Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those teachers buying your own supplies, do you have a decent PTA? Our PTA supplies snacks for teachers — if the teachers at our school are buying their own pencils and paper, I’d want to know and I’d chip in for those.

Why should basic supplies like pencils and paper be funded by the PTA (who can have widely different budgets depending on how wealthy the catchment area is)?? MCPS can by Chromebooks but not pencils and paper? Ridiculous.

I asked for paper donations at one point some years ago and a parent called admin and complained. I was called into the office, reprimanded for including copy paper on my list of “donations appreciated” items, and told to write an apology letter to the families for asking for such a thing. I responded by saying I would write the letter, but I would not be able to copy it and send it home in backpacks because THERE WAS NO PAPER. Now here we are again having to supply our own copy paper.

Screw that AP.

Anonymous wrote:For those teachers buying your own supplies, do you have a decent PTA? Our PTA supplies snacks for teachers — if the teachers at our school are buying their own pencils and paper, I’d want to know and I’d chip in for those.

+1000. I would vastly prefer receiving paper and pencils to receiving snacks - however, there are principals that wouldn't want their parents to know just how bad it is getting. We are all supposed to smile and pretend the ship is righted, even when it is listing far over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those teachers buying your own supplies, do you have a decent PTA? Our PTA supplies snacks for teachers — if the teachers at our school are buying their own pencils and paper, I’d want to know and I’d chip in for those.

Why should basic supplies like pencils and paper be funded by the PTA (who can have widely different budgets depending on how wealthy the catchment area is)?? MCPS can by Chromebooks but not pencils and paper? Ridiculous.

I asked for paper donations at one point some years ago and a parent called admin and complained. I was called into the office, reprimanded for including copy paper on my list of “donations appreciated” items, and told to write an apology letter to the families for asking for such a thing. I responded by saying I would write the letter, but I would not be able to copy it and send it home in backpacks because THERE WAS NO PAPER. Now here we are again having to supply our own copy paper.

So much in education now is not about learning in the classroom. It’s just endless CYA. Central office admin wants to avoid getting in trouble, investigations, parent complaints, lawsuits, testing. Very little has to do with learning objectives in the classroom.

At best, Admin would rather focus on keeping parents happy and moving kids through the pipeline than learning, performance and accountability.

I worked in DCPS almost 25 years ago & this reads like a list of my complaints from then. But, if you read Up the Down Staircase, these issues have been around a lot longer, I would guess since around the founding of large public school systems. Compounded by at least 25 years of vilifying teachers, demographic changes, higher standards/accountability (which is why they will never get rid of the pointless CYA paperwork). All I have to say is, THANK YOU, from an MCPS parent. Our kids are almost out of the system & we could not be more grateful. Hope you make it to 10 years to get your benefits & then switch to another career or private. Those pushing to gut public schools for decades are going to have a rude awakening when their wishes fully come true and folks like you leave en masse.

Not to derail too much but I’ve heard from a PTA previously that they wouldn’t supply those things because the schools should be providing them. Not the PTA.

Anonymous wrote:For those teachers buying your own supplies, do you have a decent PTA? Our PTA supplies snacks for teachers — if the teachers at our school are buying their own pencils and paper, I’d want to know and I’d chip in for those.

Why should basic supplies like pencils and paper be funded by the PTA (who can have widely different budgets depending on how wealthy the catchment area is)?? MCPS can by Chromebooks but not pencils and paper? Ridiculous.

For those teachers buying your own supplies, do you have a decent PTA? Our PTA supplies snacks for teachers — if the teachers at our school are buying their own pencils and paper, I’d want to know and I’d chip in for those.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to love my job but increasingly each year MCPS is changing things so that I hate it. It is soul sucking and I can't wait to leave. It's not the kids. It's not the actual job. It's the paperwork, the politics, feeling powerless. Surveys to ask my opinion on what I want changed but then nothing gets changed from what the teachers want. Having to pay for the water coolers, having to sign into staff meetings for attendance. Software that doesn't work or is glitchy.

On the plus side, MCPS is finally getting an online payroll system so I no longer will have to fill out a paper timesheet or leave slip

I will add having to buy our own copy paper to this list. WHY IS THERE NO PAPER AVAILABLE IN OUR BUILDING? I teach two classes of students, so every time I need to copy anything I use 50 pieces of paper. This is ridiculous. We never received pencils from our MCPS warehouse order this year (or last year). Now I’m buying pencils for my students as well.

Every PTA should investigate the supplies that have disappeared from schools. Then they should go to budget hearings and hold up signs saying supply pencil and paper for students for your school. Teachers don't make enough money to continually supply paper and pencils for students.

I worked in PGCPS, and we had to buy pencils. I took to purchasing short pencils (for golfers) and I managed to hold onto them. Otherwise, the students take them.

Anonymous wrote:Your situation sounds like every job I’ve had, including my first one, where I was paid less than teachers. I put in 10-12 hours or more a day, worked weekends, was on call during holidays, and had to represent myself as an expert to customers on a subject I had only cursory knowledge of….

But then imagine that at your job you have to work in a room of 20-30 people who don’t actually want to be there, constantly interrupt you, and then you get blasted on the internet by swaths of people for not doing enough. Oh and you can’t use the bathroom when you want.

My first job out of college also paid less than teachers when I started and I had ridiculously long hours. However, teaching is much harder than that job ever was even when I was sometimes at the office until midnight.

I actually love teaching and find it rewarding, but it is incredibly harder than a desk job for many reasons.

But.. The lesson Internalization protocol...

Anonymous wrote:I used to love my job but increasingly each year MCPS is changing things so that I hate it. It is soul sucking and I can't wait to leave. It's not the kids. It's not the actual job. It's the paperwork, the politics, feeling powerless. Surveys to ask my opinion on what I want changed but then nothing gets changed from what the teachers want. Having to pay for the water coolers, having to sign into staff meetings for attendance. Software that doesn't work or is glitchy.

On the plus side, MCPS is finally getting an online payroll system so I no longer will have to fill out a paper timesheet or leave slip

I will add having to buy our own copy paper to this list. WHY IS THERE NO PAPER AVAILABLE IN OUR BUILDING? I teach two classes of students, so every time I need to copy anything I use 50 pieces of paper. This is ridiculous. We never received pencils from our MCPS warehouse order this year (or last year). Now I’m buying pencils for my students as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So MCPS makes you put in the exact hours a day you are scheduled for and not the time you work? At my work they tell us to put in actual hours worked, which is always more than the scheduled time. No overtime pay, but they still want to know. And there is know what I'm putting in 8 hours when I'm actually working 10 or more. -Nonprofit employee

Yes. I think that’s why many of us are so incensed about the workload. We are reminded every two weeks we are only paid for so many hours and are not allowed to account for the actual hours worked.

Even though we are paid out our hourly rate for summer school or for certain trainings/events. As another former nonprofit employee, it really doesn’t sit well with me - this type of accounting.

Even if you are only paid of a certain amount of hours, someone still needs to know the full hours worked. That's what allows you to plan future initiatives properly and show need for additional resources. The BOE did a study this summer of the actual hours they put, maybe they should request one for Staff.

I used to love my job but increasingly each year MCPS is changing things so that I hate it. It is soul sucking and I can't wait to leave. It's not the kids. It's not the actual job. It's the paperwork, the politics, feeling powerless. Surveys to ask my opinion on what I want changed but then nothing gets changed from what the teachers want. Having to pay for the water coolers, having to sign into staff meetings for attendance. Software that doesn't work or is glitchy.

On the plus side, MCPS is finally getting an online payroll system so I no longer will have to fill out a paper timesheet or leave slip

Is there anything parents can do to advocate for fewer pointless meetings and less paperwork? It seems like that would be a relatively “easy” thing to fix, if there’s a will to do it.

(I’m guessing there’s not much we can do about the issue with kids coming in unprepared or needing more SPeD support — there just aren’t people willing to work those jobs is my impression.)