Reply to Received an email that DS teacher quit Friday.

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Received an email that DS teacher quit Friday. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That sucks, and I'm sorry.  There must be something really difficult going on in that teacher's life right to make such a decision.[/quote]
She probably got fed up with the a-hole parents.[/quote]

Honestly, this is probably accurate. [/quote]

I wouldn't blame her. [/quote]

Not this late in the year. It’s unprofessional and rude. Anyone can work another 6 weeks. That’s a really $hitty thing to do to her students. Just finish the damn year and move on. [/quote]

No one here has any idea what is happening with this teacher in her personal life.[/quote]

They shouldn't quit.  people were not quitting their jobs like this 3 years ago.  Biden needs to banned this and  do something to stop people from quitting.  MY DD English teacher quit last month, she said quit and ain't coming back.  It's a sad day in America.  November can't come soon enough, I will be voting and something will be done to stop the labor shortage.   [/quote]

You can't force labor.  People aren't slaves.  That is a route to have zero teachers available to teach in the fall.[/quote]

The ones who quit midyear won't be working this fall anyway.  Maybe you need to rethink your route.[/quote]

Yes, but forcing people into contracts they can't quit deters the already dwindling supply of teachers to not take on a new contract.[/quote]

No, it doesn't.  All teacher contracts require a 9 month commitment.  There's nothing onerous or bad about that.  It doesn't deter anyone.  [/quote]

There is not a clause  in it that forces you not to quit.  In fact, it's them telling you they are committing to you for 9 months and generally teachers are generally professionally agreeing to stay then also.  But they can't do more than that like PP wants--forcing people not to quit--without creating a deterrent.   If someone is at a breaking point, or needs to move, or wants out of the profession they can quit when they want.  It sucks for parents, other teachers, their students, but instilling draconian 'no quit' policies would likely not survive a legal test and make a profession that is struggling to attract people at the worst rate since it's been measured in even worse shape.[/quote]

You can't force people not to quit. But you can also acknowledge that quitting in the middle of the year is really bad for parents, other teachers, and students. It should not be the norm for a salaried skilled professional and should only happen under dire circumstances. You wonder why kids are detached and anxious. I guess they should recognize that the adults in their lives are only there while it works for them and should feel terrible if they are disappointed when these adults leave without any warning.[/quote]

Did you not read that I wrote "it sucks for parents, other teachers, their students..."  Teaching has long held to this professional norm. Quitting mid-year was exceedingly rare and was long done for only extenuating circumstances.  But they've had enough. The mandated policies at the federal level lingering since NCLB have added up, piling up with special education laws with grossly inadequate support.  Thrown in your state governor creating a tip line for people to report their teachers, teachers feel like the social contract is broken and they don't have to honor it anymore.  I'm not saying we want this for teachers at all.  I'm just telling everyone who is still tut-tutting teachers they think are bad that it's a five alarm fire in the profession.  I'm not a teacher myself, I track the data in my job and it is STARTLING.

[/quote]

I agree with you. Reading your additional comments, I think we are in complete agreement on the fact that teaching has become an increasingly undesirable profession for a variety of reasons, and the high level of dissatisfaction has created some checked-out and ineffective teachers. The teachers in my life complain more about administrative burdens, impossible workload, and clueless administrators than they do about students and parents. Teachers are burned out, and as a result, the current level of professionalism accepted in teaching does not align with other educated professions. I'm sorry, but it is true. I don't think we are to accomplish the needed reform unless when admit that. My oldest kids are now adults, but I can say that the slide began long before the pandemic and has nothing to do with the tip line (although that's ridiculous). Regular attendance, communication, timely grading, and consistent and respectful treatment of students and parents - all of the components that command respect, are harder to find than ever in public schools. Whether there are good reasons for burnout is beside the point. The decline in professionalism hurts kids, yet we aren't allowed to talk about it because more teachers might leave the profession. It's a vicious cycle. When kids get the bare minimum from some teachers, there's no backup to get them caught up. That's not fair to anyone, but most of all, the kids. [/quote]

I'm the PP.  I don't agree with you that there was a longer history of decline in teacher professionalism.  I think despite a lot of demands, they maintained a fairly solid standard of professionalism.  In any profession there is a range of course, but I would say on the whole it has been fairly steady for decades.  What I am referring to is that teachers are burnt out and feel that the social contract has been broken.  Highly skilled, committed and experienced teachers who wanted to be teachers for life, that had teaching as core to their identity are leaving the profession.  Less skilled and committed people are also leaving the profession.  Far fewer people of any skill level are entering the profession.  Some less professional ones are quitting mid-year, but far, far more have either already left or are planning to leave this spring.  They don't want to teach in public schools, they don't want to teach in charter schools, they don't want to teach in private or parochial schools. They are done.   [b]I think parents have yet to wrap their heads around this reality[/b].[/quote]

DP.  I'm not sure what you think parents can or should be doing about this, besides just laying down and crying.  You may blame parents 100% for the current teacher crisis.  Okay.  Not sure what parents can do to ameliorate it or to improve teacher conditions in the near term.  Obama attempted to overturn NCLB with the ESSA but it doesn't seem to have succeeded in improving things.  If I contact Richmond, should I ask for less oversight?  More SOLs?  Fewer SOLs but better written?  Relaxing state (and federal) requirements related to sped students?  What, exactly?[/quote]

I think parents can help by being engaged in their kids education. I think a higher percentage of parents are checked out of what is happening at school and blames any issues with school on the Teachers and fails to look at what they are doing, or not doing, and how that effects their kids education.

For example, Distance learning saw a lot of parents complaining that their B/C kid was flunking classes and the parents blamed the Teachers. What many of those parents failed to understand is that their B/C kid was a B/C kid because the Teachers were able to get the kid to produce some work in class that could be graded. The kid learned enough by sitting in class and doing in class assignments to do ok on the tests. Teachers could track a kid down in study hall or at lunch and remind them to turn in an assignment. Many kids were not getting that B/C because the kid was making their best effort but because the Teachers could nag them in person to do their work. Teachers were not able to do that during distance learning and those B/C's turned to F/Ds.

The kids who had been working to earn those B/Cs probably had parents at home making sure that they were doing school work and making some type of effort. Those kids kept their B/Cs during distance learnings.

Too many parents are uninvolved with their kids education. They turn everything over to the school and their kids Teachers. They only get involved when the kid is failing or getting a D and then they are upset with the school/Teachers and not asking what the kid had done to earn that grade.  We saw that last year as parents were bemoaning distance learning, which sucked, and were openly discussing that they didn't care if their kid was logged on. What was the point? The Teachers were in jammies and phoning it in so why should their kid log on or do the assigned work? This ignored the fact that most Teachers were not in jammies and had worked hard to translate in class learning material to virtual learning, which is a totally different skill set. And the fact that Teachers did not have the same methods available to them to encourage a kid to complete work.

A good percentage of parents forgot that education relies on team work and that they need to be working with their kid at home as well as communicating with the Teachers. Heck, there is a parent posting in the ES Age forum wondering if she should doing more for her 7 year old who is smart and ahead. But Mom doesn't like to read so she has not read to her kid. And Mom is not interested in asking abut school or talking about school with her kid. Her kid is acting up in class, it is clear the Teachers are contacting her about that, but she doesn't mention anything that she is doing to deal with the kids behavior at school, she seems to be leaving that all to the Teachers. She is missing that her lack of interest in her kids schooling is sending a message to her kid that school isn't important and that the kid can behave how they want in school. What do you think is going to happen in High School? 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics