Anonymous wrote:If you want better math teachers, pay the salaries a math/engineering degree can command in other industries.

Otherwise you are going to get some amazingly big hearted people who are willing to forgo money to help your children because they love it, and a bunch of people who knew they couldn't hack it in industry who slide by.

Want better teachers? Pay will certainly help. But what will help more is time and better working conditions.

Imagine if that stressed math teacher had 75 students instead of 150. Imagine if they got 3 hours of planning time a day instead of 30 minutes. And imagine that time was honored, so they didn’t have to do cafeteria duty or bus duty.

Then good teachers would stay instead of fleeing to professions with a better balance.

If you want better math teachers, pay the salaries a math/engineering degree can command in other industries.

Otherwise you are going to get some amazingly big hearted people who are willing to forgo money to help your children because they love it, and a bunch of people who knew they couldn't hack it in industry who slide by.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Create a record of your kid trying to get help from this teacher after hours. If the teacher won’t help, or provide additional resources, demand a meeting with the counselor and principal and ask for your kid to be reassigned to a different teacher no later than next quarter.

Teachers are no longer required to provide help after hours.

To the parent - I'm so sorry that your kid got a less effective teacher. Unfortunately that's sometimes how it works and you and your kid will need to figure out a way to get through the year despite the teacher. Im guessing that the other Algebra 1H classes are pretty full, so it's unlikely the counselor will be able to move the schedule.

-Math Teacher at another Middle School

Sink or swim, right?

No wonder so many people are giving up on FCPS.

Just stop.

FCPS is a large school system people get bad teachers it is as old as time.

Do you really believe this?

The "bad teachers" in FCPS now are a different breed than the "bad teachers" of a generation ago. Teaching used to be a more respected profession, and it attracted fewer people who are allowed to retain their jobs because they are basically a body with a license but no teaching skills.

DP. I had a horrible Algebra teacher 30 years ago in FCPS. Awful. My parents had to meet with the guidance counselor twice before she would agree to move me to a different class. My own kids have had a few terrible teachers too - particularly at Longfellow MS. This isn't something new.

I graduated from FCPS almost 35 years ago and had an awful, awful Geometry teacher… as well as a few other bad teachers in those 4 years. This is not a new problem.

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

Anonymous wrote:Did you really never have a bad teacher in school? We all knew who the blow off teachers were who would fluff your grades for begging but taught nothing, the ones who graded super harshly and unfairly, the ones with tempers...none of this is new.

You deal with it, you get outside help for your kid since this is a building block class, and you hope for better next year.

+1, support your kid outside of class hours with a tutor (or do it yourself, if you can)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Create a record of your kid trying to get help from this teacher after hours. If the teacher won’t help, or provide additional resources, demand a meeting with the counselor and principal and ask for your kid to be reassigned to a different teacher no later than next quarter.

Teachers are no longer required to provide help after hours.

To the parent - I'm so sorry that your kid got a less effective teacher. Unfortunately that's sometimes how it works and you and your kid will need to figure out a way to get through the year despite the teacher. Im guessing that the other Algebra 1H classes are pretty full, so it's unlikely the counselor will be able to move the schedule.

-Math Teacher at another Middle School

Sink or swim, right?

No wonder so many people are giving up on FCPS.

Just stop.

FCPS is a large school system people get bad teachers it is as old as time.

Do you really believe this?

The "bad teachers" in FCPS now are a different breed than the "bad teachers" of a generation ago. Teaching used to be a more respected profession, and it attracted fewer people who are allowed to retain their jobs because they are basically a body with a license but no teaching skills.

DP. I had a horrible Algebra teacher 30 years ago in FCPS. Awful. My parents had to meet with the guidance counselor twice before she would agree to move me to a different class. My own kids have had a few terrible teachers too - particularly at Longfellow MS. This isn't something new.

Did you really never have a bad teacher in school? We all knew who the blow off teachers were who would fluff your grades for begging but taught nothing, the ones who graded super harshly and unfairly, the ones with tempers...none of this is new.

You deal with it, you get outside help for your kid since this is a building block class, and you hope for better next year.

You do what countless parents have done before you. Recognize that you kid is going to run into this in FCPS and be prepared to supplement with a tutor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could have asked this question without any school or subject name. Lots of kids suffer through a bad teacher over the many years of school. You're lucky if this is your first.

so many bad math teachers....it's depressing the kids suffer and admin shrugs.

There's bad English, Social Studies, Science, and Electives teachers as well.

Anonymous wrote:You could have asked this question without any school or subject name. Lots of kids suffer through a bad teacher over the many years of school. You're lucky if this is your first.

so many bad math teachers....it's depressing the kids suffer and admin shrugs.

Anonymous wrote:It's important to find ways to let the principal know which teachers absolutely suck and have no business in a classroom.

The wealthiest schools often have some of the worst teachers, because most families will find work-arounds like tutoring outside the classroom. If a teacher is not trying to help every child succeed, that's a problem, whether it's at Cooper or Whitman.

There are bad teachers at all schools. It's really hard to fire a teacher, especially if they have been teaching more than 3 years. We have one at my school. Even the counselors roll their eyes when talking about the teacher. But that teacher has 5 sections that need to be filled, just like every other teacher. It's not fair to fill the other teachers over capacity and let off the bad teacher with small class sizes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Create a record of your kid trying to get help from this teacher after hours. If the teacher won’t help, or provide additional resources, demand a meeting with the counselor and principal and ask for your kid to be reassigned to a different teacher no later than next quarter.

Teachers are no longer required to provide help after hours.

To the parent - I'm so sorry that your kid got a less effective teacher. Unfortunately that's sometimes how it works and you and your kid will need to figure out a way to get through the year despite the teacher. Im guessing that the other Algebra 1H classes are pretty full, so it's unlikely the counselor will be able to move the schedule.

-Math Teacher at another Middle School

Sink or swim, right?

No wonder so many people are giving up on FCPS.

Just stop.

FCPS is a large school system people get bad teachers it is as old as time.

Do you really believe this?

The "bad teachers" in FCPS now are a different breed than the "bad teachers" of a generation ago. Teaching used to be a more respected profession, and it attracted fewer people who are allowed to retain their jobs because they are basically a body with a license but no teaching skills.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Create a record of your kid trying to get help from this teacher after hours. If the teacher won’t help, or provide additional resources, demand a meeting with the counselor and principal and ask for your kid to be reassigned to a different teacher no later than next quarter.

Teachers are no longer required to provide help after hours.

To the parent - I'm so sorry that your kid got a less effective teacher. Unfortunately that's sometimes how it works and you and your kid will need to figure out a way to get through the year despite the teacher. Im guessing that the other Algebra 1H classes are pretty full, so it's unlikely the counselor will be able to move the schedule.

-Math Teacher at another Middle School

Sink or swim, right?

No wonder so many people are giving up on FCPS.

Just stop.

FCPS is a large school system people get bad teachers it is as old as time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could have asked this question without any school or subject name. Lots of kids suffer through a bad teacher over the many years of school. You're lucky if this is your first.

Asking without a school or subject name will limit the responses that would be relevant to Cooper Middle School. There might be a suggestion of which teacher might be the best to go to for help during QST time, or a tutor that lives/works in the area that I could contact.

Absolutely do not do this. It is so unfair to ask a teacher to not only teach and manage their 150 math students, but also take on kids on another teacher's roster. Can you imagine if everyone did that? They don't get compensated in any way for tutoring students.

Pay someone outside of school. Look on wyzant.com, they have reviews and you can filter by location or in person/online.

I don't think OP is asking for anything out of the ordinary. Are you in FCPS? Our middle schools have a type of study hall period where they can go to other teachers for help, and a lot of subject teachers offer "remediation hours" for kids who need help.

Yes, I teach math at a different school in FCPS. (Used to be middle school, now I'm at a high school). I am often the teacher who kids come to when they don't like their own math teacher for whatever reason. It's not fair. I have 150 kids (30 in every single class) plus another 25 in my advisory. I am remediating my own kids during that time. It isn't like I'm sitting around watching youtube, waiting for kids to ask questions. I have pulled specific kids from my roster to work on specific skills they were weak in. I have requested specific kids coming to make up absent work that I am trying to quickly teach lessons to. I have kids making up/retaking tests that I'm trying to keep an eye on so they don't cheat. I have other kids trying to come into my room to hang out with friends under the guise of doing math homework that I am trying to keep on task or send back to their appropriate location. I don't have the bandwidth to take on another teacher's students too. Most days my 32 desks are full with students sitting on the floor or in the hallway during that study hall time.

Admin supports this at my current school, thankfully. Students are only allowed to make ehallpasses to their own teachers, not their friends' teachers.

OP needs to hire a tutor or find a high school student looking for math honor society hours or go on khan academy outside of class.

Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.