attempted some sort of strategy to retain people but instead, they watched the hemorrhage occur and now they're all shocked and shaken... Leadership should be fired.

I said the same thing a few things ago. The county could have prevented some of this by making changes many years ago. It also didn’t help to push virtual for that long. I know I know, it was the “safest” but other districts and teachers across the country survived. Now it’s almost too late to fix things.

They also could help sponsor visas. Many certified teachers in other countries.

I have zero issues with this as long as fluent English is requirement. Even if I think it's impractical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here’s my question:

What is the plan? There are 588 missing teachers. That’s roughly 18,000 kids (30 per class) without a teacher.

What are the levers?
- Do they just make the classes bigger?
- move teachers around to share the pain between schools? Seems unfair to have some schools fully staffed while others are at 50%
- Put kids into the cafeteria all day?

Seriously, what is the PLAN?

Yes to the first. Combine classes so that there may be grades combined. Also resource teachers will be placed in classrooms to start the year. And central office staff. It will be done on a school by school basis.

Yep- I’ve heard central office resource teachers will be assigned to schools (which, good- it’s about time) and possibly folks who were classroom teachers last year but took other jobs this year May be put back in the classroom (ICs are the position I specifically keep hearing, which, again, good!)

What are IC positions??

instructional coaches

This would make me happy, so they can see that some of their ideas are t always practical in reality.

I guess that I am troubled by the fact that these solutions are just a band-aid and that they do not address the systemic problem in K-12 education. What is going to happen next year when more people leave again because these solutions are short-term? At some point, FCPS will run out of people. FCPS has failed to respond to a crisis that people in the trenches saw coming a long time ago. I remember even back in my 2010 grad classes the professors were talking about a significant decrease in the people coming into teacher prep programs.

Why do you think FCPS can fix a teacher pipeline shortage? They already heavily promote the grow your own program. This is a much larger issue than FCPS.

Unfortunately it plays right into political attempts to destroy public education. Let’s just hope VA doesn’t go the way of FL by allowing unqualified people to teach just because they are military spouses.

That's pretty myopic. Teachers have been saying very loudly what needed to change for quite a while. FCPS could have at least attempted some sort of strategy to retain people but instead, they watched the hemorrhage occur and now they're all shocked and shaken... Leadership should be fired.

I said the same thing a few things ago. The county could have prevented some of this by making changes many years ago. It also didn’t help to push virtual for that long. I know I know, it was the “safest” but other districts and teachers across the country survived. Now it’s almost too late to fix things.

They also could help sponsor visas. Many certified teachers in other countries.

I have zero issues with this as long as fluent English is requirement. Even if I think it's impractical.

Yup this will be the killer right here. “My child couldn’t understand the teacher! Larla could be dyslexic and it is because she couldn’t understand the phonics work in Kindergarten.”

Also it is very hard to test fluent spoken English and easier to test written because of the time involved.

[Anonymous]

Baltimore City hired a lot of teachers from the Philippines many years ago. There is a documentary about it. I'll see if I can find it. Anyway, they were shocked by the behavior of students in the U.S. They were used to being revered as a teacher. Many couldn't deal with student behavior.

https://youtu.be/fPocrzBTd3A

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers want a 4 day workweek?! They already have summer off, winter break, spring break and tons of holidays. Most people work all week and all year. And they want students to have online learning one day a week?!

We need to get teachers from other countries like some districts have done. They are willing to work.

Teacher here. I don’t want a 4 day work week.

I want the following:

1) A salary that I can afford to live in this area.
2) Class Sizes not to exceed 24 kids.
3) Get rid of mandated CLTS and let the team and individual teachers plan how they want without being micromanaged.
4) Less useless professional development. We need more individual choice.
5) Better maternity leave policies
6) Better ESOL/Sped support in ES
7) Actual consequences for kids who misbehave
8) Parent follow through

Most teachers want reasonable things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here’s my question:

What is the plan? There are 588 missing teachers. That’s roughly 18,000 kids (30 per class) without a teacher.

What are the levers?
- Do they just make the classes bigger?
- move teachers around to share the pain between schools? Seems unfair to have some schools fully staffed while others are at 50%
- Put kids into the cafeteria all day?

Seriously, what is the PLAN?

Yes to the first. Combine classes so that there may be grades combined. Also resource teachers will be placed in classrooms to start the year. And central office staff. It will be done on a school by school basis.

Yes. They can be from Europe and speak perfect English. They have valid teaching degrees in their country. But need a license.


Yep- I’ve heard central office resource teachers will be assigned to schools (which, good- it’s about time) and possibly folks who were classroom teachers last year but took other jobs this year May be put back in the classroom (ICs are the position I specifically keep hearing, which, again, good!)

What are IC positions??

instructional coaches

This would make me happy, so they can see that some of their ideas are t always practical in reality.

I guess that I am troubled by the fact that these solutions are just a band-aid and that they do not address the systemic problem in K-12 education. What is going to happen next year when more people leave again because these solutions are short-term? At some point, FCPS will run out of people. FCPS has failed to respond to a crisis that people in the trenches saw coming a long time ago. I remember even back in my 2010 grad classes the professors were talking about a significant decrease in the people coming into teacher prep programs.

Why do you think FCPS can fix a teacher pipeline shortage? They already heavily promote the grow your own program. This is a much larger issue than FCPS.

Unfortunately it plays right into political attempts to destroy public education. Let’s just hope VA doesn’t go the way of FL by allowing unqualified people to teach just because they are military spouses.

That's pretty myopic. Teachers have been saying very loudly what needed to change for quite a while. FCPS could have at least attempted some sort of strategy to retain people but instead, they watched the hemorrhage occur and now they're all shocked and shaken... Leadership should be fired.

I said the same thing a few things ago. The county could have prevented some of this by making changes many years ago. It also didn’t help to push virtual for that long. I know I know, it was the “safest” but other districts and teachers across the country survived. Now it’s almost too late to fix things.

They also could help sponsor visas. Many certified teachers in other countries.

I have zero issues with this as long as fluent English is requirement. Even if I think it's impractical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers want a 4 day workweek?! They already have summer off, winter break, spring break and tons of holidays. Most people work all week and all year. And they want students to have online learning one day a week?!

We need to get teachers from other countries like some districts have done. They are willing to work.

Teacher here. I don’t want a 4 day work week.

I want the following:

1) A salary that I can afford to live in this area.
2) Class Sizes not to exceed 24 kids.
3) Get rid of mandated CLTS and let the team and individual teachers plan how they want without being micromanaged.
4) Less useless professional development. We need more individual choice.
5) Better maternity leave policies
6) Better ESOL/Sped support in ES
7) Actual consequences for kids who misbehave
8) Parent follow through

Most teachers want reasonable things.

Title 1?

We have to adhere to the caps even this year.