I feel like MCPS sucks the joy out of teaching

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those teachers buying your own supplies, do you have a decent PTA? Our PTA supplies snacks for teachers — if the teachers at our school are buying their own pencils and paper, I’d want to know and I’d chip in for those.

The snacks sound great. I am at a DCC school and the PTA does not have the funds or volunteers to do much

Same. At my Title I school there is no PTA. There are a couple of lovely churches who have adopted us and bring us food during pre service and at the holidays. They are such wonderful people who are happy to do it, and we are so grateful when we get it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your situation sounds like every job I’ve had, including my first one, where I was paid less than teachers. I put in 10-12 hours or more a day, worked weekends, was on call during holidays, and had to represent myself as an expert to customers on a subject I had only cursory knowledge of….

I don't disagree. Had the same experience myself but were you responsible for teaching something important to 150 young minds whose only knowledge of a subject might be the words that come from you? I never took chem ever again after high school as an example and literally the only thing I know when hearing the news is from that high school teacher. Good thing she was a good one.

I’m the poster you responded to. No, I didn’t teach children. Instead, if my work went wrong, people’s lives were at risk within minutes. When something didn’t work properly, deaths occurred quickly.

We get it your lame point-everyone else's jobs are so much more important than teachers. Blah, blah, blah-hope this made you feel better about yourself though!

You read too much. Nobody said that. Jobs are just often tough. Teachers work hard and do better, but many other jobs also have abuse and stress.

Everyone knows other jobs have abuse and stress. Go complain about it on a forum specific to your job. Teachers aren’t logging into engineering forums to chime in about how hard teaching is. Stay in your own lane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The EML situation at some of the schools is out of control. Today I had to give out letters that need to be signed by the parents of EML students. ONE student in my 4th-grade class did not get a letter. ONE out of 23. The class is impossible to teach. Not only are there so many newcomers with little English, but they are also coming in with minimal education even in their native language. Yet we are required to make sure that we keep up with the grade level curriculum. And now we are supposed to somehow design every lesson around their language needs. Impossible!

Yet instead of having help from the ELD teachers, they are busy doing county mandated paperwork- individually scanning in tons of documents page by page. What a waste of time. Focus on the children- not paperwork. That also goes toward the SLO's that were mentioned. Let us teach the children. Provide the support that is needed.

And then there is Home School Model. Why am I having no support with students who cannot do 4 + 1 without their fingers? CKLA- So far above their heads. But where are the SPED teachers? Oh yeah- they are no longer able to support in ELA and all is left to the classroom teacher.

MCPS has ruined education.

Elem school reading teacher here and this post is spot on. Not allowed to pull from the 2 hour CKLA reading block when we have 3rd, 4th and 5th graders who can not read CVC (log, man) or CVe words (kite, bake) and are not coded SpEd. We have extreme behaviors I have never seen on this level before in my 20+ years in education. Sped teachers are also frustrated because they are not allowed to pull even when the students IEP calls for xx minutes of pull out instruction. I’m also at a Title 1 school with large MLL population. Leaving at the end of this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your situation sounds like every job I’ve had, including my first one, where I was paid less than teachers. I put in 10-12 hours or more a day, worked weekends, was on call during holidays, and had to represent myself as an expert to customers on a subject I had only cursory knowledge of….

I don't disagree. Had the same experience myself but were you responsible for teaching something important to 150 young minds whose only knowledge of a subject might be the words that come from you? I never took chem ever again after high school as an example and literally the only thing I know when hearing the news is from that high school teacher. Good thing she was a good one.

I’m the poster you responded to. No, I didn’t teach children. Instead, if my work went wrong, people’s lives were at risk within minutes. When something didn’t work properly, deaths occurred quickly.

We get it your lame point-everyone else's jobs are so much more important than teachers. Blah, blah, blah-hope this made you feel better about yourself though!

You read too much. Nobody said that. Jobs are just often tough. Teachers work hard and do better, but many other jobs also have abuse and stress.

Everyone knows other jobs have abuse and stress. Go complain about it on a forum specific to your job. Teachers aren’t logging into engineering forums to chime in about how hard teaching is. Stay in your own lane.

DP. Thank you for this. I’m often annoyed by the fact teachers can’t have a space to discuss teaching-specific stress.

OP, I transferred to private and love it. I still work long hours, and I often devote 12-14 hours a weekend to catching up. I don’t mind doing it as much, however, because I’m respected more and because the days are more enjoyable. This may be school-specific, but I recommend investigating private.

[Anonymous]

I totally remember people trying to hound money from me because I got water from the water cooler. Un-be-leive- able. We are treated so bad we can't even get water from the water cooler in our office without having to shell out money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally remember people trying to hound money from me because I got water from the water cooler. Un-be-leive- able. We are treated so bad we can't even get water from the water cooler in our office without having to shell out money.

I am a federal worker and I pay for water too!

[Anonymous]

What really irks me is that I had to take sick leave for the birth of my child. I took 8 weeks with a c section. I you are a man, you get paid paternal leave. And we all know that women take on the brunt of child care. If you have to take 6-8 weeks for the birth of a child then you are left with very little when said child gets sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What really irks me is that I had to take sick leave for the birth of my child. I took 8 weeks with a c section. I you are a man, you get paid paternal leave. And we all know that women take on the brunt of child care. If you have to take 6-8 weeks for the birth of a child then you are left with very little when said child gets sick.

Paternal leave is also sick leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What really irks me is that I had to take sick leave for the birth of my child. I took 8 weeks with a c section. I you are a man, you get paid paternal leave. And we all know that women take on the brunt of child care. If you have to take 6-8 weeks for the birth of a child then you are left with very little when said child gets sick.

Paternal leave is also sick leave.

Agreed. I am a man who is also a teacher. I had to take sick leave to help my wife when our child was born by c-section. This is normal in the U.S. Of course I wish we had Euro style supports for parents, but teachers get no extra benefits over normal jobs in the U.S. as far as I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I totally remember people trying to hound money from me because I got water from the water cooler. Un-be-leive- able. We are treated so bad we can't even get water from the water cooler in our office without having to shell out money.

I am a federal worker and I pay for water too!

Same! And DH works in a private office - has to bring his own water or buy bottled water since the tap water is not meant to be consumed. I think that's pretty commonplace now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EML situation at some of the schools is out of control. Today I had to give out letters that need to be signed by the parents of EML students. ONE student in my 4th-grade class did not get a letter. ONE out of 23. The class is impossible to teach. Not only are there so many newcomers with little English, but they are also coming in with minimal education even in their native language. Yet we are required to make sure that we keep up with the grade level curriculum. And now we are supposed to somehow design every lesson around their language needs. Impossible!

Yet instead of having help from the ELD teachers, they are busy doing county mandated paperwork- individually scanning in tons of documents page by page. What a waste of time. Focus on the children- not paperwork. That also goes toward the SLO's that were mentioned. Let us teach the children. Provide the support that is needed.

And then there is Home School Model. Why am I having no support with students who cannot do 4 + 1 without their fingers? CKLA- So far above their heads. But where are the SPED teachers? Oh yeah- they are no longer able to support in ELA and all is left to the classroom teacher.

MCPS has ruined education.

Elem school reading teacher here and this post is spot on. Not allowed to pull from the 2 hour CKLA reading block when we have 3rd, 4th and 5th graders who can not read CVC (log, man) or CVe words (kite, bake) and are not coded SpEd. We have extreme behaviors I have never seen on this level before in my 20+ years in education. Sped teachers are also frustrated because they are not allowed to pull even when the students IEP calls for xx minutes of pull out instruction. I’m also at a Title 1 school with large MLL population. Leaving at the end of this year.

What is MLL?

[Anonymous]

The people in charge have no experience in a classroom, so they make decisions without regard to how they impact people. Their goal is not instruction or learning, it’s image (or financial kickbacks). This is the one of largest employers in Montgomery County, and it’s a criminal organization. And they are absolutely on this anonymous message board. Pretty much anytime an individual is named, you can be sure it was posted by an MCPs insider.

If you love teaching, your best bet is to teach elsewhere next year, where at least the premise of caring about students isn’t laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EML situation at some of the schools is out of control. Today I had to give out letters that need to be signed by the parents of EML students. ONE student in my 4th-grade class did not get a letter. ONE out of 23. The class is impossible to teach. Not only are there so many newcomers with little English, but they are also coming in with minimal education even in their native language. Yet we are required to make sure that we keep up with the grade level curriculum. And now we are supposed to somehow design every lesson around their language needs. Impossible!

Yet instead of having help from the ELD teachers, they are busy doing county mandated paperwork- individually scanning in tons of documents page by page. What a waste of time. Focus on the children- not paperwork. That also goes toward the SLO's that were mentioned. Let us teach the children. Provide the support that is needed.

And then there is Home School Model. Why am I having no support with students who cannot do 4 + 1 without their fingers? CKLA- So far above their heads. But where are the SPED teachers? Oh yeah- they are no longer able to support in ELA and all is left to the classroom teacher.

MCPS has ruined education.

Elem school reading teacher here and this post is spot on. Not allowed to pull from the 2 hour CKLA reading block when we have 3rd, 4th and 5th graders who can not read CVC (log, man) or CVe words (kite, bake) and are not coded SpEd. We have extreme behaviors I have never seen on this level before in my 20+ years in education. Sped teachers are also frustrated because they are not allowed to pull even when the students IEP calls for xx minutes of pull out instruction. I’m also at a Title 1 school with large MLL population. Leaving at the end of this year.

What is MLL?

Multilingual learner. Used to be called ESOL or ELL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m in year 6 of teaching HS. The first 3 years were absolutely brutal especially as I came in through the career changer route. But I somehow survived and am still here. But I’m still working 6 days a week (10+ hours). The demands are never ending. This month, besides teaching 2 different preps including an AP class and grading for approx. 150 students, I had 15 college recommendations to write, PSAT training + proctoring, PD on how to support ELL students, additional school PD (all of it useless). I also have to get special ed quarterlies to do this week for 15 kids, a separate testing PD that must be completed, SLO Part 1 to get done by Nov 1, + the usual end of quarter grades, etc. This is all in addition to planning for each day, teaching, grading, helping kids at lunch, answering parent emails. We have also been asked to incorporate strategies to support ELL students in our classroom and collect data on how effective our approach is and present our findings in upcoming department meetings. I could go on but you get the idea.

I wish I could just focus on the kids and my classes. I like to try new things in the classroom but it is hard to get any time to explore and research new ideas and content. I wonder if a different district or private school might be better

What is PD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in year 6 of teaching HS. The first 3 years were absolutely brutal especially as I came in through the career changer route. But I somehow survived and am still here. But I’m still working 6 days a week (10+ hours). The demands are never ending. This month, besides teaching 2 different preps including an AP class and grading for approx. 150 students, I had 15 college recommendations to write, PSAT training + proctoring, PD on how to support ELL students, additional school PD (all of it useless). I also have to get special ed quarterlies to do this week for 15 kids, a separate testing PD that must be completed, SLO Part 1 to get done by Nov 1, + the usual end of quarter grades, etc. This is all in addition to planning for each day, teaching, grading, helping kids at lunch, answering parent emails. We have also been asked to incorporate strategies to support ELL students in our classroom and collect data on how effective our approach is and present our findings in upcoming department meetings. I could go on but you get the idea.

I wish I could just focus on the kids and my classes. I like to try new things in the classroom but it is hard to get any time to explore and research new ideas and content. I wonder if a different district or private school might be better

What is PD?

Professional development. That we don’t choose.