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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think this video is an important reminder for parents and administrators

[url]https://fb.watch/hcxdi1BUVj/?mibextid=0LFGlp[/url][/quote]

Largely because people in the private sector work far more hours.[/quote]

The "extra hours for free" and "unpaid overtime" comments make me roll my eyes.  Do teachers realize that other professionals are classified as "exempt" and do not get paid overtime?  "Overtime" is a concept for non-exempt employees.

Oh, and summers?  MCPS pays teachers for spending time on workshops, etc.  Is that not "overtime"?[/quote]

Back to add, and union protection?  Other professionals do not have this.[/quote]

[b]That's because they don't need it. [/b]Only people with crappy jobs need unions.[/quote]

You are really over the top.  You really have no idea how other salaried professionals live and work.[/quote]

I bet you have toilet paper and functioning bathrooms and soap. I bet you don’t have rodent and insect infestations in your workplace. I bet you have heating and a/c that works. [/quote]

Do other professionals have to purchase their own office supplies, and supplies for others?

I just did a replenish on classroom supplies: paper, spare pens/pencils, dry erase markers, tissue, hand sanitizer, cleaning wipes. I dropped another $45 on my classroom. I’ll do it again in a couple months.

No, my high school does not allow us to ask parents. [/quote]

Yes, they do. Lady, I had to buy my own laptop for my job. It cost more than $45.

Do teachers need like a teacher-only slack or something to talk about this stuff? These are just random job complaints. We all have them. I complain about them to my colleagues and my spouse.

Also, the amount of money I have spent on providing classroom supplies to my kids' schools over the years... it's a lot. I've bought art supplies and blocks and cleaning supplies and tissues and paper and pencils. I've helped by new rugs, contributed to funds for smart boards, paid for snacks. All of it. I get your HS apparently says you can't ask parents, which is weird, but most parents buy stuff like this for classrooms all the time. I got a note that there's a lot of runny noses in my kid's classroom this time a year and just grabbed a box of tissue and threw it in my kid's backpack this morning. My kid doesn't have a runny nose, but whatever I can do.

When I need supplies for work that my office won't pay for, no one just brings them to me! Ever.[/quote]

DP. I agree with others that this shouldn't be a suffering Olympics. I also agree that all professions should be provided with the supplies they need to do their jobs. With that said, PP's point about how much money (and time) many parents put into providing supplies for schools never seems to be acknowledged.

It's difficult to have these conversations about improving the teaching profession when 1) many teachers have unions and most working professionals don't; 2) the union is responsible for negotiating contracts that should create favorable working conditions (but obviously don't); 3) Parents have less ability to improve teacher working conditions that any stakeholder in education. There is no other workplace where people volunteer time, money, and supplies as they do in education. Many of us are exhausted from being overworked in our own workplaces, while simultaneously supporting teachers and schools in general. Often, it feels like public schools are constant time and energy sucks that take away from what should be our primary job, parenting our children. And, like teachers, what parents do is never enough. It makes no sense.[/quote]

It’s a suck, because it’s dysfunctional. Have you ever tried to schedule a play date with a parental set that refuse to communicate? And just watch the passive agressive messages fly? Or make the mistake of hiring a poor manager? And it creates 3x the amount of work as just doing that person’s job? Schools in America become everything from a solution to childhood hunger to social issues to adult anxieties. Some of this is deliberately done by people who want to tear down public school systems, knowing they will buckle. The solution is either to find a well-run private school or work at fixing the underlying dysfunction starting with stopping the finger pointing[/quote]

Agreed, which is why an entire thread this is just "why won't anyone acknowledge how overworked teacher are" is not very productive because lots of us can acknowledge how overworked teachers are, while also pointing out that we are also overworked.

I felt this way through the first two years of the pandemic during the debate over school closures, but I am baffled as to why teachers unions don't work to organize more with parent groups. It's an obvious alliance. Teachers' working conditions are kids' learning conditions. Most parents I know want teachers who are well-compensated, have time to prepare, have adequate coverage for sick days, etc. Parents want quality facilities and good supplies. I don't know any parents who are like "I hope my kids teacher is buried in random administrative duties for an extra 6 hours a day and also has to purchase all the classroom supplies herself and can't take a sick day because of the sub shortage." No parent wants that.

But so often parents are seen and talked about as the enemy. We're really not. The actual enemy are policymakers who refuse to value or fund education, central office administrators who cater to the whims of politicians and consultants, those consultants who suck up education funds that could go to actual educators, and government oversight that is weak at best, actively oppositional at worst.

What if teachers and parents worked together to combat the actual enemy. What if instead of a million threads on here about how "parents don't respect what I do" or "teachers complain to much" or whatever, we worked together to actually deal with these problems. Just a suggestion.[/quote]

+1[/quote]

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