Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS had 93 unfilled full time teacher positions and 19 unfilled special ed positions as of Wednesday. Everybody demanding smaller class sizes and more funding—they can’t find people to fill the positions they already have! Forget adding new ones.

That's really disturbing. In fact, I would call it a crisis. As such, is there a plan to recruit high quality professionals to change careers with a fast-track certification plan?

As a teacher in another MD district, I don't think this would be a good use of funds. Many (and I'd love to know what the % is) teachers who go through these programs don't last very long. They need to make teaching a more attractive option for college students. Maybe they could start with the current teachers they have now. I wouldn't let my kids go into teaching the way it exists now.

That's interesting because many private school teachers have not completed teacher education programs but have content area expertise. Also, a lot of the people making a career change through these fast track programs provide not only real world experience in the classroom, but also have content area expertise. I've known several people who have made this career move and are very happy. They all made a very conscious decision to go into teaching, unlike a lot of 18 year olds who have no idea what teaching is really about and often leave the field quickly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS had 93 unfilled full time teacher positions and 19 unfilled special ed positions as of Wednesday. Everybody demanding smaller class sizes and more funding—they can’t find people to fill the positions they already have! Forget adding new ones.

That's really disturbing. In fact, I would call it a crisis. As such, is there a plan to recruit high quality professionals to change careers with a fast-track certification plan?

MCPS already has a fast-track certification plan: http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DEE/ProgramApproval/MAAPP/MAAPP_Directory_July_%202019.pdf

Are you a high-quality professional who is not a teacher? If so, would you change careers to become a teacher via the MCPS fast-track certification plan, if MCPS recruited you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Number of kids isn’ particularly meaningful by itself. Is there an aide? Is the teacher effective? How are the kids - a bunch of trouble makers? Those answers matter more.

Where do you live?

Aides? This is MCPS. There are no aides. One teacher per classroom. Even in K.

My K'er said there is some kind of aide in his class (shared among classrooms). Pretty sure my older kid didn't have one in K.

Anonymous wrote:Considering I always had 40-50 in my elementary school class my kids can handle 28.

Can you elaborate?

Was that here in the US? Did they have aides?

If it was here in the US, how many of those kids were English Language learners?

22

Considering I always had 40-50 in my elementary school class my kids can handle 28.

18

28 is close to the max.

22 in my kid's class at Pine Crest

Anonymous wrote:We went to the open house and our 3rd grader's class is BIG. 28 kids. I think the other 3rd grades are at 27 if I counted correctly. Didn't they put out guidelines a few years ago to decrease these class sizes? We really haven't seen much impact.

28-33 per ES class is par for the course in the blue ribbon schools. So are first year teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS had 93 unfilled full time teacher positions and 19 unfilled special ed positions as of Wednesday. Everybody demanding smaller class sizes and more funding—they can’t find people to fill the positions they already have! Forget adding new ones.

That's really disturbing. In fact, I would call it a crisis. As such, is there a plan to recruit high quality professionals to change careers with a fast-track certification plan?

As a teacher in another MD district, I don't think this would be a good use of funds. Many (and I'd love to know what the % is) teachers who go through these programs don't last very long. They need to make teaching a more attractive option for college students. Maybe they could start with the current teachers they have now. I wouldn't let my kids go into teaching the way it exists now.

Agree. Make teaching a more attractive option. Right now, it sucks! At least MCPS offers decent pay and benefits. But the classroom environment and lack of autonomy make it less attractive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS had 93 unfilled full time teacher positions and 19 unfilled special ed positions as of Wednesday. Everybody demanding smaller class sizes and more funding—they can’t find people to fill the positions they already have! Forget adding new ones.

That's really disturbing. In fact, I would call it a crisis. As such, is there a plan to recruit high quality professionals to change careers with a fast-track certification plan?

As a teacher in another MD district, I don't think this would be a good use of funds. Many (and I'd love to know what the % is) teachers who go through these programs don't last very long. They need to make teaching a more attractive option for college students. Maybe they could start with the current teachers they have now. I wouldn't let my kids go into teaching the way it exists now.

Anonymous wrote:These are the latest staffing guidelines:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/budget-101/pdf/FY2020-Staffing-Guidelines.pdf

Thank you! They make the guidelines so hard to find...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS had 93 unfilled full time teacher positions and 19 unfilled special ed positions as of Wednesday. Everybody demanding smaller class sizes and more funding—they can’t find people to fill the positions they already have! Forget adding new ones.

That's really disturbing. In fact, I would call it a crisis. As such, is there a plan to recruit high quality professionals to change careers with a fast-track certification plan?

It's not ideal, but not a crisis either. They will have long-term subs until the positions are filled permanently. There are over 13,000 teaching positions in MCPS, so that is a less than 1% vacancy rate.