I just wish our school board would drop all of the social and political stuff, and only focus kn the core school mission of literacy, math, science and academics/arts.

One of the gold standards for professional and social interactions is that you NEVER discuss politics, religion, sex or race with others who are not your intimate circle.

Our fcps has decided their mission is to put our poor teachers in a situation where they have to not only talk about, but promote and inject into their lessons, those hot button issues of politics, religion, sex and race every single day, whether they want to or not.

The school board knows these issues and themes are going be controversial. They know that no matter what position is taken, someone, somewhere is going to be offended, enraged, and activated.

Yet the school board makes incorporating hot button social issues into every facet of the curriculum and school culture their entire focus. Why on earth would the leadership do this to the teachers.

Imagine going into work every single day, knowing that your boss and company leadership are going to make you say things, do things and articulate positions that are 100% guaranteed to make one or many of your clients blow their top, send you angry emails, go to your supervisors, blast you online, or go to the media??

We are talking about people who went into their profession because they like to have reading time on the rug or do art projects. Who spend all summer finding interesting ways to talk about Shakespeare. Who are math geeks or history fanatics. Who are teaching because they want to coach football. Or who just want summer vacation and two weeks off at Christmas.

Yet every single day, they have to go to work knowing that our Gatehouse, superintendent and school board are hard at work on finding ways to incorporate the latest social fad or political controversy as The. Most. Important. focus of FCPS. Not literacy. Not math. Not life skills or trades.

What dread our teachers must have going into work, not knowing when or which day the leaders are going to decree from high the next fad social political idea that teachers are going to have to field, knowing that these idiotic decisions from leadership are going to get them yelled at by some parent, somewhere, who is very justifiably upset that their kids are being taught controversial things that have nothing to do with the subjects being taught, are not age appropriate and not what the teacher signed up to teach.

No one, no where, would be able to handle that constant work stress that teachers are having to manage thanks to our school board and old superintedent.

It is not surprising that many of them are quitting.

They aren't being allowed to do the job they were hired to do, and their bosses are regularly creating duties that are going to get the teachers yelled at.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

Hahaha - you go in and do it. Won't last the 1st quarter.

"Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem." - hmm, let's try that out and see how it goes. Who knows, it could maybe work?!

A lot of people base their understanding on what they experienced as a student and I don’t know that we do a good job showing what we do today. Would that even be possible? If I had another job other than my current ES teacher position, my last experience in ES would have been 4th grade in 1980-1981. We all sat and listened to the teacher lecture and we all did the same worksheets. We all read out of the same basal. The teacher didn’t adjust for different levels. It was one teacher, one class, one size fits all instruction. If we were caught talking we might end up standing in front of the room, our arms outstretched holding a stack of dictionaries. Lunch was absolutely silent for 4 years. The principal paddled.

Try planning and preparing for just one math block. Which sense making routine will you use? During Math Workshop, which activities will students be working on and do you have the materials needed or do you need to go find them? How will they be organized? What is needed for the small groups with which you will be meeting and how will you monitor the behaviors of those who have difficulty staying on task while you are meeting with a group? Rinse and repeat for the reading block. Which mentor text are you using for the focus lesson? What level text do you need for today’s reading group? Did you have time to go to the leveled book room and search for an appropriate set that matches the standard you want to cover? Will you have time to prepare the materials from the science kit during your planning period or do you have a CLT meeting at that time? Do you know which students you will be meeting with in writing conferences? Do you know where the others are in the writing process?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

Hahaha - you go in and do it. Won't last the 1st quarter.

"Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem." - hmm, let's try that out and see how it goes. Who knows, it could maybe work?!

Teachers got a 4% raise and step increase. Much better than what the federal government gave to its employees.

But for every year we got a step increase, there was another year that we didn’t.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

Hahaha - you go in and do it. Won't last the 1st quarter.

"Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem." - hmm, let's try that out and see how it goes. Who knows, it could maybe work?!

Teachers got a 4% raise and step increase. Much better than what the federal government gave to its employees.

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

LOL, we have never been given a curriculum with a guide book. Another parent t who knows NOTHING. Money will actually solve many of the problems, give raises and hire more student support (SPED, ESOL).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I can’t believe they are starting this now. Other counties have had similar programs for years. Those include a month of summer courses and summer school teaching as a sort of student teaching, if I remember correctly. Hiring someone this late is going to be interesting.

On the other hand, I don’t think they have many options and presumably someone who wants to be a teacher long term will be better than a stream of subs.

Our district has a program like this and it's rare for these teachers to last the entire school year. We had a teacher quit by mid-September last year. All of this nonsense could be avoided if they paid teachers a lot more and gave them more support. Instead, they will be spending money on people who will quit because they have no clue what they are getting themselves into. I'm a traditionally trained teacher. I completed a yearlong student teaching position and I still didn't feel totally prepared when I got my first class as a teacher.

I went through an alternative certification program in another county. I took classes and student taught over the summer and was certified to teach by the fall after I took the Praxis. I had my advanced certificate the following year. Was it easy? Absolutely not. I wanted to quit daily because of the stress of the job. However, the traditionally trained teacher in the classroom next to me felt the same way.

That was 20 years ago. I have mentored 4 other career switchers and all of them are still teaching and doing very well. These programs can work. It requires proper support and a dedicated mentor with extra planning time to take on building up a new teacher from scratch. If FCPS builds a mentoring program that gives extra support to the senior teacher as well (instead of just piling on work for a small stipend), it can absolutely work.

Another who did an alternative certification program and still in the classroom. A few in my cohort quit but many are still teaching. Teaching has a high turnover rate regardless. I do not think an education degree is the only way a person can be a successful teacher. However, the alt cert programs I know start in the spring before, with classes, requirements for praxis, a certain number of college credits in a subject to teach secondary, etc. I had to prepare and teach a lesson as part of my interview. That all doesn’t guarantee success but it is something.

I don’t understand why FCPS wouldn’t have started something similar earlier in the year when they knew there would be a shortage. It seems more like a PR campaign so they can say they don’t have so many subs in the classroom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I can’t believe they are starting this now. Other counties have had similar programs for years. Those include a month of summer courses and summer school teaching as a sort of student teaching, if I remember correctly. Hiring someone this late is going to be interesting.

On the other hand, I don’t think they have many options and presumably someone who wants to be a teacher long term will be better than a stream of subs.

Our district has a program like this and it's rare for these teachers to last the entire school year. We had a teacher quit by mid-September last year. All of this nonsense could be avoided if they paid teachers a lot more and gave them more support. Instead, they will be spending money on people who will quit because they have no clue what they are getting themselves into. I'm a traditionally trained teacher. I completed a yearlong student teaching position and I still didn't feel totally prepared when I got my first class as a teacher.

I went through an alternative certification program in another county. I took classes and student taught over the summer and was certified to teach by the fall after I took the Praxis. I had my advanced certificate the following year. Was it easy? Absolutely not. I wanted to quit daily because of the stress of the job. However, the traditionally trained teacher in the classroom next to me felt the same way.

That was 20 years ago. I have mentored 4 other career switchers and all of them are still teaching and doing very well. These programs can work. It requires proper support and a dedicated mentor with extra planning time to take on building up a new teacher from scratch. If FCPS builds a mentoring program that gives extra support to the senior teacher as well (instead of just piling on work for a small stipend), it can absolutely work.

Anonymous wrote:These people will get little support. Few people want to serve as mentors. They are already overloaded and the stipend is a few hundred $. Will FCPS help find the classes they need? This sounds more like, “You get the job, now figure the rest out on your own”.

I agreed to be a mentor to someone who was given a provisional certification in an area of need but didn’t have any teaching experience. It was a terrible head for both of us. She thought teaching would be easy. I had to help with everything and it over doubled my work load, in addition to trying to help out out the daily fires from angry parents or students. At the end of the year she decided she didn’t want to continue teaching. I decided I would never again agree to be a mentor.

Good luck to the mentors and the people taking these jobs.

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

Hahaha - you go in and do it. Won't last the 1st quarter.

"Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem." - hmm, let's try that out and see how it goes. Who knows, it could maybe work?!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

Wait, what? There’s a curriculum?! Where do I get this? (/s)

I’m going into year 13 and have never had more than a bullet point list of standards. Methinks you know not of what you speak.

But I do agree the most you can hope for at this point is a legal adult in every classroom.

Exactly. The “curriculum” in this case would probably be assignments that are created by other teachers on the team that said team has had to coach the teacher through. And then will be graded by said team when the teacher either leaves or gets overwhelmed when they realize that they have no idea how to grade against the standard. And thus accelerates the burn out cycle of the experienced teacher. What has to give here is all of the extras that have been placed on teachers since the early 2000s. Let teachers teach and collaborate in an organic way, trust that they went to school to do this,’and let them do their jobs with relative autonomy. The alternative is this…hiring people with zero background in teaching and insane teacher turnover rates.

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

Wait, what? There’s a curriculum?! Where do I get this? (/s)

I’m going into year 13 and have never had more than a bullet point list of standards. Methinks you know not of what you speak.

But I do agree the most you can hope for at this point is a legal adult in every classroom.

Anonymous wrote:These people will get little support. Few people want to serve as mentors. They are already overloaded and the stipend is a few hundred $. Will FCPS help find the classes they need? This sounds more like, “You get the job, now figure the rest out on your own”.

It's always like this in FCPS!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:500 teachers needed one week before school. FCPS will fill classrooms with unskilled workers who don’t know the subject they are hired to teach and pay them $48K/year instead of paying up for real teachers.

SB in a race to the bottom.

No, it's the money, the micromanagement and the terrible student behaviors. I'm a few years in and decided to give it another year but this may be my last.

I'm many years in but this year may be the straw....things are already chaotic for returning teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Three years ago my daughter’s 10th grade Spanish teacher did not know a word of Spanish. He was a Russian teacher from a private school who subbed from October to the end of the school year. He just gave out dittos the other Spanish teachers used but never gave them back to the students because he couldn’t read them.

I’m so tired of this. (You’d think that in Fairfax County they could have at least found a Spanish speaker.)

Silverbrook ES?

10th grade.

Anonymous wrote:This is a nationwide issue. Paying the current teachers more will NOT solve the problem. Rooms will still be without teachers. I say, bring the warm bodies and then train them. At this point, we just need bodies. Let’s be honest, it’s not difficult to teach. You are given a curriculum which is a guide book. Plus, everything is available to you online.

It’s not really that simple. Add in assessments, data, CLTs, classroom management, etc and not everyone is up to the task.