Reply to more on teacher shortages

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The teacher shortage is going to continue unless the school districts start fixing the system.  First the administration needs to back off on the administrivia that is piled onto the teachers.  The teachers are now putting in as much time handling paperwork, testing, training, documentation as they are in the class.  And in many cases, they are doing a lot of this after class.  At our school there were regularly teachers showing up 2 hours before school, or staying 2 hours after school daily to handle paperwork.  The load of non-classroom related work is absolutely ridiculous.

Then the school system needs to develop better policies for managing the terribly overentitled parents.  [b]While I have absolutely sympathy for parents who need to contact the school for behavioral issues, bullying, etc., there are too many parents who are helicoptering and calling, berating, and abusing teachers over grading and classwork.[/b]  I've see and heard of far too many parents who try to browbeat teachers into changing grades or excusing poor behavior on their kids' parts.  The number of kids who don't read any of the information that teachers provide and then wait until the end of the grading period to complain and have their parents complain is just unreasonable.

The combination of unreasonable administration demands and unreasonable kowtowing to parents is chasing teachers away from a profession that most of them love.  Let them get back to teaching and you'll get more people interested in joining the profession.  Until policies change to start curbing administration policies and parental behavior, you are going to continue to have a greater exodus of teachers from the profession than people joining the profession.[/quote]

I would not have quit if they were hounding me about grades and behavior. THAT, I expect. But, as a 1st grade teacher, I was inundated (8 - 17 emails a week) about missing lunch kits, bringing home the wrong folder, their child needs help with their clothing, a 2 hour meeting on learning correct signing and secret checklist folders for a child's bathroom problems (yes, this really happened), parents changing a child's transportation or me collecting a second set of things for a child to go home with another parent 20 MINUTES BEFORE DISMISSAL, angry email's about me removing their child's cricut monogram sticker on a chromebook because they did not read the policy that it is not theirs and I have to remove it before sending it back to warehouse, and my favorite: please use this comb I send in to brush my child's hair before dismissal so that it does not look a mess when I pick her up. I literally counted the hours until this school year and that chapter of my life ended. What a nightmare. Parents, this is just too much. If I ever want to have kids, I vow never to be like this. [/quote]

Why are you on this blog if you don’t have kids? Seems odd. It’s in the name of the site?

The above sounds like normal things for teaching elementary school. Why can’t you remind a kid at dismissal to comb her hair? Or tell the parent that you can’t remind her.
Are the admin really so pro-parent that you would be disciplined for emailing back that you simply cannot meet a parent’s request? Why can’t you set appropriate boundaries like any other professional? 
If someone in an office job decides to not meet a customer’s request, either their management is going to support their choice or explain why it’s not allowed to ignore the request. You then have the choice to quit or not.

Why are teachers resentful about parents asking for things when they don’t clearly state that it’s not appropriate and that asking for favors or 2 hours meetings about bathroom issues just won’t be tolerated?

If my child was anxious and upset about toilet issues, I would absolutely ask for a meeting to talk about how maybe we could work together to have them not paralyzed by anxiety over it. If that’s the scenario, wouldn’t you need to make a choice whether you want to deal with the anxious child or whether you want to understand and help the child so both of your days are better?

Any career is filled with the stress of “other duties as assigned” which fill up your workday. If you don’t want to meet those requests or feel it’s not part of your job, it’s the professional thing to communicate that and either have your management back you up or decide whether this job and the “other duties” are right for you.

Shortage or not, no one needs a jaded teacher. I personally don’t feel any other career field will be any less filled with the tedious or eye rolling tasks which fill your day. I’ve filled out a lot of “TPS reports” in my career and I’m not a teacher. [/quote]

No, I doubt there are many careers filled with “other duties as assigned” like teaching is. I’m a career changer. My old corporate job was a cake walk compared to a day teaching. I never sit. I never get a moment during the work day to actually get caught up on work. Catching up happens at night and during the weekend. I’m sorry to tell you that you’re going to see more jaded teachers because the list of teacher responsibilities are growing. We are teachers, social workers, nurses, safety officers… all at once. While we are reminding the one student to brush her hair so she looks nice at pick-up, we also have 20+ other students who need their own individual needs met. I suspect you don’t have so many competing requirements at your job.

No, administration usually isn’t too keen on a teacher saying “no.” We are expected to get request #101 fulfilled. Period. That’s one of the reasons you see teachers leaving in droves right now. You mention above that teachers should decide if these “extra duties” are for them. Guess what? Many of us are saying no and leaving.  [/quote]

Funny, I am a teacher and was about to roll my eyes at the old “we’re social workers, nurses and safety officers “ line but then I stopped and realized…it’s true! I had to get training this year on administration of Epi-pens and other meds, what to do in a lockdown situation, how to spot mental health problems in my students on top of all the normal professional development courses![/quote]

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