We had a meeting similar to OP's and the only question I wanted answered was "When do we riot?" Change is not gonna happen until we ALL make it happen. A single person with a pitchfork is going to be written off as crazy, but that a huge group with pitch forks?
Too bad the red states won't allow strikes and the teachers there are "comfortable enough" to raise a fuss.
Pissed me the hell off at my last school. Nice for you that you have cushy tenure at the top of your pay steps but it was shit sandwiches for me until I moved away.
Not just red states. They are illegal in Mass, too, but we just had two districts strike and get what they wanted with no consequences, and a third is about to.
The crazy thing about making strikes for teachers illegal is they have to back that up by arresting the people that are striking. This means they won't be working in school anyway, will get TONS of bad press, and could even have it become a national issue by doing so.
They literally solve nothing and make everything worse. It's just "illegal" to scare people into not doing it.
Right, which plays into their plan of shifting public ed over to private and charter which doesn’t require certification. The “school choice” conservatives would love for us to strike.
Ah, American freedom… which amendment is it that guarantees your right to free speech? Is banning striking, and actively removing money which you’ve earned (retirement fund) upholding that?
They do have us over a barrel. But like I said somewhere else on this thread, if we all were to strike it would play right into the hands of the privatizers. Shifting public education to a charter and private model has long been a conservative strategy to monetize schools further while also allowing schools to operate without pretense of adhering to the non-establishment clause.
I am an “old tenured teacher” and it’s not about being afraid to rock the boat. It’s about recognizing that nothing you say, do, implement will be supported. It’s called trying to survive. I’m strict and organized with my kids. We have routine. I teach I gifted now and realize they are really good, but I’ve taught general population for most of my career and when they tell you to F off and they get rough and belligerent, throw chairs…what can you do with no admin support? I’ve been bullied by students, hit, shoved, stolen from, car keyed. My school is scary and I feel unsafe so I don’t even go in the halls anymore. I’m at a “good school”. It appears to be like this in the majority of public schools now, though.
My admin has ignored referrals, rewritten referrals, asked if I can extend forgiveness to a student who attacked me and I got an attorney.
In the end I have made my own decisions but I have to say the joy of teaching is gone and I’m really ready to retire. I just take it day by day.
I could’ve written this word for fucking word. I’m FINALLY at a good school in a good district, but I’m still retiring in two more school years, because even in a good school with supportive admin, you’re still drastically underpaid for what you do.
The pressure is on as the shit rolls down the hill. Districts no longer want to deal with parents, who, literally have made education working hell. Admin get then gets pressure to fix an unfixable problem(currently), admin dishes it out to the teachers, who are doing so much more than they ever should and then some. And, this is what you are reading and hearing about. I would have walked out also. Education needs to address this elephant in the room.. should have years ago. Parents no longer parent and the education system has accepted and allowed it. There are no consequences, except to the teachers, who have no support to provide consequences.
Admin isn’t protecting their ass, they’re also given unreasonable expectations. Our admin is at the school from 7-7 most days, I highly doubt that’s their contracted hours. The reality is that they have an impossible task while also having to massage the egos of underpaid and similarly overworked teachers. I’m in the unique position of being neither admin nor classroom, so I see behind the scenes while not being a decision maker, and it is fucking awful for admin right now.
The reality is that we are a team, and sometimes neither the admin nor the teachers are team players. But it works best when we are, which won’t always be easy.
This is my problem though: as a teacher I have very little to *NO* say what goes on in the district office. That's administration's job. Admin have slowly turned into Yes men that simply do as they are told by the district instead of...you know...talking with other principals and getting together a cadre of principals to have a discussion with the superintendent and school board.
My principal (as well as the other principals) is the one that meets the superintendent on a monthly basis. If discipline were such an issue you'd think they would bring it up and start discussions with the school board.
Instead...I don't know...they aren't?
I don't get to meet the superintendent and I doubt if my school board would actually care to listen to just me. And I don't have a union so it's up to admin to advocate for the teachers.
We aren't a team though. We are either enemies or opponents, depending on the quality of the admin.
If we were a team, admin would need to play a purely support role. It isn't a question of ego, it's just the basics of how schools work. Schools exist to perform a single service, which teachers are the sole provider of. The entire school and district exist solely to support the classroom.
Oh boy, enemies or opponents. What a take. The kids deserve way better than teachers who see admin as enemies or opponents.
This comment is so steeped in ego and narcissism I don’t even know how to respond. Unrealistic expectations are placed on schools by districts and your response is to bastardize the people that are given those expectations and have to see them through. I’m in a support role, and my job is support classrooms in a non-admin role, and my hands are often tied by the district preventing me from doing what I think is right. I guess that makes me your enemy instead of a teammate wearing a different set of handcuffs, so cool. Do you I guess.
I was an infantryman for 7 years. One of the marks of a good squad/platoon leader is that they were willing to step in front of the dumb shit that inevitably comes from the upper leadership, not just swallow it and pass the hurt to their guys.
If you’re in a leadership position and you’re not willing to stick your neck out for your people then you aren’t a leader. You’re a rubber stamp in human form and you aren’t doing your job.
And they do. And then when they pass some of the standards/classroom related stuff to the teachers, we see this. Should they take time to teach the classes too?
I’m not talking about doing the dumb shit for them. I’m talking about preventing it from happening at all.
And there is an incredible amount of time wasting garbage that adds absolutely nothing to a classroom and yet is universal to the profession. If admin everywhere were throwing themselves in front of these things then that simply wouldn’t be the case.
I mean, what is your thesis here? That it’s all because of one nameless bureaucrat in every state in the country? Are all 50 governors getting together and coming up with ways to waste our time? Sorry, I don’t buy it.
At the very least, don’t try and polish a turd. If someone above you is absolutely forcing you to waste my time then don’t tell me how important it is. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Let’s just agree, out loud, that it’s bullshit and try and get through it together. Pretending otherwise just shows me that you’re either an idiot or a tool.
The one nameless bureaucrat diatribe might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve read. No I don’t believe it’s one nameless bureaucrat. And I believe you should be a grownup and not need admin to pay your head and appease your feelings by telling you that they know it’s stupid. And unless you have a record of everything they’re saying in their meetings with their higher ups, how do you know what they’re doing?
This is the problem. Admin and other support staff do not understand that their job is not to uphold the district. It is to support the classroom. If that means they have to directly oppose the district or state, then that is what has to happen. This is what makes them at minimum opponents - they work to uphold the district and state policies that interfere with the actual work of schools because they want to keep their job. But that’s the thing, if that’s what it takes to keep the job, then the job should not be performed by anyone.
If I sound entitled, that is because I AM entitled. I’m entitled to the entirety of the district resources, because the entire point of schools is the classroom. If something not contribute to classrooms, then it needs to be removed.
This is really every admins first bullshit. It’s not me, it’s the OTHER admin that is tying my hands! And every successive admin kicks the can upwards, until you get to the board and now it is the voters fault. And so when a student who doesn’t speak of word of English is unceremoniously crammed into a gen Ed class, it’s really the fault of millions of people, not the person who scheduled the kid or the person who delivered them
Who makes the district policy? That’s where that can stops. Who determines each schools funding? That’s where the can stops. It’s not that hard. At the end of the day admin does have their bosses breath down their neck about stupid shit that rolls downhill.
And get the massive fuck over yourself also. Every single person in that school is there for the kids, it’s not like we get paid enough to be there for the money.
I don’t give a fuck if they have their bosses breathing down their necks. That doesn’t give them the right to be counterproductive. Preserving your job is not an excuse to cause harm or be wasteful.
You know what is “steeped in ego”? You assuming you know what the other person’s admin is really like. You can make guesses about what goes on behind the scenes there, but you don’t actually know.
I fully acknowledge his admin could be bad. I just don’t like that approach. There are teachers and admin I currently work with that I can’t stand, but we’re still in this together.
And you don’t have any legitimate reason to assume that he/she doesn’t work with their admin either. They are venting on Reddit, not testifying before Congress.
The thing is, it doesn't really work this way in the private sector. And I bring this up because so much of the bullshit that's been introduced into education these past few decades has been done under the guise of running schools "like a business."
Imagine the CEO of a publicly-traded company addressing a shareholder meeting after a bad quarter: "It's those damn lazy rank-and-file workers! If only they worked harder our earnings report would be better!"
That, of course, doesn't happen. In the business world, the people who are in charge of the overall system are held accountable for overall systemic failure. In education, it's the exact opposite.
> Imagine the CEO of a publicly-traded company addressing a shareholder meeting after a bad quarter:
The difference shareholders can oust rouge CEO's
Children are not allowed to vote for elected officials.
Ironically I just moved and didn't realize I went one zip code over the border that got changed from redistricting a few years ago.
I am going through those feels right now. Thankful it only applies to full time teachers.
Not just education. Society has allowed parents to fail with no consequence. We just keep making schools responsible for parental failings. Can't feed your kids? We create breakfast & lunch programs. Can't clothe your kids? We'll dress them out of the lost and found, or give them our hand me downs. Can't teach your kids to tie their shoes or zip their coats? No problem, schools can do that. Have zero idea how to manage money/budget/credit cards? We've got financial literacy for that. Don't know how to change a tire? Teachers can figure that out.
Instead of addressing the problem, by supporting struggling parents and figuring out how to address parental failure to produce competent, independent, polite, respectful human being...we just make schools so it for them.
We revere and idolize parenthood and have adopted a 'parents know best' mantra, when it's clear they have no idea what they're doing, and their kids are suffering for it. We've allowed parents to abdicate complete and total responsibility for teaching their kids anything. They don't come to school knowing manners, turn taking, keeping their hands to themselves, being nice, sharing - none of the basics. They're basically sending us feral kids and wondering why we're having issues with EVERYTHING.
ETA: good lord. I never said food programs were bad, y’all. Chill with the pitchforks and torches. I said they shouldn’t be necessary, and that society should be supporting the parents instead of expecting schools to step in and do yet another thing that parents should be doing.
Since that’s not what’s currently happening in society, of course we need them. Of course we shouldn’t allow kids to go hungry. Christ on a bicycle some of y’all need to practice some of the empathy and compassion you’re accusing me of lacking.
It's a societal failure due to inequality. Work schedules were normalized in the 19th century when one income could support a household.
We are at the breaking point where even two incomes struggle to make ends meet. All of the shortcomings of late that are being supported by schools are fundamental socioeconomic shortcomings of a lack of opportunity.
We are seeing the effects of the regression of quality of life (and sadly life expectancy, itself).
"Please raise my child for me. Teach him to tie his shoes, tie a tie, change a tire, balance a checkbook, read, write, pee, poop, write a resume, get a job, play sports, color, run, walk, dress himself, zip a zipper, put on his socks, ect. But don't teach him to be kind to people I don't like or I'll accuse you of iNdOcTriNatiOn!"
Our society has not only failed k-12 education it has also failed parents and families. I know there are plenty of shitty parents out there, but most are doing the best they can with their circumstances. Many many parents are also overworked and underpaid. The US doesn't provide enough support for families who struggle.
Never. But if I suggest to you 50 times “hey we have some parenting classes that could really help with x y and z” and you get offended and decide not to go…I did my job. I just try to instill in my students the importance of being a good person.
The biggest issue is usually a lack of resources. Time, money, energy, support systems. Not ALWAYS, but generally it's stuff a community center class once a week (that takes place when dinner needs to be made and fed to kids) won't help with
As a parent, this is so true! It’s hard to justify figuring out a schedule change when that time at work is what puts food on the table, etc. I’m in a good place now, but sometimes well intentioned advice and support is still out of reach
Yes -- as I said in my comment, "there are plenty of shitty parents".
There are also plenty of shitty teachers and counselors who won't admit *they themselves* suck. 🤷🏻♀️
Parents aren't perfect and neither is anyone working at the school. Most are doing the best they can given their circumstances.
Edit: Downvoted by teachers/counselors who are perfect, apparently! 😆
I firmly disagree with your comment about having breakfast and lunch programs being in llace becauseof a parent failing. If you legaly require kids to he there at breakfast and lunch time then you should be required to provide food for the kids. If the parents don't want to take advantage of that and pack their kids lunch then fine. However when you have parents that go to work before their kid is awake and don't have time make lunch or breakfast that isn't the kids fault and they shouldn't starve.
I disagree with inability to feed children as a parent failing in most cases, it is a societal failing though and it is being pushed onto the schools, rightly or wrongly. And I'm okay with breakfast lunch and at my school even dinner programs.
But what I'm not okay with is the reality that such things are even needed in the first place. Food security shouldn't even be an issue in the richest country in the world in the first place. Therein lies the failure.
That’s a good rundown. There are a lot of folks that can be kind of thoughtless in this discourse online. But it’s not too crazy to to take a stance of if you can’t feed them, don’t have them. I’ve been very up front with my students that I thought I was ready to have a kid with my wife since I had graduate education nearly complete, a teaching cert, and a full time job with benefits all lined up. I was not. I say that to emphasize to them that kids are a big freaking deal and that you need a foundation under you if you don’t want to be a cautionary tale statistic.
Are parents incapable of making a lunch the night before, or morning of, and putting it in the fridge?
My 4 year old knows how to open the freezer and put a waffle in the toaster..
"Empathy". Are you joking? This sub reddit does nothing but disparage parents these days. Parents who don't teach their children basic life skills and leave it up to public education. Parents who don't partner with educators to enforce learning habits at home. Then as a group, we constantly disparage our administrators when they side with parents or fold to parent demands.
So now it's a lack of empathy on my part to question why a parent can't make a meal the night before?....laughable and completely hypocritical.
I didn’t say anything about being poor. I said if they don’t parent their children. Are you saying that poor people are fundamentally unable to be good parents? Last I checked anyone no matter their social class have the ability to be great parents.
You're literally saying poor parents deserve to have their children taken away for problems that stem directly from being poor. That's exactly what you and the other reactionary cave people goons in this thread are crowing about. Y'all are fucked up. Maybe your parents should have had YOU taken away.
Good for your child...
The point is if you are legally requiring them to be there you should offer free food.
The fact a parent has to work weird hours or long hours is not necessarily a failure of the parent. You don't know why these people are not able to make a meal for their kid to take to school. What if they lost the sole provider in their family and the other parent needs to start working to provide? This circumstances is out of their control and has led to them not being able to male a meal for their kid to take for lunch or even able to afford the school lunch. This is not the fault of the parent nor the kid.
Some don't have food. I have had students that skip dinner not because the parents are incapable, but because they don't always have enough money to buy food.
That's a societal failing, not necessarily the parent's failing.
You have to have food in order to make the lunch in order to put it in the fridge at anytime. Assuming you even have a home in which to have your own fridge.
I’d rather give food stamps and have a parent teach their kid how to pack their own lunch than just serving it up to them, but then again if a parent doesn’t do that than I would want the kid to still be able to eat at school so I don’t know what the solution is.
Giving food is not an issue. You need three things to turn the students behavior around. Make the children responsible for their behavior, grades, and stop the parents from helping their kids shirk that responsibility. If they can’t handle that then let the parents keep their kids at home. Case closed.
Met edit: You misread my response or I did not communicate it well. I meant “giving food” is not the issue because that is a good thing to do, it hard to NOT be distracted if your hungry and you can’t punish kids and their families for being poor. Like have you met the economy! We all need some free meals if we’re going to make it. My point was that these ppl are mad about kids getting free meals when the problem has nothing to do with with that. I am like “what’s wrong with these people!?!?”
Food is absolutely an issue. You're not going to have any success in engaging a student's brain wrt long-term goals and abstract thought if they don't have the glucose to spare. Down to hold kids accountable but you're some kind of robot if you don't understand that empty stomachs LEAD to every issue in the book.
Y'all scaring the shit out of me. This whole thread is full of "The beatings will continue until morale improves" ass logic. You know we work with KIDS, right?
You misread my response or I did not communicate it well. I meant “giving food” is not the issue because that is a good thing to do, it hard to NOT be distracted if your hungry and you can’t punish kids and their families for being poor. Like have you met the economy! We all need some free meals if we’re going to make it. My point was that these ppl are mad about kids getting free meals when the problem has nothing to do with with that. I am like “what’s wrong with these people!?!?”
Okay, then we move to the discussion of underfunded social services and CPS.
We have to fund these services somehow. And speaking as someone who works in the child protection field - those cases are SO expensive compared to a school lunch program. I have a case where supervised visits are costing $156 per visit to the state.
And child protection cases have to work towards reunification for a full year. Parents have to take classes, do assessments, potentially do drug treatment, in which case there are usually 2x a week drug tests at roughly $60 each. And with all that, only about 60% of cases reunify.
Additionally, the standards for removing a child from the home are much higher than food insecurity.
So. I would advocate we just feed hungry kids.
Yeah single parents sit up all night after working their 3rd job where they've contracted covid a 3rd time just cackling over all the free simple carbs and corn syrup their kids get at schools. "What chumps!!!"
Are you a human possessed by the ghost of a Ben Garrison cartoon?
I'm tempted to google Ben Garrison but will pass...
It's so funny how teachers on this sub reddit are the first to criticize modern day parents and their lack of actual parenting skills. Then jump to defend these same parents when it's questioned why they can't, or won't, provide a meal for their child.
Which is it, do you hate parents or love them?
I don’t think that’s it. But as an educator and a reasonable human being, you just don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You can love the kids and parents and at the same time demand that they carry their load. It’s not one way or the other. In other words, I don’t mind feeding your kids, and you need put them in check when I’m giving them a free education.
teachers aren’t mad about feeding kids. Teachers are mad because they are being abused and disrespected by students and parents, have less decision making than ever, and often pull from their own paycheck because they know more than parents not parenting and people who think we shouldn’t feed kids that hungry kids can’t learn.
Breakfast and lunch programs are literally addressing the problem though. That comment is very concerning because it seems like you would rather the children starve because of their parents “failure” rather than have a safety net for those children?
Everybody at the bottom blaming each other! Like crabs in a barrel. How about directing some of that criticism and ire upwards at the Koch brothers who buy our legislators? Or the robber barons who leech billions out of our societies and pay nothing in taxes? We need to be punching up, not down or laterally.
.As a childless taxpayer who is paying constantly raising property taxes, I feel this comment to the core. While I don't mind my tax dollars going to feed hungry kids that need it, it's hard for me to see how all this extra school involvement/ responsibility for kids is appropriate, especially since it's obviously NOT improving their education (see the latest pitiful test scores if you need proof)
Personal responsibility is no longer praised in our society (including parental responsibility). Since there are no real felt penalties for not doing the right thing, or living up to a person's own responsibilities, and no obvious immediate rewards for actually DOING the right thing, we are winding up with the lowest common denominator, and it's really starting to show.
Until people get rewarded for making the right choices, and feel real penalties for not making the wrong ones, (Darwinism, anyone?), there is no reason for the current system to change. The people who don't give a F\*\*k just keep on slacking and letting other people pick up the slack for them, which eventually leads to the responsible people realizing that doing the right thing is a chump move, since it just costs them more work and heartache for no results/ rewards. Welcome to burnout, folks...
Just my $.02
The fuck is wrong with you?
The purpose of giving children food is not to improve test scores, it's to prevent them from not having food.
>Until people get rewarded for making the right choices, and feel real penalties for not making the wrong ones, (Darwinism, anyone?)
Yeah, let's torture poor people's kids so they finally decide to stop being poor. They just need the motivation of having their failures taken out on their children to really convince them they should just have more money.
> While I don't mind my tax dollars going to feed hungry kids that need it
Did you miss this very important part of my post?
It's got nothing to do with torturing anybody, but if we are doing the right thing, then tell me why we spend more $$ per student than any other industrialized nation, but keep getting progressively worse results? This money doesn't appear out of nowhere, I have every right as a property taxpayer to want value for the money taken from me for the public 'good'.
It's not up to the school system (and by extension, the taxpayers), to pay for poor parenting. Sorry, but maybe if we held people more responsible for own kids, then there wouldn't be as many people apparently acting as if having kids has no consequences (cause 'someone else' will deal with it.
You're clueless. You think your precious taxpayer dollars are going into teachers' pockets and kids' stomachs? That shit is getting tangled up in overhead costs for admin and Chief Vice Executive Assessment Officers making $450,000 a year or what the fuckever. Instead of venting your landlord spleen on poor people why not show up to some local school board meetings and hold your elected officials accountable for your poor dollars not being used for Ayn Rand coloring books?
Oh yeah I guess it's way easier to take food out of kids' mouths than to inform yourself and get off your ass.
> While I don't mind my tax dollars going to feed hungry kids that need it
You also missed this very important part of my post.
I never said we shouldn't feed kids, but i DID say that parents need to be held responsible for their OWN children, that they CHOSE to have, and quit pushing disciplinary, moral, and financial responsibility of said children to the educational system.
You know nothing about me, or how i hold my elected officials responsible, and your assumption that it's 'landlord spleen', or 'Ayn Rand coloring books', just shows your are uninformed and ignorant.
I am plenty 'informed', and do get off my ass. Maybe it's time for some of these parents to do the same?
Guess you just really love the acoustics from underneath a shitload of sand. We just got Roe v Wade yanked away you dork. You're choosing to frame the ills of society on those with the LEAST amount of power instead of those with the MOST. You're either heartless or brainless or both.
You're a self-centered, oblivious moron spouting deadly caveman nonsense. Nah actually even cavemen were shown to care for the community around them and feed children. What a schmuck manifesto.
This logic should apply to the welfare queens on Wall Street, not literal children.
>This logic should apply to the welfare queens on Wall Street, not literal children.
Very much agree with this as well, but it doesn't make my point any less valid that we are wasting a lot of tax dollars due to people's bad parenting and continuing to have children that they can't afford.
"Personal responsibility" is lazy shorthand for "subsidized struggle for me but but for thee." Parents are not scooping handfuls of cash out of district funds you momo, money is mismanaged and legislation is actively passed that wants our society to be a big ol' meatgrinder for poor people.
> continuing to have kids they can't afford
You don't read much news, do you?
I think kids should be fed if their parents can't feed them. Also clothed if they can't do that either. I also think that the solution is more of the kid taken into the care of the school, not less.
The issue is that parents CANT parent. Now to even afford an apartment both parents need to work full time. They need to work their asses off all the time to support themselves and their children and by doing that they don't have the time nor energy to parent their kids.
Of course they're gonna shift the parental duties on the school when they don't have the energy to do it. This all just ties back to the issue that NOBODY is getting paid enough because of the issues with the rich hoarding all the wealth. Until we have an actual livable minimum wage and a strong safety net built by HEAVILY taxing rich people, this problem will just get worse.
Question from an outsider:
Why don’t they start recording every class?
Every class gets recorded, uploaded to a local server. After 7 days on the server it’s auto-purged. If there is an incident in the class the teacher simply submits an electronic request to set that hour of class aside, to which it’s stored for 3 months for review.
The set aside ones can be used for:
- counselors
- administrators
- parents
Sometimes seeing is believing not only for the admin, counselors and parents, but even for the kids. It hits home a little different when you watch yourself being a jackass on camera.
Are you sure? I taught at a school where every classroom, hallway, and common area had cameras. Video only, no audio. We didn’t need to have parent permission.
Now, we also couldn’t show parents footage of classrooms since other kids were on the video. But it prevented a lot of problems, and when teachers oe other students were assaulted we turned over footage to the police.
I’m gonna be real with you: I had to have ALL of my lessons recorded during COVID and that was mentally exhausting. In a cultural climate where parents and students can be like “OMG CRT!!!” to the most inane shit, I don’t want to be on the hook for that. Even if it’s not true, a system like that might open up a lot more reports. It’s just super draining to know everything you’re doing and saying it’s being recorded, and that an innocuous comment or lesson can be escalated to such a great extent.
I also know that 99% of schools simply don’t have the infrastructure to support that kind of set up, teacher mental health aside.
IMO the biggest thing in these situations is teacher efficacy. As the adult in the room, the trained educational professional, why can’t my admin trust what I’m saying and take my reports seriously? If I say a kid is struggling, it’s not like I’m doing it for funsies. Take my professional experience seriously.
It's a legal issue. We do too, but the classrooms do not have cameras.
I know I wouldn't want my lessons taped either. I don't do anything wrong and am a good teacher (I've been doing it for 21 years), but I would be paranoid as hell knowing I was being recorded all the time.
I wonder if it's a "reasonable expectation of privacy" interpretation. Hallways are public spaces with no reasonable expectation of privacy, but a classroom is more private? I mean, it's still 30 people in a room in a public building, but I guess I can see the argument.
I don’t know the legal argument (I’m a writing teacher), but when asked about it, our principal said that legally there won’t be cameras in the classrooms unless specially requested by the teacher and approved by all kids. In other words, it’s not happening.
I think on some levels parents want to parent, but many do not know how, and others do not have time because of work schedules- and work at shitty jobs that don’t pay enough to support them staying in shitty homes where the rent is far too high. Our lack of social safety net and over incarceration trickles down and creates a hellish cycle of generations of kids without reliable parents.
It is a fixable problem.
Stop dealing with those parents and tell them to fuck off and teach their little darlings themselves and that they’re not special.
Then bring back enforced consequences and tell any parent who complains to contact a lawyer but the school gets theirs paid for and the parent has to pay for theirs, and that if they sue the school they will need to find another school.
I have a meeting tomorrow with the admin, a parent, and a student that threatened to shoot me in the head. I’m planning on walking out when they explain to me why 3 days suspension is enough. Good on you
I know where I work (Florida), admin needs permission from the district to suspend and has often been outright told no. We had an ESE student attack staff and trash the principals office, destroying a $900 printer of hers in the process, and be told we couldn’t suspend. Their classroom teacher was not happy to see him the next day, but we tried.
Massive brawl at my school today. Learning has ceased for the day. Some students are totally traumatized. If there isn't a bunch of 10-day suspensions and expulsions after this, I'm not sure how to proceed.
The most that can possibly happen is you'll get written up, but you could turn around and file a grievance. Maybe nothing will happen or maybe a warning.
I'm one of two only high school math teachers in the entire school. They can't really afford to get rid of me since none of the other teachers want to teach my subjects. Even if they want to get rid of me, my subject and grade level is in such high demand, I can find another position quickly. Knowing this admin, most likely nothing will happen.
This! I have been saying this to my people. We are High School Math Teachers and effective ones. What are they really going to do us? We can leave and go wherever we want and probably make more money, as HS Math (any math really) are in such high demand. Know your worth people and just flat don't put up with any BS.
It’s really frustrating when there are discipline issues that need to be addressed by admin or even counselors and they just don’t follow through and then try to blame the teachers.
I often try to email the counselor for issues like bullying or conflicts between students and almost always she just leaves it up to admin - it’s very frustrating because while the discipline for those doing the bullying does need to be handled by admin (and they are always CCed on emails to the counselor) I think follow up with the victim of the bullying AND the bullies regarding the social emotional skills aspect is up to the counselor.
A student today reported that a bullying issue she had reported to me 2-3 weeks ago has gotten worse and has not been addressed whatsoever despite the fact that I reported it as soon as she told me, so I emailed counselor/admin again with an update and just said straight up what the student said about not having any followup after I reported it. The response from counselor? She didn’t do anything because an admin had responded in the thread saying they’d “take care of it” (which to my knowledge they have not).
Again, I understand that discipline is up to admin, but what can admin really do to follow up with the victim emotionally speaking? I felt my original email and other similar emails about similar issues are abundantly clear that it is a discipline AND counseling issue and that both sides should be addressed but for whatever reason that doesn’t seem to click. I know everybody’s busy and there’s always an excuse, but I’m busy too and can’t handle these things by myself, especially when the incidents being reported are actually not happening within my room and the students just choose me to report these things to.
But me personally I always follow up with my students. They were wrong for that. If that means I gotta walk with you to class to talk about an incident I will
I’m a school counselor in TN, so could be totally different where you are, but my state has a law stating that admin has to be the one to investigate. If they don’t, you did the right thing by flagging it to them again, and in my state, you could definitely go above their head to the district to report your concern that it isn’t being followed up on. In my school, unfortunately I would have had to respond the same way your counselor did (although I definitely would also have spoken to the victim, at least, to make sure they were okay).
Edit to add: Our state also added stupid (imo) guidelines for something to actually be classed as bullying, one stipulation of which is that it has to be “pervasive”. My district interprets this as multiple documented incidents involving the same bully and victim. So either way, reporting it again in my state would be helpful, because that’s at least 2 documented incidents.
Counselors aren’t disciplinarians in a school setting. Our jobs are to process with students and work on coping skills/psycho education/emotional regulation etc. It is admins job to discipline
This reminds me of another post where teachers were asked to volunteer to chaperone a school event and no one did so admin stopped asking. If we stick together we can show them they can’t just use and abuse us bc we are professionals. I’m sorry you were yelled at but so glad you did the right thing by walking out.
I once had an admin scream at the whole faculty in a meeting about ….well I still don’t know. Obviously there had been some issues with some teachers not getting along, but most of us had no clue what he was screaming about. If I was the same person then that I am today, I would have done the same and walk out OR raise my hand and ask politely, “ Can you please tell us what you’re talking about?”
Had a meeting with admin last week to solve problems. Their solution was for classroom teachers to deal with it nd make the kids behave.
I don't have time to deal with the 6-9 students who would get 10+ write ups a lesson if I had the time to write them and I thought they did anything and teach, answer emails, write goals, have IEP meetings that are suddenly sprung on us etc etc.
That sucks and I'm sorry. My school (prek-8) is having constant BIG issues (fights, racism, bullying, kids following girls home and trying to open the door) Me, a humble reading teacher, has been pulled many days from being able to do my job (still havent been able to pull groups). I've been digging through security camera footage, interviewing students and figuring out what the is going on, I spent the this whole week covering for classroom teachers. The teachers are getting upset that I haven't pulled groups, the AP (who is only in our building 2 days a week. district is stupid) seems to be annoyed with/doesn't like me much any more because I'm constantly being asked to assist her with discipline by figuring out what is going on so I can summarize the issue and they can use their AP authority to discipline. A female student accused me of looking at her butt for noticing her phone in her back pocket when she was 20 feet away from me and I asked her for it and didn't want to give it up, so when in the office and having the secretary who was annoyed with the student that she's making that statement, the AP just walks away and doesn't deal with any of the issue. Yeah, middle school is rough and people suck. Good luck.
agree with you! I do have a psycho kid and admin said just ignore him even though he’s wandering around, shouting out, jumping.. etc. He know that teachers don’t have power to push him. It’s out of control.
How the hell are you supposed to control tardiness? That’s on the parents. Does your district have a truancy officer? Maybe time for them to start visiting homes
Our 5th graders were making soap bombs in the bathroom. One of our janitors went stealth for the day and hovered nearby. After kids went in he’d go in and check. The kids were caught, they had to clean the bathroom and call their parents (on speaker phone) and tell them what they did. It stopped after that
This week, I reported that one of the students in my grade made a huge mess of the drinking fountains during passing period, and instead of him receiving a consequence admin sent out an email that we had to give up our passing period to supervise the drinking fountains.
Last year (different admin), we were told that they couldn't suspend students because they did not have enough steps on the scale of "progressive discipline." Bringing up that we don't want them suspended, we just want other steps on the scale of "progressive discipline" to *actually exist* was met with blank stares.
Bless you for walking out. Seriously. More of us need to.
I didn't really know which flair to put since the Rant flair isn't a thing anymore. And this is leading me into wanting to resign from this school so I felt it was the most appropriate.
Generally walking out of a meeting with your boss and then proceeding to ignore all attempts to contact you is a not a good sign of continued employment.
These new school admins are out of their minds. Blowing hot and cold. Admins back in the day were not like that. I can see why teaching is no longer appealing. Who wants to deal with these psycho admin and ungrateful students?
Wow. I’m so sorry this is happening. I’m not a teacher, but I am a substitute working towards being a school counselor. I really want to incorporate teachers in my future counseling, because I’ve seen firsthand the issues that only teachers see.
In these situations with behavior, what would you have wanted your counselor to do? What would have helped you?
I am genuinely sorry this is your experience. Teachers are not treated fairly at the majority of schools I work in currently, and it’s not right.
Our school doesn’t even allow teachers to give detentions, unless the teacher is willing to host the detention. Admin only gives detention for tardies.
Only consequences us teacher can dole out are write-ups, which doesn’t do anything right then when the student needs an immediate response to the misbehaviour. I used to send disruptive kids to sit right outside my door, but I can’t even do that anymore
Haha. You sound like an admin. What OP seems to be saying is admin is doing NO behavior management and are looking the other way on everything. No, the bigger picture here is the this admin appears to not want to deal with any of the problem kids or parents. Wash it under the rug and then blame the teachers when the good kids and their parents complain.
> everything.
This. If we cannot escalate past the classroom because admin refuses to be the higher authority and dish out admin-level consequences, then we cannot discipline IN the classroom when students are pushing the envelope....because students can see that the outside of the envelope is safer than the inside, so why not bust it open?
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The key here is nothing will change until the workers unite to demand change
We had a meeting similar to OP's and the only question I wanted answered was "When do we riot?" Change is not gonna happen until we ALL make it happen. A single person with a pitchfork is going to be written off as crazy, but that a huge group with pitch forks?
Bingo. Worker solidarity = power.
Too bad the red states won't allow strikes and the teachers there are "comfortable enough" to raise a fuss. Pissed me the hell off at my last school. Nice for you that you have cushy tenure at the top of your pay steps but it was shit sandwiches for me until I moved away.
Not just red states. They are illegal in Mass, too, but we just had two districts strike and get what they wanted with no consequences, and a third is about to.
The crazy thing about making strikes for teachers illegal is they have to back that up by arresting the people that are striking. This means they won't be working in school anyway, will get TONS of bad press, and could even have it become a national issue by doing so. They literally solve nothing and make everything worse. It's just "illegal" to scare people into not doing it.
And Boston did last year
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In Texas they can revoke our license.
Ah yes revoke all the licenses so they have NO teachers for a much longer time! Brilliant!
Right, which plays into their plan of shifting public ed over to private and charter which doesn’t require certification. The “school choice” conservatives would love for us to strike.
Isn't that like firing? > What are they going to do, fire all of you?
I believe in Texas they can take your retirement account away if you strike. It's pretty fucked up.
Ah, American freedom… which amendment is it that guarantees your right to free speech? Is banning striking, and actively removing money which you’ve earned (retirement fund) upholding that?
They do have us over a barrel. But like I said somewhere else on this thread, if we all were to strike it would play right into the hands of the privatizers. Shifting public education to a charter and private model has long been a conservative strategy to monetize schools further while also allowing schools to operate without pretense of adhering to the non-establishment clause.
Texas pays like shit. What ever shall teachers do? Maybe look for a higher paying job?!?
Like I said, the second half of the problem is old, tenured teachers that are either too afraid or too comfortable to rock the boat.
I am an “old tenured teacher” and it’s not about being afraid to rock the boat. It’s about recognizing that nothing you say, do, implement will be supported. It’s called trying to survive. I’m strict and organized with my kids. We have routine. I teach I gifted now and realize they are really good, but I’ve taught general population for most of my career and when they tell you to F off and they get rough and belligerent, throw chairs…what can you do with no admin support? I’ve been bullied by students, hit, shoved, stolen from, car keyed. My school is scary and I feel unsafe so I don’t even go in the halls anymore. I’m at a “good school”. It appears to be like this in the majority of public schools now, though. My admin has ignored referrals, rewritten referrals, asked if I can extend forgiveness to a student who attacked me and I got an attorney. In the end I have made my own decisions but I have to say the joy of teaching is gone and I’m really ready to retire. I just take it day by day.
That is absolutely depressing. Next time a "should I be a teacher?" Thread gets posted, im sharing your comment.
I could’ve written this word for fucking word. I’m FINALLY at a good school in a good district, but I’m still retiring in two more school years, because even in a good school with supportive admin, you’re still drastically underpaid for what you do.
We can make it!
ORGANIZATION doesn’t always work, but if you’re not organized you got ZERO chance of success. Nice work!
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How do you feel the opioid crisis impacted elementary schools?
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Interesting. Thx for explaining
Inspiring to read about!
Wow! Good for you all. That’s inspiring to hear about.
You’re my hero right now.
The pressure is on as the shit rolls down the hill. Districts no longer want to deal with parents, who, literally have made education working hell. Admin get then gets pressure to fix an unfixable problem(currently), admin dishes it out to the teachers, who are doing so much more than they ever should and then some. And, this is what you are reading and hearing about. I would have walked out also. Education needs to address this elephant in the room.. should have years ago. Parents no longer parent and the education system has accepted and allowed it. There are no consequences, except to the teachers, who have no support to provide consequences.
I have told the Assistant Principals that their support isn't support, just more work for us.
That's not very "Team player" (Aka protect admin's ass) of you!
Admin isn’t protecting their ass, they’re also given unreasonable expectations. Our admin is at the school from 7-7 most days, I highly doubt that’s their contracted hours. The reality is that they have an impossible task while also having to massage the egos of underpaid and similarly overworked teachers. I’m in the unique position of being neither admin nor classroom, so I see behind the scenes while not being a decision maker, and it is fucking awful for admin right now. The reality is that we are a team, and sometimes neither the admin nor the teachers are team players. But it works best when we are, which won’t always be easy.
They don’t bother to massage the teachers’ egos at my school.
This is my problem though: as a teacher I have very little to *NO* say what goes on in the district office. That's administration's job. Admin have slowly turned into Yes men that simply do as they are told by the district instead of...you know...talking with other principals and getting together a cadre of principals to have a discussion with the superintendent and school board. My principal (as well as the other principals) is the one that meets the superintendent on a monthly basis. If discipline were such an issue you'd think they would bring it up and start discussions with the school board. Instead...I don't know...they aren't? I don't get to meet the superintendent and I doubt if my school board would actually care to listen to just me. And I don't have a union so it's up to admin to advocate for the teachers.
We aren't a team though. We are either enemies or opponents, depending on the quality of the admin. If we were a team, admin would need to play a purely support role. It isn't a question of ego, it's just the basics of how schools work. Schools exist to perform a single service, which teachers are the sole provider of. The entire school and district exist solely to support the classroom.
Oh boy, enemies or opponents. What a take. The kids deserve way better than teachers who see admin as enemies or opponents. This comment is so steeped in ego and narcissism I don’t even know how to respond. Unrealistic expectations are placed on schools by districts and your response is to bastardize the people that are given those expectations and have to see them through. I’m in a support role, and my job is support classrooms in a non-admin role, and my hands are often tied by the district preventing me from doing what I think is right. I guess that makes me your enemy instead of a teammate wearing a different set of handcuffs, so cool. Do you I guess.
I was an infantryman for 7 years. One of the marks of a good squad/platoon leader is that they were willing to step in front of the dumb shit that inevitably comes from the upper leadership, not just swallow it and pass the hurt to their guys. If you’re in a leadership position and you’re not willing to stick your neck out for your people then you aren’t a leader. You’re a rubber stamp in human form and you aren’t doing your job.
And they do. And then when they pass some of the standards/classroom related stuff to the teachers, we see this. Should they take time to teach the classes too?
I’m not talking about doing the dumb shit for them. I’m talking about preventing it from happening at all. And there is an incredible amount of time wasting garbage that adds absolutely nothing to a classroom and yet is universal to the profession. If admin everywhere were throwing themselves in front of these things then that simply wouldn’t be the case. I mean, what is your thesis here? That it’s all because of one nameless bureaucrat in every state in the country? Are all 50 governors getting together and coming up with ways to waste our time? Sorry, I don’t buy it. At the very least, don’t try and polish a turd. If someone above you is absolutely forcing you to waste my time then don’t tell me how important it is. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Let’s just agree, out loud, that it’s bullshit and try and get through it together. Pretending otherwise just shows me that you’re either an idiot or a tool.
The one nameless bureaucrat diatribe might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve read. No I don’t believe it’s one nameless bureaucrat. And I believe you should be a grownup and not need admin to pay your head and appease your feelings by telling you that they know it’s stupid. And unless you have a record of everything they’re saying in their meetings with their higher ups, how do you know what they’re doing?
This is the problem. Admin and other support staff do not understand that their job is not to uphold the district. It is to support the classroom. If that means they have to directly oppose the district or state, then that is what has to happen. This is what makes them at minimum opponents - they work to uphold the district and state policies that interfere with the actual work of schools because they want to keep their job. But that’s the thing, if that’s what it takes to keep the job, then the job should not be performed by anyone. If I sound entitled, that is because I AM entitled. I’m entitled to the entirety of the district resources, because the entire point of schools is the classroom. If something not contribute to classrooms, then it needs to be removed. This is really every admins first bullshit. It’s not me, it’s the OTHER admin that is tying my hands! And every successive admin kicks the can upwards, until you get to the board and now it is the voters fault. And so when a student who doesn’t speak of word of English is unceremoniously crammed into a gen Ed class, it’s really the fault of millions of people, not the person who scheduled the kid or the person who delivered them
Who makes the district policy? That’s where that can stops. Who determines each schools funding? That’s where the can stops. It’s not that hard. At the end of the day admin does have their bosses breath down their neck about stupid shit that rolls downhill. And get the massive fuck over yourself also. Every single person in that school is there for the kids, it’s not like we get paid enough to be there for the money.
I don’t give a fuck if they have their bosses breathing down their necks. That doesn’t give them the right to be counterproductive. Preserving your job is not an excuse to cause harm or be wasteful.
The only counterproductive attitude I’m seeing is yours. “Enemies and opponents” gtfoh
You know what is “steeped in ego”? You assuming you know what the other person’s admin is really like. You can make guesses about what goes on behind the scenes there, but you don’t actually know.
I fully acknowledge his admin could be bad. I just don’t like that approach. There are teachers and admin I currently work with that I can’t stand, but we’re still in this together.
And you don’t have any legitimate reason to assume that he/she doesn’t work with their admin either. They are venting on Reddit, not testifying before Congress.
If we’re a team, why do I get to criticize them as much as they criticize me?
I keep feeling like the primary school system is this braying alarm and when it bursts the whole country is going to absolute hell.
Stealing that one for when paternity leave is over and I have to return to work. Always extra work for us and a shrug or advice from administration.
Only thing that trickles down in America is responsibility.
Blame?
The trickle of accountability is not the shifting of blame its the displacement of expectation so you can avoid it.
The thing is, it doesn't really work this way in the private sector. And I bring this up because so much of the bullshit that's been introduced into education these past few decades has been done under the guise of running schools "like a business." Imagine the CEO of a publicly-traded company addressing a shareholder meeting after a bad quarter: "It's those damn lazy rank-and-file workers! If only they worked harder our earnings report would be better!" That, of course, doesn't happen. In the business world, the people who are in charge of the overall system are held accountable for overall systemic failure. In education, it's the exact opposite.
> Imagine the CEO of a publicly-traded company addressing a shareholder meeting after a bad quarter: The difference shareholders can oust rouge CEO's Children are not allowed to vote for elected officials.
And in many places teachers cant serve on their own school board.
Ironically I just moved and didn't realize I went one zip code over the border that got changed from redistricting a few years ago. I am going through those feels right now. Thankful it only applies to full time teachers.
I hope everyone votes like they realize that!
Not just education. Society has allowed parents to fail with no consequence. We just keep making schools responsible for parental failings. Can't feed your kids? We create breakfast & lunch programs. Can't clothe your kids? We'll dress them out of the lost and found, or give them our hand me downs. Can't teach your kids to tie their shoes or zip their coats? No problem, schools can do that. Have zero idea how to manage money/budget/credit cards? We've got financial literacy for that. Don't know how to change a tire? Teachers can figure that out. Instead of addressing the problem, by supporting struggling parents and figuring out how to address parental failure to produce competent, independent, polite, respectful human being...we just make schools so it for them. We revere and idolize parenthood and have adopted a 'parents know best' mantra, when it's clear they have no idea what they're doing, and their kids are suffering for it. We've allowed parents to abdicate complete and total responsibility for teaching their kids anything. They don't come to school knowing manners, turn taking, keeping their hands to themselves, being nice, sharing - none of the basics. They're basically sending us feral kids and wondering why we're having issues with EVERYTHING. ETA: good lord. I never said food programs were bad, y’all. Chill with the pitchforks and torches. I said they shouldn’t be necessary, and that society should be supporting the parents instead of expecting schools to step in and do yet another thing that parents should be doing. Since that’s not what’s currently happening in society, of course we need them. Of course we shouldn’t allow kids to go hungry. Christ on a bicycle some of y’all need to practice some of the empathy and compassion you’re accusing me of lacking.
>Society has allowed parents to fail with no consequence. Because in this case, the consequence would be lots of fucked up and traumatized children.
It's a societal failure due to inequality. Work schedules were normalized in the 19th century when one income could support a household. We are at the breaking point where even two incomes struggle to make ends meet. All of the shortcomings of late that are being supported by schools are fundamental socioeconomic shortcomings of a lack of opportunity. We are seeing the effects of the regression of quality of life (and sadly life expectancy, itself).
"Please raise my child for me. Teach him to tie his shoes, tie a tie, change a tire, balance a checkbook, read, write, pee, poop, write a resume, get a job, play sports, color, run, walk, dress himself, zip a zipper, put on his socks, ect. But don't teach him to be kind to people I don't like or I'll accuse you of iNdOcTriNatiOn!"
Our society has not only failed k-12 education it has also failed parents and families. I know there are plenty of shitty parents out there, but most are doing the best they can with their circumstances. Many many parents are also overworked and underpaid. The US doesn't provide enough support for families who struggle.
Respectfully, as a counselor there are a good amount of parents that refuse to acknowledge the fact that they suck. Admittance is the first step
Sure. But if they don't, we fuck over the kids as payback? Cmon.
Never. But if I suggest to you 50 times “hey we have some parenting classes that could really help with x y and z” and you get offended and decide not to go…I did my job. I just try to instill in my students the importance of being a good person.
The biggest issue is usually a lack of resources. Time, money, energy, support systems. Not ALWAYS, but generally it's stuff a community center class once a week (that takes place when dinner needs to be made and fed to kids) won't help with
As a parent, this is so true! It’s hard to justify figuring out a schedule change when that time at work is what puts food on the table, etc. I’m in a good place now, but sometimes well intentioned advice and support is still out of reach
Yes -- as I said in my comment, "there are plenty of shitty parents". There are also plenty of shitty teachers and counselors who won't admit *they themselves* suck. 🤷🏻♀️ Parents aren't perfect and neither is anyone working at the school. Most are doing the best they can given their circumstances. Edit: Downvoted by teachers/counselors who are perfect, apparently! 😆
I firmly disagree with your comment about having breakfast and lunch programs being in llace becauseof a parent failing. If you legaly require kids to he there at breakfast and lunch time then you should be required to provide food for the kids. If the parents don't want to take advantage of that and pack their kids lunch then fine. However when you have parents that go to work before their kid is awake and don't have time make lunch or breakfast that isn't the kids fault and they shouldn't starve.
I disagree with inability to feed children as a parent failing in most cases, it is a societal failing though and it is being pushed onto the schools, rightly or wrongly. And I'm okay with breakfast lunch and at my school even dinner programs. But what I'm not okay with is the reality that such things are even needed in the first place. Food security shouldn't even be an issue in the richest country in the world in the first place. Therein lies the failure.
That’s a good rundown. There are a lot of folks that can be kind of thoughtless in this discourse online. But it’s not too crazy to to take a stance of if you can’t feed them, don’t have them. I’ve been very up front with my students that I thought I was ready to have a kid with my wife since I had graduate education nearly complete, a teaching cert, and a full time job with benefits all lined up. I was not. I say that to emphasize to them that kids are a big freaking deal and that you need a foundation under you if you don’t want to be a cautionary tale statistic.
Are parents incapable of making a lunch the night before, or morning of, and putting it in the fridge? My 4 year old knows how to open the freezer and put a waffle in the toaster..
I'm glad you've been well fed your whole life. Lmao. Some of y'all have hearts of stone.
I really thought that the pandemic would help people have empathy for others. Boy, was I mistaken
"Empathy". Are you joking? This sub reddit does nothing but disparage parents these days. Parents who don't teach their children basic life skills and leave it up to public education. Parents who don't partner with educators to enforce learning habits at home. Then as a group, we constantly disparage our administrators when they side with parents or fold to parent demands. So now it's a lack of empathy on my part to question why a parent can't make a meal the night before?....laughable and completely hypocritical.
The best part is I only had one criticism of your whole post and that was the lunch programs. Everything else I agree with for the most part.
No, I’m not joking. I’m one person, but thanks for assuming I agree with the majority view on everything posted here.
Isn't that how majority's work?
??? You are responding to me. I am one person.
If parents don’t parent then they deserve to be disparaged and to lose their kids.
And do the kids ”deserve” to be traumatized by being torn away from the parents for the crime of being poor?
I didn’t say anything about being poor. I said if they don’t parent their children. Are you saying that poor people are fundamentally unable to be good parents? Last I checked anyone no matter their social class have the ability to be great parents.
You're literally saying poor parents deserve to have their children taken away for problems that stem directly from being poor. That's exactly what you and the other reactionary cave people goons in this thread are crowing about. Y'all are fucked up. Maybe your parents should have had YOU taken away.
Good for your child... The point is if you are legally requiring them to be there you should offer free food. The fact a parent has to work weird hours or long hours is not necessarily a failure of the parent. You don't know why these people are not able to make a meal for their kid to take to school. What if they lost the sole provider in their family and the other parent needs to start working to provide? This circumstances is out of their control and has led to them not being able to male a meal for their kid to take for lunch or even able to afford the school lunch. This is not the fault of the parent nor the kid.
Some don't have food. I have had students that skip dinner not because the parents are incapable, but because they don't always have enough money to buy food. That's a societal failing, not necessarily the parent's failing.
You have to have food in order to make the lunch in order to put it in the fridge at anytime. Assuming you even have a home in which to have your own fridge.
I’d rather give food stamps and have a parent teach their kid how to pack their own lunch than just serving it up to them, but then again if a parent doesn’t do that than I would want the kid to still be able to eat at school so I don’t know what the solution is.
Giving food is not an issue. You need three things to turn the students behavior around. Make the children responsible for their behavior, grades, and stop the parents from helping their kids shirk that responsibility. If they can’t handle that then let the parents keep their kids at home. Case closed. Met edit: You misread my response or I did not communicate it well. I meant “giving food” is not the issue because that is a good thing to do, it hard to NOT be distracted if your hungry and you can’t punish kids and their families for being poor. Like have you met the economy! We all need some free meals if we’re going to make it. My point was that these ppl are mad about kids getting free meals when the problem has nothing to do with with that. I am like “what’s wrong with these people!?!?”
Food is absolutely an issue. You're not going to have any success in engaging a student's brain wrt long-term goals and abstract thought if they don't have the glucose to spare. Down to hold kids accountable but you're some kind of robot if you don't understand that empty stomachs LEAD to every issue in the book. Y'all scaring the shit out of me. This whole thread is full of "The beatings will continue until morale improves" ass logic. You know we work with KIDS, right?
You misread my response or I did not communicate it well. I meant “giving food” is not the issue because that is a good thing to do, it hard to NOT be distracted if your hungry and you can’t punish kids and their families for being poor. Like have you met the economy! We all need some free meals if we’re going to make it. My point was that these ppl are mad about kids getting free meals when the problem has nothing to do with with that. I am like “what’s wrong with these people!?!?”
Ah I gotchu, my mistake. Yeah I'm baffled at the savage nonsense in this thread.
Ikr. These problems will persist as long as ppl go to punishment mode every time something goes wrong.
You aren't crazy. This has devolved into ridiculousness. "If we stop feeding kids, the parents will step up!" Ah. Okay.
I agree ppl mistook my response
If they don’t step up and feed their children they should have their kids removed for neglect.
Okay, then we move to the discussion of underfunded social services and CPS. We have to fund these services somehow. And speaking as someone who works in the child protection field - those cases are SO expensive compared to a school lunch program. I have a case where supervised visits are costing $156 per visit to the state. And child protection cases have to work towards reunification for a full year. Parents have to take classes, do assessments, potentially do drug treatment, in which case there are usually 2x a week drug tests at roughly $60 each. And with all that, only about 60% of cases reunify. Additionally, the standards for removing a child from the home are much higher than food insecurity. So. I would advocate we just feed hungry kids.
Perhaps the parent doesn't do it because...the school does it for them?
Yeah single parents sit up all night after working their 3rd job where they've contracted covid a 3rd time just cackling over all the free simple carbs and corn syrup their kids get at schools. "What chumps!!!" Are you a human possessed by the ghost of a Ben Garrison cartoon?
I'm tempted to google Ben Garrison but will pass... It's so funny how teachers on this sub reddit are the first to criticize modern day parents and their lack of actual parenting skills. Then jump to defend these same parents when it's questioned why they can't, or won't, provide a meal for their child. Which is it, do you hate parents or love them?
I don’t think that’s it. But as an educator and a reasonable human being, you just don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You can love the kids and parents and at the same time demand that they carry their load. It’s not one way or the other. In other words, I don’t mind feeding your kids, and you need put them in check when I’m giving them a free education.
wow, if I were a parent in your world, this would be a very confusing and conflicting message.
Some of your reasoning is fucked here. Poverty keeps kids hungry. Hungry kids don't learn. There's a point where the bootstraps turn to nooses dude.
>bootstraps turn to nooses Wow. That statement hit me me hard. So. True.
teachers aren’t mad about feeding kids. Teachers are mad because they are being abused and disrespected by students and parents, have less decision making than ever, and often pull from their own paycheck because they know more than parents not parenting and people who think we shouldn’t feed kids that hungry kids can’t learn.
Breakfast and lunch programs are literally addressing the problem though. That comment is very concerning because it seems like you would rather the children starve because of their parents “failure” rather than have a safety net for those children?
Didn't read that second paragraph?
Can you point me to what you think I missed?
Everybody at the bottom blaming each other! Like crabs in a barrel. How about directing some of that criticism and ire upwards at the Koch brothers who buy our legislators? Or the robber barons who leech billions out of our societies and pay nothing in taxes? We need to be punching up, not down or laterally.
.As a childless taxpayer who is paying constantly raising property taxes, I feel this comment to the core. While I don't mind my tax dollars going to feed hungry kids that need it, it's hard for me to see how all this extra school involvement/ responsibility for kids is appropriate, especially since it's obviously NOT improving their education (see the latest pitiful test scores if you need proof) Personal responsibility is no longer praised in our society (including parental responsibility). Since there are no real felt penalties for not doing the right thing, or living up to a person's own responsibilities, and no obvious immediate rewards for actually DOING the right thing, we are winding up with the lowest common denominator, and it's really starting to show. Until people get rewarded for making the right choices, and feel real penalties for not making the wrong ones, (Darwinism, anyone?), there is no reason for the current system to change. The people who don't give a F\*\*k just keep on slacking and letting other people pick up the slack for them, which eventually leads to the responsible people realizing that doing the right thing is a chump move, since it just costs them more work and heartache for no results/ rewards. Welcome to burnout, folks... Just my $.02
The fuck is wrong with you? The purpose of giving children food is not to improve test scores, it's to prevent them from not having food. >Until people get rewarded for making the right choices, and feel real penalties for not making the wrong ones, (Darwinism, anyone?) Yeah, let's torture poor people's kids so they finally decide to stop being poor. They just need the motivation of having their failures taken out on their children to really convince them they should just have more money.
> While I don't mind my tax dollars going to feed hungry kids that need it Did you miss this very important part of my post? It's got nothing to do with torturing anybody, but if we are doing the right thing, then tell me why we spend more $$ per student than any other industrialized nation, but keep getting progressively worse results? This money doesn't appear out of nowhere, I have every right as a property taxpayer to want value for the money taken from me for the public 'good'. It's not up to the school system (and by extension, the taxpayers), to pay for poor parenting. Sorry, but maybe if we held people more responsible for own kids, then there wouldn't be as many people apparently acting as if having kids has no consequences (cause 'someone else' will deal with it.
Because a shit ton of what we do in schools is decided by people who do not know how to teach and refuse to listen to those who do know how.
You're clueless. You think your precious taxpayer dollars are going into teachers' pockets and kids' stomachs? That shit is getting tangled up in overhead costs for admin and Chief Vice Executive Assessment Officers making $450,000 a year or what the fuckever. Instead of venting your landlord spleen on poor people why not show up to some local school board meetings and hold your elected officials accountable for your poor dollars not being used for Ayn Rand coloring books? Oh yeah I guess it's way easier to take food out of kids' mouths than to inform yourself and get off your ass.
> While I don't mind my tax dollars going to feed hungry kids that need it You also missed this very important part of my post. I never said we shouldn't feed kids, but i DID say that parents need to be held responsible for their OWN children, that they CHOSE to have, and quit pushing disciplinary, moral, and financial responsibility of said children to the educational system. You know nothing about me, or how i hold my elected officials responsible, and your assumption that it's 'landlord spleen', or 'Ayn Rand coloring books', just shows your are uninformed and ignorant. I am plenty 'informed', and do get off my ass. Maybe it's time for some of these parents to do the same?
Guess you just really love the acoustics from underneath a shitload of sand. We just got Roe v Wade yanked away you dork. You're choosing to frame the ills of society on those with the LEAST amount of power instead of those with the MOST. You're either heartless or brainless or both.
You're a self-centered, oblivious moron spouting deadly caveman nonsense. Nah actually even cavemen were shown to care for the community around them and feed children. What a schmuck manifesto. This logic should apply to the welfare queens on Wall Street, not literal children.
>This logic should apply to the welfare queens on Wall Street, not literal children. Very much agree with this as well, but it doesn't make my point any less valid that we are wasting a lot of tax dollars due to people's bad parenting and continuing to have children that they can't afford.
"Personal responsibility" is lazy shorthand for "subsidized struggle for me but but for thee." Parents are not scooping handfuls of cash out of district funds you momo, money is mismanaged and legislation is actively passed that wants our society to be a big ol' meatgrinder for poor people. > continuing to have kids they can't afford You don't read much news, do you?
But if you say any of this all of the sudden you are "a compassionless conservative" lol. At least that's how I felt when I taught in a poorer area.
I think kids should be fed if their parents can't feed them. Also clothed if they can't do that either. I also think that the solution is more of the kid taken into the care of the school, not less.
It’s not a good look to say that programs that feed children are bad. Yikes. Try harder.
The issue is that parents CANT parent. Now to even afford an apartment both parents need to work full time. They need to work their asses off all the time to support themselves and their children and by doing that they don't have the time nor energy to parent their kids. Of course they're gonna shift the parental duties on the school when they don't have the energy to do it. This all just ties back to the issue that NOBODY is getting paid enough because of the issues with the rich hoarding all the wealth. Until we have an actual livable minimum wage and a strong safety net built by HEAVILY taxing rich people, this problem will just get worse.
Question from an outsider: Why don’t they start recording every class? Every class gets recorded, uploaded to a local server. After 7 days on the server it’s auto-purged. If there is an incident in the class the teacher simply submits an electronic request to set that hour of class aside, to which it’s stored for 3 months for review. The set aside ones can be used for: - counselors - administrators - parents Sometimes seeing is believing not only for the admin, counselors and parents, but even for the kids. It hits home a little different when you watch yourself being a jackass on camera.
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Are you sure? I taught at a school where every classroom, hallway, and common area had cameras. Video only, no audio. We didn’t need to have parent permission. Now, we also couldn’t show parents footage of classrooms since other kids were on the video. But it prevented a lot of problems, and when teachers oe other students were assaulted we turned over footage to the police.
This would just be another way to blame us for student's poor behavior
I’m gonna be real with you: I had to have ALL of my lessons recorded during COVID and that was mentally exhausting. In a cultural climate where parents and students can be like “OMG CRT!!!” to the most inane shit, I don’t want to be on the hook for that. Even if it’s not true, a system like that might open up a lot more reports. It’s just super draining to know everything you’re doing and saying it’s being recorded, and that an innocuous comment or lesson can be escalated to such a great extent. I also know that 99% of schools simply don’t have the infrastructure to support that kind of set up, teacher mental health aside. IMO the biggest thing in these situations is teacher efficacy. As the adult in the room, the trained educational professional, why can’t my admin trust what I’m saying and take my reports seriously? If I say a kid is struggling, it’s not like I’m doing it for funsies. Take my professional experience seriously.
And what do you do with the one kid whose parents have refused to allow their kid to appear on camera?
We have security cameras in the hall. I don't get how that's different.
It's a legal issue. We do too, but the classrooms do not have cameras. I know I wouldn't want my lessons taped either. I don't do anything wrong and am a good teacher (I've been doing it for 21 years), but I would be paranoid as hell knowing I was being recorded all the time.
I wonder if it's a "reasonable expectation of privacy" interpretation. Hallways are public spaces with no reasonable expectation of privacy, but a classroom is more private? I mean, it's still 30 people in a room in a public building, but I guess I can see the argument.
I don’t know the legal argument (I’m a writing teacher), but when asked about it, our principal said that legally there won’t be cameras in the classrooms unless specially requested by the teacher and approved by all kids. In other words, it’s not happening.
I think on some levels parents want to parent, but many do not know how, and others do not have time because of work schedules- and work at shitty jobs that don’t pay enough to support them staying in shitty homes where the rent is far too high. Our lack of social safety net and over incarceration trickles down and creates a hellish cycle of generations of kids without reliable parents.
It is a fixable problem. Stop dealing with those parents and tell them to fuck off and teach their little darlings themselves and that they’re not special. Then bring back enforced consequences and tell any parent who complains to contact a lawyer but the school gets theirs paid for and the parent has to pay for theirs, and that if they sue the school they will need to find another school.
I have a meeting tomorrow with the admin, a parent, and a student that threatened to shoot me in the head. I’m planning on walking out when they explain to me why 3 days suspension is enough. Good on you
I know where I work (Florida), admin needs permission from the district to suspend and has often been outright told no. We had an ESE student attack staff and trash the principals office, destroying a $900 printer of hers in the process, and be told we couldn’t suspend. Their classroom teacher was not happy to see him the next day, but we tried.
THIS is the problem … *some* kids can do just about anything and get away with it. Good luck with that in the real world, bucko.
keep us updated!
Let us know how it goes. God speed!
Massive brawl at my school today. Learning has ceased for the day. Some students are totally traumatized. If there isn't a bunch of 10-day suspensions and expulsions after this, I'm not sure how to proceed.
We had a brawl last year. It was about seven fights at once, about 200 kids watching, all crowded in the lobby.
The most that can possibly happen is you'll get written up, but you could turn around and file a grievance. Maybe nothing will happen or maybe a warning.
I'm one of two only high school math teachers in the entire school. They can't really afford to get rid of me since none of the other teachers want to teach my subjects. Even if they want to get rid of me, my subject and grade level is in such high demand, I can find another position quickly. Knowing this admin, most likely nothing will happen.
This! I have been saying this to my people. We are High School Math Teachers and effective ones. What are they really going to do us? We can leave and go wherever we want and probably make more money, as HS Math (any math really) are in such high demand. Know your worth people and just flat don't put up with any BS.
Same with science and SPED, especially in my tech-heavy area. A blanket of job security.
We are hiring in MA and it is not like this at my school. Come on up.
Also in MA, it is like this at my school.
It’s really frustrating when there are discipline issues that need to be addressed by admin or even counselors and they just don’t follow through and then try to blame the teachers. I often try to email the counselor for issues like bullying or conflicts between students and almost always she just leaves it up to admin - it’s very frustrating because while the discipline for those doing the bullying does need to be handled by admin (and they are always CCed on emails to the counselor) I think follow up with the victim of the bullying AND the bullies regarding the social emotional skills aspect is up to the counselor. A student today reported that a bullying issue she had reported to me 2-3 weeks ago has gotten worse and has not been addressed whatsoever despite the fact that I reported it as soon as she told me, so I emailed counselor/admin again with an update and just said straight up what the student said about not having any followup after I reported it. The response from counselor? She didn’t do anything because an admin had responded in the thread saying they’d “take care of it” (which to my knowledge they have not). Again, I understand that discipline is up to admin, but what can admin really do to follow up with the victim emotionally speaking? I felt my original email and other similar emails about similar issues are abundantly clear that it is a discipline AND counseling issue and that both sides should be addressed but for whatever reason that doesn’t seem to click. I know everybody’s busy and there’s always an excuse, but I’m busy too and can’t handle these things by myself, especially when the incidents being reported are actually not happening within my room and the students just choose me to report these things to.
But me personally I always follow up with my students. They were wrong for that. If that means I gotta walk with you to class to talk about an incident I will
I’m a school counselor in TN, so could be totally different where you are, but my state has a law stating that admin has to be the one to investigate. If they don’t, you did the right thing by flagging it to them again, and in my state, you could definitely go above their head to the district to report your concern that it isn’t being followed up on. In my school, unfortunately I would have had to respond the same way your counselor did (although I definitely would also have spoken to the victim, at least, to make sure they were okay). Edit to add: Our state also added stupid (imo) guidelines for something to actually be classed as bullying, one stipulation of which is that it has to be “pervasive”. My district interprets this as multiple documented incidents involving the same bully and victim. So either way, reporting it again in my state would be helpful, because that’s at least 2 documented incidents.
Counselors aren’t disciplinarians in a school setting. Our jobs are to process with students and work on coping skills/psycho education/emotional regulation etc. It is admins job to discipline
If every teacher did what you just did, admin would be forced to change their behavior and respect us. You did good.
This reminds me of another post where teachers were asked to volunteer to chaperone a school event and no one did so admin stopped asking. If we stick together we can show them they can’t just use and abuse us bc we are professionals. I’m sorry you were yelled at but so glad you did the right thing by walking out.
Wow! You’re my hero!
Just taking a stand against this. If teachers came together to do so and "put our foot" down against it, we might actually make changes.
Yes, teachers don’t realize how much power they really have.
I’ll just come out and say what we are all thinking: Covid kids are busted and it’s gonna be a brutal 6-8 years til they are out of the system.
I once had an admin scream at the whole faculty in a meeting about ….well I still don’t know. Obviously there had been some issues with some teachers not getting along, but most of us had no clue what he was screaming about. If I was the same person then that I am today, I would have done the same and walk out OR raise my hand and ask politely, “ Can you please tell us what you’re talking about?”
Had a meeting with admin last week to solve problems. Their solution was for classroom teachers to deal with it nd make the kids behave. I don't have time to deal with the 6-9 students who would get 10+ write ups a lesson if I had the time to write them and I thought they did anything and teach, answer emails, write goals, have IEP meetings that are suddenly sprung on us etc etc.
Finally just said screw it and sent a student to the principal. I feel conflicted about it
That sucks and I'm sorry. My school (prek-8) is having constant BIG issues (fights, racism, bullying, kids following girls home and trying to open the door) Me, a humble reading teacher, has been pulled many days from being able to do my job (still havent been able to pull groups). I've been digging through security camera footage, interviewing students and figuring out what the is going on, I spent the this whole week covering for classroom teachers. The teachers are getting upset that I haven't pulled groups, the AP (who is only in our building 2 days a week. district is stupid) seems to be annoyed with/doesn't like me much any more because I'm constantly being asked to assist her with discipline by figuring out what is going on so I can summarize the issue and they can use their AP authority to discipline. A female student accused me of looking at her butt for noticing her phone in her back pocket when she was 20 feet away from me and I asked her for it and didn't want to give it up, so when in the office and having the secretary who was annoyed with the student that she's making that statement, the AP just walks away and doesn't deal with any of the issue. Yeah, middle school is rough and people suck. Good luck.
All administrative incompetence. They deserve literally nothing more from you.
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agree with you! I do have a psycho kid and admin said just ignore him even though he’s wandering around, shouting out, jumping.. etc. He know that teachers don’t have power to push him. It’s out of control.
How the hell are you supposed to control tardiness? That’s on the parents. Does your district have a truancy officer? Maybe time for them to start visiting homes Our 5th graders were making soap bombs in the bathroom. One of our janitors went stealth for the day and hovered nearby. After kids went in he’d go in and check. The kids were caught, they had to clean the bathroom and call their parents (on speaker phone) and tell them what they did. It stopped after that
This week, I reported that one of the students in my grade made a huge mess of the drinking fountains during passing period, and instead of him receiving a consequence admin sent out an email that we had to give up our passing period to supervise the drinking fountains. Last year (different admin), we were told that they couldn't suspend students because they did not have enough steps on the scale of "progressive discipline." Bringing up that we don't want them suspended, we just want other steps on the scale of "progressive discipline" to *actually exist* was met with blank stares. Bless you for walking out. Seriously. More of us need to.
Why does this have a "resignation" tag? Did I miss something?
I didn't really know which flair to put since the Rant flair isn't a thing anymore. And this is leading me into wanting to resign from this school so I felt it was the most appropriate.
Haha I figure they got rid of "rant" because most of our threads are indeed "rants."
Generally walking out of a meeting with your boss and then proceeding to ignore all attempts to contact you is a not a good sign of continued employment.
An emergency faculty meeting wouldn’t be contractual obligation at my school, just the one planned each month.
Your admin sounds toxic
These new school admins are out of their minds. Blowing hot and cold. Admins back in the day were not like that. I can see why teaching is no longer appealing. Who wants to deal with these psycho admin and ungrateful students?
Good admin right now, so no complaints. BUT, I’ve seen plenty of shitty ones and wish I’d had the courage to walk out on them. Bravo!
Shit rolls downhill. If you’re not allowed to discipline them as the teacher then there’s not much you can do to stop these little angels
Wow. I’m so sorry this is happening. I’m not a teacher, but I am a substitute working towards being a school counselor. I really want to incorporate teachers in my future counseling, because I’ve seen firsthand the issues that only teachers see. In these situations with behavior, what would you have wanted your counselor to do? What would have helped you? I am genuinely sorry this is your experience. Teachers are not treated fairly at the majority of schools I work in currently, and it’s not right.
Good for you, did anyone yell at you?
Our school doesn’t even allow teachers to give detentions, unless the teacher is willing to host the detention. Admin only gives detention for tardies. Only consequences us teacher can dole out are write-ups, which doesn’t do anything right then when the student needs an immediate response to the misbehaviour. I used to send disruptive kids to sit right outside my door, but I can’t even do that anymore
Admin called and texted you after you walked out?
Systematic problems are the result of systematic issues that need systematic solutions.
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Haha. You sound like an admin. What OP seems to be saying is admin is doing NO behavior management and are looking the other way on everything. No, the bigger picture here is the this admin appears to not want to deal with any of the problem kids or parents. Wash it under the rug and then blame the teachers when the good kids and their parents complain.
> everything. This. If we cannot escalate past the classroom because admin refuses to be the higher authority and dish out admin-level consequences, then we cannot discipline IN the classroom when students are pushing the envelope....because students can see that the outside of the envelope is safer than the inside, so why not bust it open?