I’ve posted this before. My kid is at RICA. RICA has teachers in the classroom to teach, para support to help those academically that need assistance, and the ability to call the office for support if a student is misbehaving. Support personnel remove the child and there are areas within the building where they can go to calm down.

The irony is that the behavior school has no behaviors in the classroom and teachers can actually teach.

It’s a really good model and I wish it could be expanded to all schools. I realize it costs a lot of money to have this much support in the classroom but it is so effective.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Smaller classes (which is near impossible without new buildings) A para in every class for discipline and crowd control. Academic tracking.

+100
Why can’t this be done? How can we parents make this happen?

All the surveys I have taken so far, have been utterly useless. No place to actually put this kind of feedback? Can we as parents petition for this?

How to make it happen? Realistically? Push back on the across-the-board pay increases that MCEA demands in order to free up more money for paras (pay and benefits).

Get rid of woke policies that put teacher and students in danger and make teaching nearly impossible.

*VP- vice principal
*implemented

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

We need TAs for the students who need help but we also need bouncers to get rid of the ones who don't want to learn. It's my dream to have a sweep of these students like in the movie Lean on Me. Get rid of them. Someone else (not the teachers) can offer alternatives for them but they need to be removed from the gen ed classroom.

Unfortunately, in public schools, you cannot get rid of students , per se. That is another big issue. I think having consequences where the child disrupting needs parents to pick them up- if it happens regularly, mandate psych eval and then go from there.

My DC 14 told me the other day that there are a couple of students that get detention / have to eat lunch with the VP every single day- doesn’t change a thing- behavior is still the same. So the consequences currently being implanted are not effective. The Board with parent input need to find more consistent and different consequences for disruptive behavior. Also, imo, it needs to be the same all across MCPS- no school and principal dependent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

We need TAs for the students who need help but we also need bouncers to get rid of the ones who don't want to learn. It's my dream to have a sweep of these students like in the movie Lean on Me. Get rid of them. Someone else (not the teachers) can offer alternatives for them but they need to be removed from the gen ed classroom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not harrassing and manipulating teachers is it's own incentive. In otherwords, we could do our jobs with autonomy and the system would be sued less and governed more fairly if admin positions simply did not exist.

😂🤣😂🤣. That would be a fun experiment to watch. They should actually simulate that out with teachers, parents and a facilitator across a couple weeks.

I’d like to see who would rise up to become the defacto admins, community chairs, and collaborators.

As long as the de facto admins remain teachers instead of stepping full-time into an office, the experiment would be a success.

It’s when people leave the classroom but continue to be “experts” that we fall into the mess we have now.

First you didn’t call for Admins to remain teachers you suggested getting rid of them all together.

Second was does remain teachers mean? One class, half a day, an AP class, what?

Third, what those defacto admin are going to find is that the pressures and expectations are different when you have to start making decisions that impact are whole lot of people. They are also going to find that there is a whole slew of things that need decisions, work, and reporting/compliance that teachers aren’t fully responsible for. And they are going to quickly find out that in a district the scale of MCPS, without some Admin who don’t have split focus, important things are going to be missed and lots of things are going to be done 200 different ways.

There’s a reason that when organization scale they start having management roles.

You are responding to two different posters. I called for making admin teach. Another poster called for removing admin all together.

Other countries make it work. Perhaps it’s time for us to consider smaller districts so the sheer size of MCPS isn’t an issue. I have a friend who is an “admin” overseas. She works with a group of teachers who run the school, but each person continues to teach a small set of classes. They not only make school-wide decisions, but they serve as models to younger teachers who are able to come observe their methods. Makes sense.

What we are doing right now isn’t working. I’ll be honest: I know my admin can’t do what I do every day. Some haven’t taught in 10-15 years, and a lot has changed since then. Teachers continue to gain experience and administrators don’t. It’s hard to look at them as leaders when they are adjacent to the classroom and not in it. They only superficially understand what current teachers are experiencing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

Public’s have to educate everyone. Privates don’t.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Smaller classes (which is near impossible without new buildings) A para in every class for discipline and crowd control. Academic tracking.

+100
Why can’t this be done? How can we parents make this happen?

All the surveys I have taken so far, have been utterly useless. No place to actually put this kind of feedback? Can we as parents petition for this?

Money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ nailed it

One more: respect from parents - free

Respect is earned. After watching you all during the pandemic, I have zero respect for how you handled yourselves. It was far worse than I could have ever imagined.

NP, and not a teacher.

Okay, then, you get what you get.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not harrassing and manipulating teachers is it's own incentive. In otherwords, we could do our jobs with autonomy and the system would be sued less and governed more fairly if admin positions simply did not exist.

😂🤣😂🤣. That would be a fun experiment to watch. They should actually simulate that out with teachers, parents and a facilitator across a couple weeks.

I’d like to see who would rise up to become the defacto admins, community chairs, and collaborators.

As long as the de facto admins remain teachers instead of stepping full-time into an office, the experiment would be a success.

It’s when people leave the classroom but continue to be “experts” that we fall into the mess we have now.

First you didn’t call for Admins to remain teachers you suggested getting rid of them all together.

Second was does remain teachers mean? One class, half a day, an AP class, what?

Third, what those defacto admin are going to find is that the pressures and expectations are different when you have to start making decisions that impact are whole lot of people. They are also going to find that there is a whole slew of things that need decisions, work, and reporting/compliance that teachers aren’t fully responsible for. And they are going to quickly find out that in a district the scale of MCPS, without some Admin who don’t have split focus, important things are going to be missed and lots of things are going to be done 200 different ways.

There’s a reason that when organization scale they start having management roles.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

At our ES the teacher has her hands full with 2-3 students with behavioral issues so the others just end up with busy work and little learning happens.

Anonymous wrote:Smaller classes (which is near impossible without new buildings) A para in every class for discipline and crowd control. Academic tracking.

+100
Why can’t this be done? How can we parents make this happen?

All the surveys I have taken so far, have been utterly useless. No place to actually put this kind of feedback? Can we as parents petition for this?

Anonymous wrote:What should the BOE and County Council do to keep teachers?

I’d say:
No income tax for any teacher after x#of years
No property tax for teachers who choose to live in MC after 5 years within county and x#years of teaching

What else?

As a parent in MCPS with so many behavior issues ( incl but not limited to ADHD), a teacher needs a TA in class. This can be someone who may only have a HS diploma, but is there to deal with kids that are misbehaving, so the teacher can focus on teaching the rest of the class. So much time in my child’s middle school is spent on dealing with the same half dozen kids ( in an entire day, different classes ) that are not listening, being obnoxious or disrupting class for other reasons.

Private schools would not tolerate these behaviors- so why are public schools tolerating it? It is so disruptive for children who want to study and learn. It is not the teachers fault - their hands are tied by what the admin will or will not do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ nailed it

One more: respect from parents - free

Respect is earned. After watching you all during the pandemic, I have zero respect for how you handled yourselves. It was far worse than I could have ever imagined.

Respect is earned but respond to parents emails, work with parents, communicate regularly and stop trying to be kids friends and oversharing.