You are making a couple of pretty big assumptions. My experience as a classroom teacher is very different. No parent would sue? I’m not so sure about that, particularly in priviledged and litigious MoCo. But, even if they don’t sue, they will stir up trouble for the teacher because, after all, their precious snowflake deserves to have her/his phone at all times! Teachers already don’t have enough time to do their jobs. They don’t need an additional time-consuming fight with some idiot parent complaining about their kid’s loss-of-phone “trauma.” In addition, you assume the school administrators will back the teacher who took the phone. All I can say to that is....LOL! LMAO! The teacher would be thrown under the bus in a split second. MOST administrators just want to placate the parents. That’s how the principals curry favor and move up to central office positions where they rarely have to deal with parents, teachers, or students, but can mandate what goes on in schools. Nice work, if you can get it?. MCPS needs a district-wide policy banning the use of cell phones during instruction. But...that will never happen because the school system’s “leadership” lacks both vision and guts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I am only allowed to tell students to put their phones away in class but I cannot enforce it. I am not allowed to take the phones away and the kids know it. So many of them ignore the rule (can’t blame them) and this is where we are. I can’t enforce the district mandated rules. I could call the AP and he can repeat the rules but he cannot physically take the phones away either.

This is true.

We were doing our MS tour and there were kids with their phones out. Now my kid is in 7th grade and kids have their phones all the time in class.

Is this really true? I thought teachers can take and hold phones during class if a students is being disruptive with it and does not put it away. Is it just a MCPS thing? I'm positive that many (most?) schools have strict cellphone rules.

Teachers have to do that at their own risk. Kids (or their parents) can say the phone was in perfect condition before the teacher took it and after the teacher gave it back it was broken or non functional and will insist that the school or teacher replace the phone. No way to prove it one way or the other, so it's not worth it to take it out of their possession.

Exactly no proof either way, so what? What would happen? No parent would sue over a phone their kid likely broke. These are little things where the school has control over, in particular possessions that do not belong in the classroom and should be put away. I think teachers need to stand up for more order in the classroom (maybe not the old days where they could hit/paddle kids, now that was arguably extreme) but I think this idea that a teacher would get in trouble for holding a kid's phone until the end of class period is ludicrous. I'm pretty sure nothing would happen to the teacher, after all think just how hard it is to get a poorly performing teacher removed from teaching a class...

Teaching as a job is miserable. I have good benefits and retirement which is why I stay (east coast, not DC). The parents provide excuse after excuse for the kids. Admin is awful. Forced to use canned scripted curriculum that is boring and stifles learning. Provided with next to nothing for supplies. I need to get vested in my pension and then figure out how to leave.

Oh, and our contract is routinely broken. We are not supposed to be scheduled for meetings (IEP, etc) on our singular prep period of the day yet it happens multiple times a year with no pay. Goes against the contract and happens constantly. I teach 160 students. This is not sustainable

There are already a million threads about teaching dissatisfaction on DCUM. Teachers tell it like it is, and trolls troll their opinions, as if they knew what they were talking about.
Yes, teaching is no longer the profession it once was...it's a litigious, dangerous, soul crushing, low pay job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I am only allowed to tell students to put their phones away in class but I cannot enforce it. I am not allowed to take the phones away and the kids know it. So many of them ignore the rule (can’t blame them) and this is where we are. I can’t enforce the district mandated rules. I could call the AP and he can repeat the rules but he cannot physically take the phones away either.

This is true.

We were doing our MS tour and there were kids with their phones out. Now my kid is in 7th grade and kids have their phones all the time in class.

Is this really true? I thought teachers can take and hold phones during class if a students is being disruptive with it and does not put it away. Is it just a MCPS thing? I'm positive that many (most?) schools have strict cellphone rules.

Teachers have to do that at their own risk. Kids (or their parents) can say the phone was in perfect condition before the teacher took it and after the teacher gave it back it was broken or non functional and will insist that the school or teacher replace the phone. No way to prove it one way or the other, so it's not worth it to take it out of their possession.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I am only allowed to tell students to put their phones away in class but I cannot enforce it. I am not allowed to take the phones away and the kids know it. So many of them ignore the rule (can’t blame them) and this is where we are. I can’t enforce the district mandated rules. I could call the AP and he can repeat the rules but he cannot physically take the phones away either.

This is true.

We were doing our MS tour and there were kids with their phones out. Now my kid is in 7th grade and kids have their phones all the time in class.

Is this really true? I thought teachers can take and hold phones during class if a students is being disruptive with it and does not put it away. Is it just a MCPS thing? I'm positive that many (most?) schools have strict cellphone rules.

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher in MCPS. I have not personally overheard anyone say they plan to leave. I will say that I am much happier teaching elective courses. Anyone teaching math or English looks perpetually exhausted by the testing, grading, and constant pressure from admin to improve scores. The number of kids who need remediation is staggering. So many kids cannot do basic math in their head or write a complete sentence. Usually, these are the same kids who seem to want to be constantly on their phones or seeking drama. I think we need to seriously consider holding kids back in the early grades to focus on the basics. I can only imagine the frustration encountered by elementary school teachers who need to teach all the basics.

I appreciate what the teachers must have to go through and appreciate all that teachers do. If it weren't for you all, I would have to home school, and that would be horrible, for both me and the kids.

I agree we need to hold kids back more, or at least offer more remedial classes. There's a fine line between providing more challenging material to students so that they are lifted vs providing too much challenge which they will not be able to meet. This is where the 50% grading rule comes in, I suppose. I can see some value in it, but I'm not so sure how much it's helping vs just passing the problem along.

What if you are paying the union to fight you as a teacher for your admins whim and fancy. Seems like a waste of hard earned dollars.

Anonymous wrote:Leaving the union isn't really in their interest, but sure it would help reduce benefits and pension costs.

This thread is about leaving the profession, not the union.

Only an idiot would stay in teaching, but drop their union membership.

Leaving the union isn't really in their interest, but sure it would help reduce benefits and pension costs.

I am a teacher in MCPS. I have not personally overheard anyone say they plan to leave. I will say that I am much happier teaching elective courses. Anyone teaching math or English looks perpetually exhausted by the testing, grading, and constant pressure from admin to improve scores. The number of kids who need remediation is staggering. So many kids cannot do basic math in their head or write a complete sentence. Usually, these are the same kids who seem to want to be constantly on their phones or seeking drama. I think we need to seriously consider holding kids back in the early grades to focus on the basics. I can only imagine the frustration encountered by elementary school teachers who need to teach all the basics.

Www.outschool.com

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my fifth and final year. I only came back this year to make sure some of my seniors graduate. I came to this school their freshman year and moved up each year with them. Some don't have good relationships with their parents, and I made a deal with them that I'd come back one last year if they promised not to drop out. I love the relationship aspect of teaching. Three fourths of them could not care less about the stuff we teach them. Why should they? Most of it is just busy work from a bygone era. The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that a lot of them don't have any other adult in their lives who care, and the day I call out might be the day when they really, really needed someone to talk to or talk them out of doing something dumb.

problem is . . . When you use up that much energy on your students, you have nothing left for your own kids.

My own son - 11 - said to me the other day, "If you quit this job, would you spend less time at your computer doing week?"

made me sad initially - But it was what I needed to hear to force me to look at other options. You have one chance to raise your own kids.

I really think that all depends on what job you have. There are plenty of other parents who are not teachers who spend a lot of time in front of their computers working. Think about the lawyers who spend 70 hours working + commuting.

Well, lawyers make a ton more money so the tradeoff is may be worth it. You can't evaluate any one aspect of the job in isolation.

If you love the job, that's great. But I would never work so many hours, leaving little time with my kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my fifth and final year. I only came back this year to make sure some of my seniors graduate. I came to this school their freshman year and moved up each year with them. Some don't have good relationships with their parents, and I made a deal with them that I'd come back one last year if they promised not to drop out. I love the relationship aspect of teaching. Three fourths of them could not care less about the stuff we teach them. Why should they? Most of it is just busy work from a bygone era. The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that a lot of them don't have any other adult in their lives who care, and the day I call out might be the day when they really, really needed someone to talk to or talk them out of doing something dumb.

problem is . . . When you use up that much energy on your students, you have nothing left for your own kids.

My own son - 11 - said to me the other day, "If you quit this job, would you spend less time at your computer doing week?"

made me sad initially - But it was what I needed to hear to force me to look at other options. You have one chance to raise your own kids.

I really think that all depends on what job you have. There are plenty of other parents who are not teachers who spend a lot of time in front of their computers working. Think about the lawyers who spend 70 hours working + commuting.

Well, lawyers make a ton more money so the tradeoff is may be worth it. You can't evaluate any one aspect of the job in isolation.

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I am only allowed to tell students to put their phones away in class but I cannot enforce it. I am not allowed to take the phones away and the kids know it. So many of them ignore the rule (can’t blame them) and this is where we are. I can’t enforce the district mandated rules. I could call the AP and he can repeat the rules but he cannot physically take the phones away either.

This is true.

We were doing our MS tour and there were kids with their phones out. Now my kid is in 7th grade and kids have their phones all the time in class.