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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I read on here because I’m fed up with the education system in this country. ...[/quote]
As a fellow edu-crank, I encourage you to find another district or private school, or look into tutoring. There are still places bucking Calkins, and similar trendy curricula.

Here's one more link, on Calkins's reading program, which is even worse than her writing: https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2020/01/27/lucy-calkins-reading-materials-review[/quote]

Thanks! But my tolerance for BS is way too low. I’m just over this system.

I’m online teaching this year (have to go to the school though). It’s not for my own health and I’d work in person if I could, but this was the opportunity I was presented with. 45% of my class has an IEP or 504. The district I’m in this year allows families to choose hybrid or year long remote. They come from three different schools, so I have SPED teachers pulling kids into their meetings with Go Guardian all day long. And these schools all use different schedules. The kids leave and come back and ask “what are we doing?” Which isn’t their fault, but I’m explaining things over and over all day... and sometimes they come back from working with another teacher late and there’s no point in explaining what they missed so I let them take a 3 minute break (or however much time is left).

So far I’ve been told by parents that I give a good balance of screen breaks on on screen work. They’ve called me patient. My admin has observed a few times and I don’t even notice they’re in my meet... but they told me I really have a way with the kids, am patient, and the kids are “just eating you up.” So that seems good... but one parent complained. I’ve had to attend IEP and 504 meetings. This one took up my entire planning and lunch time. The mom was mad because I was subtly trying to remind her that there are a bunch of kids in the class and many on IEPs. Her child’s writing really isn’t bad compared to most of the kids in class. Her child went to another school in a different district last year. I assume that district didn’t use Lucy Calkins. But most of my students have only had Lucy curriculum. I can hardly read their handwriting and some are writing an entire paragraph without using one period... this is fourth grade. So I said something stupid to this mom about how I didn’t feel like her writing was that concerning but maybe it was because my class seems to have a lot of struggling writers. And she didn’t like how I had to interrupt with three minutes of lunch left to say the kids were coming back in three and I had to use the bathroom... like sorry lady but I have a ton of kids on IEPs that seem to mostly be for writing (surprise, surprise in Lucy Calkins times).  And I have kids who don’t have an IEP or 504 but seem super needy (ask way too many questions). And some without plans that are worse at writing than her daughter.

I get that parent’s focus on just their child for obvious reasons, but in my other meetings they weren’t listing a million things they wanted me to do (not a SPED teacher) for ONE kid in my class of over 20... I was warned that if she feels I’m not accommodating her child then she could “lawyer up.” Like give me a break... the kid seriously seems to be doing fine in my eyes. I get why IEPs exist but a lot of teachers (including myself) think they’re handing out way too easily. Kid on an IEP does something inappropriate? Can’t get them in too much trouble because of that document. Sometimes I feel like parents think the IEP means “the teacher will give my child extra attention and basically parent my child because I don’t want to.” Like I’m sorry but it’s hard for me to remember like 20 accommodations listed for like 45% of my class. I will probably do something “wrong” and piss this woman off again. Her child isn’t the most struggling one in the class like she seemed to believe.

I tried another district this year after teaching in FCPS last. I’m not going to try another ever again. The system is broken and in too many ways. If you voice that opinion you’re usually met with angry admin, angry coworkers, and angry parents saying “well just quit!” And who will replace me? Possibly someone who sees nothing wrong with Lucy Calkins in this messed up system. Enjoy!

Also, the school I’m at used Envision Math. But their online component expired and they didn’t want to pay a lot to renew it. So they gave us virtual teachers the boxes of old paper materials. We also were not give document cameras (we were all hired as one year only- one per grade). So I can’t play the animated lesson like the book wants. And it would be way easier if the kids could log into Savas (or whatever it’s called now) and do the virtual practice). The way I’ve been trying isn’t working well. Another teacher shared a TPT resource so I tried that yesterday. The resource including a video made by the TPT seller. Slide one was an example. We were rounding on a number line. The example told us that the closest tens to 307 were 290 and 310... eh, what about 300? That’s a ten too lady... and in the video she read 1,250 as “two thousand five hundred.” I pointed the mistakes out to the kids.

This is what happens when college doesn’t make us take an instructional design course and most teachers don’t know how to make digital everything... but the school doesn’t give us much to work with so we turn to TPT. The system is F*c*ed!!! I’m mad about it but last year I learned opening my mouth doesn’t matter. No one else really actually seems to care. It’s sad.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/j2sszi/accommodations_are_getting_completely_out_of_hand/

Thoughts from some teachers on how there’s too many accommodations being handed out. This reminded me that that pissed off mom was saying her daughter needed help organizing and I said something like “well the google classroom is organized how it is. I tell them what to find before we start each subject. For example, if I want them to get their writing notebook and a pencil I show that on the screen with a two minute timer and a picture of it. But I’m not in her home so I’m not really sure how I could help her organize that?” I genuinely didn’t get it. But yeah let’s just pretend all these families that chose yearlong virtual can’t help their kid at all... sure some work, but they all have an adult home. Help her organize after work maybe? I’m literally not present in your home to do that. Sorry! And the kid appears to be able to find everything she needs... I didn’t get it. When my admin told me about this woman complaining I said this whole this has unrealistic expectations. Having a virtual inclusion class with a million kids getting pulled all the time and no document camera and me trying to make materials. And she agreed and said it’s inhumane for some of these parents to choose virtual. The IEPs aren’t for things that make the kid high risk. I have one kid with asthma but he doesn’t have an IEP. The system tells me if there’s a medical alert. But maybe they live with high risk people. I don’t know. But since these kids are still going on weekend getaways and missing a day of school, and the parents are going to work, I have zero clue why they chose virtual at all. But it’s their right. I told my admin she can find someone else if she wants. I really don’t care about that at this point. Nothing about this is realistic. [/quote]

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