Teachers Resigning Like Crazy?

[Anonymous]

Those lists are crap. MCPS is on the Forbes list for being a top place for working women..... bahahaha, let's talked about their "paid" maternity leave.

quote=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]

There is no data to support the claim that teachers are resigning more than other professions.

I’m happy to be proven wrong, but please post a link. A story is not data.

[Anonymous]

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!

+1. All true when we lived there pre-pandemic. I would only add what I will call (for lack of a better way to phrase it) the instances of detached parenting I encountered when we lived there. Parents who didn't all that emotionally engaged with their children and seemed to be always looking to pawn them off on neighbors, or classmates' families. I was a SAHM, so maybe I experienced it a little more. The phone would start ringing at 9 a.m. on Saturday. My kid wants to play, what is the earliest I can drop my kid off at your house? Same for after school, snow days, etc. I would often feed their kids dinner along with mine before their parents were late picking them up. These were middle-class to UMC families, too. I still think about those kids who passed through our home over the years, and spent so much time with our family. I hope they are doing okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

ESSA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no data to support the claim that teachers are resigning more than other professions.

I’m happy to be proven wrong, but please post a link. A story is not data.

DP. If you want numbers, Kansas State U researchers have been pulling that together for analysis. This was published 2 days ago:

There’s been a lot of ink spilled over what’s been framed as a national shortage of teachers, including fears of a coronavirus-related mass exodus from classrooms that never quite materialized.

Fewer words have been spent on defining what, precisely, is meant when people say the education system is facing a drought of teachers from coast to coast.

That’s what researchers at Kansas State University set out to quantify when they began crunching the numbers on teacher vacancies for all 50 states. A problem that became apparent early on was that there simply was no central source for the information they were seeking — even at the state level.

What Does It Mean to Have a ‘National’ Teacher Shortage?
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2023-02-15-what-does-it-mean-to-have-a-national-teacher-shortage

I'm worried about a shortage regardless of whether it is due to "resigning more than other professions." Doesn't matter. COVID hitting the country made it clear that if parents don't have teachers present in schools, the country is brought to its knees.

Doesn't matter whether that is in context of more or fewer accountants resigning, or what have you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

ESSA

Have you heard of teacher resigning because of ESSA?

I haven’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not really. That’s what they said about grocery store checkout employees. Should we pay checkout workers 6 figure salaries because they had to work duri by the pandemic and deal with the public and other undesirable traits of their jobs? Nope. Self checkout!

Trends are moving in different directions. Traditional styles of in person teaching are fading away. Time to rethink education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this happening anywhere else? My DC's ES has has have five teachers resign mid year. Is this normal? What is happening?!

And then doing what for income?? Waitressing?
going back to school?
They are not qualified for anything else

I’m a teacher now. I plan on quitting after I earn a certification or two in coding. My son is teaching me now. He’s 16 and he says I shouldn’t be treated the way I am in a professional job. He’s a kid and he knows what’s what.

Ten years ago I knew, probably a dozen teachers personally as friends. Now I know one. They've managed to find jobs they like better without any issue; none of them have ever mentioned wanting to go back to teaching. The "doing what for income" poster is out of touch.

Like what? What are they doing? Wal-Mart? Volunteering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not really. That’s what they said about grocery store checkout employees. Should we pay checkout workers 6 figure salaries because they had to work duri by the pandemic and deal with the public and other undesirable traits of their jobs? Nope. Self checkout!

Trends are moving in different directions. Traditional styles of in person teaching are fading away. Time to rethink education.

I mean, sure. The self-checkout equivalent in teaching is homeschooling.

Enjoy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide problem but if a school district with as much money as FCPS can't fix it, who can?

We need to pay teachers more and increase their benefits so it's more appealing to stay. We need to also honor their contract hours and ability to take the personal days they are owed.

This means we need to pay subs more.

And I think they need to take teachers out of the incessant meetings for IEPs and 504s. FCPS should create a department to handle these things and support both special ed teachers and the classroom teachers. It's unbelievable how many accommodations teachers have to make for so many different students.

And then they need to stop changing up the curriculum all the time to "create equity". My kid is in this E3 pilot math program and it's garbage. Stop taking up classroom time with social-emotional surveys and positivity projects.

Our ES is using ESSER funds to provide every grade level team a full day every month for team planning and putting monitors/subs in their classrooms that day. I think that's awesome.

I like that they are expanding the in person tutoring offered to help students catch up without teachers having to do it.

The teachers know the students best. Why on Earth would you take them out of the IEP process??? They need help with the record keeping and legal paperwork and more SPED staff physically in the classroom to help implement the plans, but centralizing the process and removing the teacher is not the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this happening anywhere else? My DC's ES has has have five teachers resign mid year. Is this normal? What is happening?!

And then doing what for income?? Waitressing?
going back to school?
They are not qualified for anything else

I’m a teacher now. I plan on quitting after I earn a certification or two in coding. My son is teaching me now. He’s 16 and he says I shouldn’t be treated the way I am in a professional job. He’s a kid and he knows what’s what.

Ten years ago I knew, probably a dozen teachers personally as friends. Now I know one. They've managed to find jobs they like better without any issue; none of them have ever mentioned wanting to go back to teaching. The "doing what for income" poster is out of touch.

Like what? What are they doing? Wal-Mart? Volunteering?

Most I know are doing some sort of corporate training work. My work bff left last year and says she gets glowing performance reviews and works half the time she did teaching (making $30k more from home 3 days a week). She begs me to come join her almost weekly. It’s getting more and more tempting.

[Anonymous]

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

We had a private school teacher leave mid-year last year. And the replacement sucked. Ended up being a terrible year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide problem but if a school district with as much money as FCPS can't fix it, who can?

We need to pay teachers more and increase their benefits so it's more appealing to stay. We need to also honor their contract hours and ability to take the personal days they are owed.

This means we need to pay subs more.

And I think they need to take teachers out of the incessant meetings for IEPs and 504s. FCPS should create a department to handle these things and support both special ed teachers and the classroom teachers. It's unbelievable how many accommodations teachers have to make for so many different students.

And then they need to stop changing up the curriculum all the time to "create equity". My kid is in this E3 pilot math program and it's garbage. Stop taking up classroom time with social-emotional surveys and positivity projects.

Our ES is using ESSER funds to provide every grade level team a full day every month for team planning and putting monitors/subs in their classrooms that day. I think that's awesome.

I like that they are expanding the in person tutoring offered to help students catch up without teachers having to do it.

The teachers know the students best. Why on Earth would you take them out of the IEP process??? They need help with the record keeping and legal paperwork and more SPED staff physically in the classroom to help implement the plans, but centralizing the process and removing the teacher is not the answer.

+1 the better solution is to boot certain time consuming IEP kids out of the regular classroom and take the burden off of mainstream teachers. Put the kids with so many issues back in smaller classrooms with an all day SPED teacher and aide like they used to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prediction is we're going to get to essentially a nationwide teacher crisis, which could show in a ton of ways (absurdly high/dangerous class sizes, allowing people with no qualifications teach, have an "aide" watch a class for half the day so a teacher does essentially two classes at once). Only once it reaches truly crisis levels will there be enough pressure on state and local governments to shift their thinking on teachers, dramatically increase teacher pay, and start treating teachers like professionals.

The "pink collar" issue for teachers is terrible - basically, we're still treating teachers like they're women who want to earn a little pocket money and get out of the house while their husbands are supporting the family, rather than like the professionals they are. Major disruption is needed. On the whole, this will be a positive change for society, but the kids who have to deal with this situation in the meantime are kinda screwed.

And for those who are thinking "we're there! This is a crisis!" - No. It can get much, much worse, and it'll have to for the kind of change I'm talking about. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

We're already there. These things are happening. We've got classes well over 30 where there's not enough desks even for the kids to sit, people with no qualifications teaching, teachers with no special education license or endorsement teaching special education classes b/c we literally cannot even find special ed teachers anymore, etc. It's a nightmare *now* and will get worse.

Agree. Overcrowding and violence are the biggest problems.

[Anonymous]

None of my kids' teachers have left, there are no unfilled vacancies and some of the behavior issues that seemed a bit more of an issue in years prior (devious licks stuff) seem to have settled down (public secondary school in FCPS). I know there's a shortage, but it seems to be unevenly distributed even in FCPS.