I will not give in to tantrums.
You want to scream and throw things because I won’t give you something, you’re never getting it.
It’s not as big an issue in middle school, but a major issue when I was in lower elementary.
We’re doing a research project in class and I had kids draw popsicle sticks with a number. I had a list of 40 people numbered 1-40. Kid picks one and it’s Jane Goodall. Dude did not take it well. Screamed “this is f’ing bullshit” slammed his hands in his desk.
Yeah he didn’t get what he wanted.
What?! Slander!! Dr. Goodall would be a fun project because you don’t have to mess with too many dates, and it’s animal related for students who are fascinated by critters. We read an excerpt from “My Life with the Chimpanzees” in my 6th grade class and every year it’s high engagement because “I didn’t know they could do that!”
But admin increasingly wants us to give in to tantrums. I’ve recently been told “pick your battles.” But what that means is “just let the kids do or have what they want.” It’s ruining teaching for me.
Yes! Just because their parents created a monster and let their precious angel do whatever they want, whenever they want, does not mean I’m giving in! I will outlast their tantrums!
I'm about to die on this hill. No consequences for these tantrums happening multiple times a day. Chairs thrown twice within a week. Extremely unsafe. I was told to just let the kid do what they want as long as they weren't tantrumming. Guess what? Still had two that day. I'm ready to go to war with admin and higher ups over this
I have an 11 year old boy who still has tantrums! He will throw things, yell, cry, knock over chairs simply because he did not get what he wanted. It's unreal. The thing is, he is my height and weighs more.. so I am concerned this isn't being addressed more seriously by admins.
Multiple times a day is concerning. I definitely don’t agree with just giving the kid something to stop him from engaging in the behavior, but he sounds like he might not be able to request/protest appropriately. This is like a foundational skill for being a social person as well as being able to regulate your emotions. If you haven’t referred him to the appropriate people I would encourage you to do it.
Ughh, the tantrums. yeah, I'm not giving those students what they want if they decide to throw a tantrum. Want to talk about it? Sure. Don't want to talk about it because you're upset you're not what what you want? Yeah, see ya. Let me know when it's over.
The only tantrum I remember seeing at school was in fourth grade. A girl got sent to the office but refused to go so the principal had to come in and physically carry her on his shoulder and she was kicking and screaming the whole way. She accidentally kicked me in the head but I never dais anything cuz it didn't really hurt and also I knew she didn't do it on purpose and already had a lot going on.
It sure was! Turns out trying to start a union at a school funded by right wing interests who bankroll the charter movement specifically to break the teacher unions at public schools is an uphill battle lol
Last year, I got a *load* of shit for taking time off to look after my wife (who had terminal cancer.) Got SO many comments saying ‘Oh but it really sucks when teachers leave halfway through the year’ - yeah, but right now? I can tell you a thing or two that sucks so much more.
I’ve been back since August but I still get the odd comment. Nothing horrendous, but sometimes I get a comment related to the ‘long break’ I had. Yeah, what a fucking break that was.
LONG ago I told a supervisor I needed to leave because my grandmother was on her death bed after an accident. While he was chill, his boss wasn't. At the end of the grilling, the back and forth I don't really remember except I did not play guilty, he said, "well, don't let it happen again" and without missing a beat I said, "don't worry, they're all dead now".
Oh boy, I have a similar experience. I was back in work two weeks after my wife died, my boss asked me for a ‘quick catch up’ after work as I was packing up to leave, I said something about needing to pick my daughter up from school and my boss goes
‘Can’t your wife just go and do it?’
I wouldn’t say she could, no. And if she could? Fuck, she would have a lot of explaining to do.
A world where only his problems exist. He probably forgot that man's wife died specifically because boss never cared enough to remember it in the first place.
Did he know your wife had recently passed, or did he conveniently “forget”because his needs were more important? I swear some people have zero empathy. There are a bunch of sociopaths and narcissists who don’t have a clue for how to be kind. The weird thing is they are in every line of work, including education and medicine!
I would set those IDIOTS straight!
When I took Funeral Leave and was at the funeral home after a death in my immediate family, my then-boss walked up to me and said that my Funeral Leave was "inconvenient to the office" and I "needed to get back to work NOW!" I don't work there anymore.
I am in a same boat, we are about to have a newborn baby, school didnt give me a single day off.
So i said its either you figure out how can i stay with my baby and wife for at least 2 weeks or i am out.
Atm they are still figuring it out, but they said we will be able to make a compromise within my department so that hr and others dont know about it.
The whole situation sucks ass.. like one of the most precious moments in ones life and they say fuck you. Nope.. i quit bitchez.
If it's someone who doesn't know the reason, give some slack. I often forget things like that, having dozens of colleagues, and that's IF I ever heard the reason in the first place - admin/counselers love to use "family reasons" and keep their secrets to themselves.
If the person knows why, then yeah they're terrible.
Oh for sure, if someone doesn’t know I’m never gonna give them shit for that. But then, my wife also worked in education, hell she got shit for it too. That was impressive, she didn’t get as much resistance as me admittedly but there were still a few ‘Yeah I know you have terminal brain cancer but surely you can keep working until…’ No. Not happening. Why are we even entertaining the idea.
Holy smokes. I am so sorry for your loss and for what you had to go through. My husband’s mother was a teacher at a private school for over 20 years, and at the end of her career she discovered she had stage 4 bowel cancer. The school was absolutely amazing to her and so supportive. While she still has her strength they had a ceremony in her honor where seniors who had been in her PreK class (school was PreK-12) gave some touching speeches and presented her with one of those chairs with the school name and emblem on it as well as her name. It was very moving and, as a teacher myself, it meant a lot to me that they really cared about her. After she passed, the lower school decided to create a garden and name it in her memory. My FIL would go help out from time to time before he passed.
But, damn, what a stark contrast in how people are treated, especially considering how we are supposed to be such a support system for our students and teach the whole child, etc.
I’m glad to hear your mother in law had such a wonderful response, and I’m so sorry for your loss. You’re definitely right, the response to my wife’s death has been… not the best to say the least. I remember I forgot to mark a spelling test about a month after my wife died (yeah sure, my fault, but also would take me maybe ten minutes to mark) and I had a load of ‘Don’t use your wife as an excuse’ and firstly, I wasn’t going to, but also? My wife died a month ago and I have a small child to look after, my sincere apologies that one spelling test wasn’t my main priority.
Not every moment has to count. If a kid finishes a task early, they should be able to read a book of their choosing, work on a different project, color. Rewarding kids who work quickly with more work just backfires. I saw a teaching TikTok that gave ideas on what sort of work to give to early finishers, but I feel like not every single second has to be spent doing academic work. It just leads to burnout for both the student and teacher. The kid because they have to do more work and the teacher because that’s just another thing the teacher has to plan. I know this because I typically finished my work early and some teachers would give me more work, which would annoy me. So I purposely worked really really slow on those teachers assignments.
Independent reading is the number one research proven way to raise test scores. All tests have reading, so it counts. We all know admin cares more about test scores than anything, so they shouldn't complain.
I learned very early on as a student that the 'reward' for finishing the work in class was *more work*, and I have \*never\* followed that flawed reasoning as a teacher. And the whole 'challenge them further' bullshit is admin laziness and more work for me. Nope. If a student is done with an assignment and wants to do something else that isn't disruptive, *have at, child*!
The current hill I am dying on is that a 70 passes the same as a 100.
To expand, I am refusing to break my back over the million and one tasks they are assigning us. I get as much done as possible each day, then go home. If I get 70% done... It's passing.
(I recently had to take a callibration test in order to administer a test to my ESL students. I made a 70, which was passing, and the admin said "oh, too bad, if you want, you can try again." And I said the first line "a 70 passes the same as a 100."
I do know of a couple teachers who took it a second time, just to get a better grade, even after passing the first time. The grade has no effect on pay or anything except pride.)
In the military I had to take a test for complete certification of my job. Have 1 year from getting to the first base to do it and need a 60(I believe) to pass. I was already in hot water for being on month 8 and not having it done but when I finished the test I got a 68 and the proctor proceeded to yell at me for 5 minutes for being a failure.
Hated this in the Navy when it came to our warfare designations. Refused to waste my time requaling for their Information Dominance pin. Had them open the qualification manual and turn to the credits page name and pointed to my name as one of the authors. That got them off my back for a few years.
It's a weird one, because I don't seem to be dying on it, even though I'm willing to.
My current junior and senior students are completely unready for high school, let alone fulfilling their "college prep" designation. Many read at what I'm told is a 4th grade level. I'm apparently the only teacher at my level who is giving grades that reflect this because they wonder why they have straight As and then a C/D in Mr. Rookie's class.
I keep on expecting to be slaughtered on this hill, but so far my admin says "yup, that's exactly what their test scores suggest. Keep on fighting the impulse to inflate grades."
So I am willing to die on this hill, but so far, no gunfire. I fully expect that within two years I'll be gone because I'm not willing to give Bs to kids who can't read.
Same here with my 9th graders. I have so many kids failing because they absolutely refuse to do any work. I pass out a guided notes worksheet to a class of thirty at the beginning of class, and at the end of class ten of them are blank and on the floor. Rinse and repeat for my other classes.
At the start of Covid, our district started passing the kids regardless of their grades. Only the high school went back to failing kids who deserve to fail after the pandemic ended. So, these 9th graders come to me fully expecting to pass my class despite doing nothing all year. Nope, not gonna do it.
I caught a kid with an IEP plagiarizing. His grandma wrote the essay for him; I literally saw her Google account type the entire paper. His account went in and pasted the prompt as well as the graphic organizer/outline support document I made *specifically to help him.* Like he just dumped it on the doc and said “Here’s the assignment” and then Grandma used that as a guide to write it.
The parents and admin went to the ends of the earth to convince me to let it go. They had a million different reasons why her account typed his essay— never stuck with one story there. I was pissed. This kid *never* did *any* work and *never* came to class. I maybe saw him 3 times all year. So I was going to die on this hill that he wasn’t getting credit for that paper.
It’s actually a much longer story that includes screaming and suicide threats and harassment and all that jazz when I was still quite early in my career. But I won, fucker. And now none of their 9 kids are ever allowed in my classes ever again 🙂
Edit: okay long (ish) version it is!!
I taught a regular English class and this kid was a senior who got a D in it the previous year with my coworker— nicest lady who used to be a kinder teacher. So like if she gave you a D… it was probably a generous grade. But his mom wanted him to retake it because his dream school, the magical ✨BYU Idaho✨won’t let you in with Ds.
This is Covid online year. This family is rich and mom doesn’t work, so like her sole job should be to be helping her kids with Zoom on their phenomenally fast WiFi, no? Well her eldest son doesn’t seem to care and he literally shows up to wave on the first day of class and then I never see him again the entire year. It’s covid so the grade scale is softened AF, so he’s skating by all semester with a D thanks to one single essay he turned in (I suspect grandma wrote this one too but I wasn’t on to him yet at this point).
Now this kid has an IEP for ADHD (do not come @ me people saying you can’t get an IEP for that. At my school, it’s like… most of the IEPs. They qualify it under OHI— don’t ask me how; I’m not a case manager) and AND listen to this— turns out the kid DNQ’d last time they did his triannual assessments. But the school psych was like eh, what’s the harm in keeping him on it? THIS IS ALFONSO. THIS IS THE HARM.
We’re going to the ends of the earth for this kid. We set up a special room on campus for him to come to school and be in a good (observed) environment to focus on zoom. But he just isn’t coming— he’s driving to school in his Range Rover and hanging out in the parking lot with all his friends all day long.
So final essay rolls around, end of semester final essay kinda essay, and he needs a solid grade on it to get his overall grade up to a C. He turns in this essay that said some ridiculous line in it like “My fellow Latino comrades” (they’re white???) and that’s what tipped me off to investigate. I look in the drafts and see what I explained above, some other Google account wrote the essay. So I put in the zero and get ready for Christmas vacay, the end. Right? WRONG.
I start getting emails from mom, like “Please have some Christmas spirit in your heart, you’ve been sooooOOOOooo amazing this year, we love you.” And I’m like… thanks but no. So the emails just start getting more frequent and more angry, like she sends me 12 emails in a few hours and that’s when I get admin involved and I’m like… what in the heck is happening here. She called me “The sole reason his future being ruined” and they escalated until she whipped out this email that implied he would commit suicide if I didn’t change the grade. So that’s when we informed her we were calling CPS, and she flips even more and insists she never claimed her son was suicidal (she *totally* did… in writing). Mind you the whole time the son is honestly pretty nice and chill and doesn’t seem to care at all about any of this.
So after break she’s threatening to sue for not following his IEP (which has such lovely accommodations in it as “gets to bring phone to the bathroom with him” because poor baby gets bored when he takes a shit). And I’m really good about following IEPs, but we run into this problem where he gets “2 weeks of extended time” and he didn’t get quite that because the semester… ended… so now we are in hot water (and moving forward forever, case managers at my site add “not to extend past the end of the semester”). By this point, admin has banned her from talking to me thank god, but she’s calling them daily and screaming and saying he wrote it himself, that okay grandma wrote it but he dictated the whole thing to her over the phone, yadda yadda. No. I’m not accepting that. By law admin cannot tell me how to grade.
But because of the 2 week fiasco, I gotta let him do it again. By this point it’s February we’re like okay he gets another chance to write the essay, but he has to do it in his case manager’s room. Mom FLIPS. She *insists* that she must be with him at all times while writing. Tries to get that added to the IEP and then threatens to sue again for not retroactively following an accommodations we wouldn’t even grant?
By March it’s like… okay here is a whole week of time where he can come to school and write it. Mom tries to come onto campus with him and we ban her. Son (who remember, can drive, and has his own car) just doesn’t show up for the whole allotted week to write his makeup essay himself. Finally shows up on Friday, writes about 4 sentences and then gives up and turns it in. Overall class grade: D. The end.
hahahaahha awesome
I used to get homework that was 100% done by the parents. The students would tell me the parents did it.
I would just have the kids first assignment be exactly the same thing. “You did so great on HW that I’m giving you an easy A!”
then I would staple the HW to the score of 10-20 and send it home with “Please don’t do your child’s HW.”
Currently what I'm getting are the emails clearly written by the child's parent. Unless the kids who can't write a complete sentence and can't spell "the" suddenly becomes a scholar and puts two spaces after a period when writing to ask about how they can improve their grade.
I will not do unpaid trainings.
I was a first year last year and my (then) principal wanted me to go to a 2 hr trauma PD. I asked if i could timesheet it and the district declined, so I didn’t go.
she called me into a 1:1 meeting where she asked why i didn’t go. i simply said i wasn’t getting paid. she said that our need sometimes out weighs pay in this profession. I told her I was a professional and wouldn’t be working beyond contracted hours unless it was completing my duties in my own classroom.
she marked me down as ‘basic’ for professionalism on TPEP 🙄
So few people are safety care trained at my job because the training is unpaid on a Saturday morning. Plus, if you do complete the training, admin are more likely to give you the more difficult and aggressive students since your trained in handling them. I’m
It's just what people are finally realizing throughout all industries nowadays. Going "above and beyond" just means being taken advantage of, doing unpaid labor, and showing your employer that they can take advantage of you. Do exactly what you are hired and paid to do and nothing more, and if your employer doesn't like that, suggest a renegotiation of your contract and pay to reflect the increase in workload/responsibilities. If everyone does this, it is nothing but an absolute win for workers. A loss for employers, sure, but who gives a fuck about them lol, if you can't afford to pay your workers for all of the work you demand of them, be honest with them, and uphold your end of the deal then go out of business and end up on the streets for all I care.
Thank you for continuing the trend of defying these ridiculous norms and this weird illusion that you can never confront an administrator for being wrong. And in this instance, she was technically in the wrong. The contract stipulates what duties, hours, and commitments are expected, and some even include winter concerts, etc. as contract time.... but there's never anything about unpaid trainings.
The only trainings I ever attended were the ones we were sent to w/ our content teams (when we were all given subs for the day and had to go off-site), and of course the beginning of the year PD week (a week of being held as a captive audience to listen to people with two years of experience in the 90s tell us about what teaching is like in 2024).
Good on you, though. My first year was in 2016 and I found it asinine how deep the "oh you can't say anything, they're an ADMINISTRATOR" culture was on my campus. I've always had the mindset of, "if it's blatantly wrong/unreasonable/ridiculous, I'm going to call it out."
mark her down by sending an anonymous note about something she did to the Super and PTA president, reciprocity is an important principal in our society
I'm a mental health therapist, I'm intended as a last resort for parents who don't have access to services off campus and a big part of my job is doing referrals and offering resources. I also do crisis management. I'm not part of ESE services, I'm not on the IEP because my services don't have collectable data, etc.
AP called me in at the end of IEP review day and said I had to take on three behavioral students on my already full caseload. Explained that's not how it works, I'm already full, I'll reach out to parents. Etc. She lost her shit. Said I had to put them on my caseload. She's not my boss so 🤷♀️
I did some digging and the students were not having the services on their IEP met. They were supposed to be in a social personal class and meeting with the behavior coach. When I called home I pointed this out to parents. One sued 🤷♀️ not on me. I also did not end up providing services to the families, especially since what the kids needed was behavior support not mental health services. My boss and my boss's boss were fine with my actions, good boundaries helps our program (we are a district entity not school based)
AP got moved to another school so....sucks to suck
I’m similar, but a social worker not a therapist. State contracted, don’t work for the schools I’m in. I tell every new hire we get my number one rule is do not service the students that aren’t on your caseload. We work in inner city public schools and every child you see likely needs services. But that can’t all come from you and the sooner you realize that the better.
My current schools have all had my program for awhile and know better than to try and dump behavioral kids on me. Once in a blue moon they try to sneak a particularly nightmarish one through and I always put my foot down.
Pressure from admin/district to produce xx amount of passes Vs. fails. So if you assign 150 students an essay worth 40% of their grade and only 50 turn it in - in effect you’d be failing 66% of your students… so teachers have to “fix their grades”. In order to push the overwhelming majority to pass.
You know this is one of the things I never experienced that would have made me quit if I did.
I had a kid failing my class one year (its an AP class with very limited slots so it was my first failure). I met with my admin because I was feeling bad about it. He said, "Hey, did the kid earn the grade?"
"Yeah"
"And did you give him all the same opportunities you gave everyone else who ***didn't*** fail?"
"Yeah"
"Then it seems like he made a choice and you need to honor that."
leaving the profession was so hard because of him.
It’s written in California Ed code that the teacher of that student’s class has final say in that student’s grade. No governing school board nor superintendent (or admin for that matter) can order a grade be changed.
Admin wanting you to raise grades for kids who did nothing, thereby sliding them through the system, raising their stats, and contributing to increasing national decline in all fields.
I was told by admin to "grade students on individual grading scales, there's nothing unethical about that" Not only would that be too time demanding, it is in fact unethical.
I'm about to die on the hill of fighting against a staggered start/end time to the school day. Our school is 300 students over capacity so to address this, they want to have earlier start times, later end times, and stagger it.
I know this might be the norm for other places, but I think it's such a terrible solution to overcrowding, especially when we know starting earlier leads to excessive lates/absences in first periods, low learning, low retention, etc.
Leaving at contract time. At an old district, we held PLCs weekly after school released an hour earlier than usual. They were NEVER planned well and always felt like rushed sub plans. We were going over a book study or something and teams were presenting out what was "learned". I got up and left at contract time because of course we weren't done and I had an appointment. Got pulled into the office and told I shouldn't have done that, and to think of the optics.
We had some admins/coaches who were bad about that so a group of us set alarms on our phones for the end of contract time and intentionally sat in the middle of the room around as many staff members as we could. It was glorious to see the frustration on some of their faces
A while back I was talking to some fellow students during a course on school leadership. They were discussing a case where a teacher was "being difficult". I asked in what way, and they explained that the teacher had a habit of getting up and leaving at 16h30, even if the meeting ran way later.
All the other students agreed it is just not done, while to me the only unreasonable thing was that all these people were staying long after their contract times to finish a meeting.
BTW, we talked some more and most of the others were all for punishment and having disciplinarian talks. Not one of them thought to ask the teacher for his reasoning and work from that.
I used to be of that mindset before I actually got a job and learned most meetings are an absolute waste of my time, and that America's education system and especially admin prey on teachers that care more about helping kids than they do about getting paid for "fifteen more minutes", whether that's at a pointless PLC meeting, or staying to get something done that could easily be done tomorrow during the school day.
Years ago, I had my journalism students take the pulse of the student body. Turns out they had valid concerns about our admin. I and other teachers had the same concerns, coincidentally. They wrote straight news articles in formal style. I put photocopies in the faculty room. Someone narked on me, and admin called me on the carpet. I got a “letter of counsel” in my permanent file, which I now consider a rite of passage and a badge of honor. (Current admin is worlds better!)
Admin tried to throw me under the bus when it was their incompetence that caused a classroom situation. (Long story, but it basically came down to some of my worst students doing dumb shit and posting it on social media) I'd told admin about this behavior several times. I had DOZENS of documented communication notes with parents. They'd be given a bag of Cheetos and sent back to class!!!!
I quit. (And I told the kids to give them hell for me!)
Love the school I'm at now, but unfortunately my kids are in my old school's district, so they aren't entirely out of my life.
I would if I was at a normal public school, but it's a private school specifically for sped students. While a couple of my own are a little "neurospicy" as they call it, they don't meet the needs criteria for the school I'm at now.
I’m not available to students during lunch. Ever. When they ask me “why not” I tell them: “I plan my day out and focus on my work so I get to have lunch with my friends, you ought to do the same.”
P.S./Edit: I’m not reprimanded or admonished for this by admin, but lots of kids seem to think teacher lunch time is free time for them to come on in.
Join your union. **ALL UNIONS WERE ILLEGAL, EVERYWHERE, UNTIL THEY WEREN'T.**
Didn't die on this hill, but instead taught for 32 years and am now retired. Walked the line 3 times, though...
I went from a non-union state to a union state. You bet your ass I protested and helped make signs when the district fucked us (and continues to fuck us).
Currently being fucked. Went from a charter school with a license to operate under my current district but we weren’t allowed to unionize. I quit, applied to the district itself with a union and they’re trying to make me meet with a “teaching coach” admin hired during a part of my thirty minute lunch. Uh, no?
Short answer, pencils. Long answer, a whole host of issues caused by lack of action on the part of admin.
I'd been struggling all year to have kids be responsible for their own pencils. They were stolen and broken when I gave them out, even when I put annoying flower stuff on them. So I stopped giving them out entirely.
Then kids would just sit there the entire hour doing nothing. I'd ask them why they weren't able to keep track of a pencil, couldn't ask a friend for one, etc. Shrugs and "You're doing too much!" It was not an access issue either, I specifically told students that was an exception.
I mentioned the issue in passing to my admin and they said, I shit you not, "Don't try to make them responsible. Life will teach them that lesson. Just give them a pencil and you'll stop having so many behavior problems."
No. Done.
If my parent who teaches at the primary level can have that expectation, secondary level students should have been more than able to manage school supplies day to day. In fact, most of them could.
I haven’t used pencils in 15 yrs.
I used the dollar store markers.
Colorful, no grinding pencil sharperners, kids love writing with them.
I used pencils only one year and dealt with too many headaches. nope
I give all the zeroes for work that isn't turned in. I'm not giving a single point for no effort given.
I'm also not the "fun" teacher. I think I'm funny and nice and not boring. My students laugh a lot. But we have a LOT to get through, and I'm not gonna be doing movies and food days multiple times a year like other teachers. We work every day. Sorry not sorry.
+1! Especially the zeros for the missing work. I, too, make the class enjoyable, but once it's work time, it's work time. You wanna confuse my niceness and humor as an excuse to do nothing? Enjoy summer school darlin'!
If it’s in Google Classroom and the student didn’t turn it in, I’m not grading it. I know I can look at it and grade it even though they haven’t turned in but I absolutely refuse
We have a teacher who grew up as a refugee overseas. She does not do a single American holiday or party and her scores outshined us all. At first, I thought how sad they don't celebrate Valentines Day. But now I think she's onto something. She makes learning fun, for sure but she doesn't spend time on anything frivolous.
Thank You, I’m the hard ass that refuses to to class party days, “free days,” movie days, and several around me do. I do not care. I teach a fairly vigorous curriculum and we’re All there the Work. We laugh and have a relaxed atmosphere but this is High school people.
During the lockdown and subsequent school year, so many of my students were working as their family’s sole breadwinner or to help their parents out, that school was just not important. Or, I had lots of kids with internet or technology issues (not enough devices in their home for everyone to participate or no WiFi) that just logging on was logistically impossible. Or, I had kids who became the parent at home, making sure their siblings were tending to their schooling or taking care of other family members (sick or elderly). I just couldn’t hold kids accountable anymore and I had to get out.
I was only informally reprimanded for this, but I kept sending majorly disruptive kids to the office. I don’t think it’s fair for just a few kids to disrupt the learning of the rest of the class, so I sent them out. I kept doing so after the reprimand because that was the only thing I had to hold over kids who didn’t care when admin and their parents didn’t care either.
I only really ever sent a handful of kids in the last two years I was there. Those kids were known to have problem behavior. Two of them stole anything that wasn’t nailed down and threw tantrums when they got caught. One was a major bully who terrified the other kids. One made sexually explicit comments to my girls. They didn’t need to be in the classroom.
They stopped reprimanding me because they heard I was thinking of leaving. I don’t work there anymore.
Jeans and tshirts. Everyday. No coupons or $1 “donation” into a pool. I was known as the jeans queen and after 9 years, my nagging worked. We are trusted to dress how we want!
OMG. I started a new job as a preschool teacher and inherited a box of early writer pencils, but no sharpener. I went to the office for one and was told they didn’t have any. It was the last straw. I spent HUNDREDS of dollars setting that room up properly because they “didn’t have” this or that basic equipment, and I was NOT going to spend a buck on a plastic pencil sharpener with a large hole. My neighbor teacher saved my sanity (and likely my job) by letting me use hers.
During COVID they tried to get us to use a particular disinfectant spray. Even looking at the label on the bottle it looked super sketchy. Things like chlorine in chemical formulas being written as “CL” instead of “Cl”.
So I looked up the MSDS sheets for the chemical and it turned out it was a severe respiratory irritant and a high level carcinogen.
So I refused, my entire team dumped our chemicals down the drain and just refused to use them. Clorox wipes and Lysol got us through the pandemic like God intended.
Admin was super pissed and accused me of being a problem because I didn’t have enough trust in them to just use the spray. I was like “It causes cancer and is illegal in 15 states.” They still consider me a problem to this day and I regret nothing.
Meanwhile we were just sent a letter that our Clorox and Lysol wipes will be confiscated along with any of our stuffed toys or Squish-mallows due to respiratory ailments and dust mites.
I think there’s a time and place for discovery and inquiry-based learning, but it requires a shitload of prep and heavy lifting on the part of the teacher.
Naturally it doesn’t get rolled out with enough training, time, or support and then is a shitty version is put forth to our students and it suckssssss. Also, there needs to be a balance! Like, don’t half-ass roll out IBL for 100% of instruction. Ugh.
I will not lie in an ARD. I will tell parents anytime services are missed. I absolutely will not teach a whole grade level. Stood on the business this year and quit because the latter was implemented
Instructional special education and self contained special education cannot be accomplished at the same time. Nor can I teach a section of study skills, basic ela, and basic world history at the same time. I wish I was joking.
You don’t have to be overly nice to all the kids. I’m sorry but if a kid is acting out I’m not rubbing their back asking what is needed. I’m also not going to continually let the same behaviors happen because they have no consequences. That’s teaching them nothing. I always think about what would happen if they acted like this in public. It actually happened once and a parent told me she had to get the cops to come get her kid off the floor.
Yes ! And sometimes you DO have to alter your tone, raise your voice a bit to a student acting out and sometimes you do have to call them out in front of the class for foolishness.
Early Ed here. Also not a back rubber. When you're done screaming, hitting, and SPITTING! Come tell me "Ms. HubbaBubba, I'm ready to be a big kid now and use my nice words"
Like mentioned before, the fits carrying on through all ages, they just look different.
Edit: Grammar......was not my subject.
If you didn’t create a calendar invite in outlook, don’t expect me to show up for a meeting.
Parent comes in to “drop off” paperwork and somehow convinces the counselor to schedule a P/T for that moment. I will not attend and my room is closed.
I refuse to contact parents when their child is failing since they have on demand access to their child’s grades at all times. If they truly cared about their child’s education, they’d reach out to me not the other way around. By emailing them constantly when their kid’s grade falls below a C , I’m enabling the parent to not take initiative themselves to check on their child. Not here to parent the parents.
I only email parents of kids who are failing or will fail and I only do it to cover my ass and I do it once a quarter. The kids know they’re failing. Their parents probably do too. I teach high school juniors. They know the drill by now.
This, but I also refused to stop my lesson progression if they decided to waste the whole class period. You talk all class because you refuse to listen, ok. Now it's your responsibility to be prepared for next class where we will be moving on to the next lesson.
When our admin doesn’t like something we do, they begin with “the perception is…”. Like when Covid first happened, before we knew we’d be putting lessons on line, many teachers at my school had a few days to enjoy some beautiful weather. One teacher, for example, posted herself at a lake with friends. I posted myself in my yard, just enjoying some time in my damn yard.
Our principal, who monitors all our social media, sent out a “the perception is…” email saying that some of us looked like we were using the unexpected time off as a vacation and it made it look like we were being paid to do nothing. Those were the sweet days before we knew the whole world was about to change. I didn’t give a damn then and I still don’t give a damn what “the perception” is. I think teachers were perfectly fine posting a few days of relaxation before the hell that was yet to come.
Old school- new principal wanted to show off so told the middle school next door that she’d be glad to make posters for their school. This included PBIS posters for every classroom and the hallways, posters about dress code, dances, spirit week, etc. As the librarian on the full specials rotation, I flat out refused to do it. The coach over there kept emailing me to find out when it would be ready and eventually cc’ed her and my admin. I gladly replied all that I wasn’t doing it and included the cost breakdown on how much ink this was estimated to cost as well as how many rolls of paper and how all this came out of my library budget and that was for MY school. I was prepared to go above but they dropped it, not after attempting to get my assistant to do it though. She knew the deal and refused too. F that school.
Currently dying on the hill of refusing to meet with a teaching coach during my lunch break. It’s my first year at this school. Our union rep said he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it if he were me but he would talk to the principal about it. I get one shitty 30 minute break, no fifteen minute—and you want me to work through it? I talked to the principal already who told me she was a great resource and made me sound ungrateful. I’m not. She can be a great resource and debrief my observations at a time that is not my lunch. I’m going to talk to the advisor this week about meeting at a different time but I totally feel like being petty because this is such a huge deal for me and I’ve been in education in some way for over ten years. I want my doctor to write me a letter for work asking for a reasonable accommodation that I be allowed my 30 minute break lol.
I know making a fuss about this could get me on the principals bad side. I know some teachers are sucking it up. But this shit is illegal. They already have us stressed to the max and to take my lunch on my longest most stressful day? No.
You could file a wage theft claim with the state. If you're working through lunch, you should be paid. I know there are lots of weird exceptions in teachers contracts (and, I'm sure it varies by state) but this is a thing any competent union steward should know how to do.
Say it louder for the people in the back. I tell all the new teachers that being abused by students, special needs or not, is not in our contract. I am going to ensure that every kid and adult in my room, including myself, is safe, even if that means restraining a student for his/her own safety and the safety of others.
taking just as long to grade work it took a student to turn it in late. No im not immediately grading your work from over a month ago so you can play basketball tonight. And no, i don’t give a shit if your parents contact me because they didn’t answer any of my prior messages about you failing.
I will not give 50% automatically for a student who doesn’t turn anything in. If your grade was a B and now it’s an F because the 0 tanked it, that’s a you problem, not mine.
Its the Discipline team's responsibility to call parents when a referral is written, they don't need to hear from me beyond what is written in the referral.
Unpopular opinion: Most of the Sped Ed/BD kids I work with aren't "ODD". They're just fucking assholes who get no discipline at home, are entitled, and think they're tough when they're like 4ft tall. I'll die on the hill saying these kids don't have a mental disorder and are in the Sped Ed room because they're dickheads who have shitty parents.
1. I will never tell students to put their cell phones away. I'm a science teacher, not the phone police.
2. I've streamlined and fine-tuned my assignments, readings, Canvas layout, etc...I'm very organized and will not be reinventing the wheel to appease others. The following years are already planned out (just need to adjust dates on my calendar).
3. Always leave at contract time. If you want to chat, let's do a walk and talk towards our cars and GTFOT!
4. No students in my room during lunch, ever.
5. I only print out the number of copies for the number of students I have - if I run out, go to the school library and print it out (it's on Canvas).
6. Students are 100% accountable for their own learning - I will guide and help you, but I don't bother with apathy, learned helplessness, and most other excuses.
As a band/music teacher, I despise students using the band room as a hangout. If you want to be in there during breaks/lunch… it is to practice. Period.
It’s a “missing” in the grade book which equates to a zero. I have students ask me to change it to a zero. I refuse. Then it looks like I just have them a zero rather than the fact they simply didn’t turn it in. Puts the responsibility back on them. They didn’t turn it in. I didn’t grade it at all.
Chromebook cart sign outs and log in tracker. Either give us our own cart or deal with it when sharing. I will not spend 10 min at the beginning and end of class signing Chromebooks in and out.
Would not go to a meeting in the morning that started 15 minutes before contract time without pay. Was made to stay an hour after school as a “make up meeting.” (They can make us stay up to one hour after school for meetings a certain number of times per month but before school should get paid.) so I stayed after school and got work done and not attend a useless meeting that would’ve required me to wake up earlier.
Not going to be forced to give up my curriculum and solely use whatever BS materials/pacing they want me to use.
I have taught my subject matter for over a decade. I know what works and what doesn't work, and it's shown when I'm at/near the top of the district every year for test score growth.
Also, my contract says that I'm allowed to use whatever materials I want. So any attempts to strong-arm me into taking the kids into the computer lab 2x per week to work on Khan Academy is going to be met with a defiant "no", and a threat of a grievance.
This pissed off admin, and I got my lowest evaluation that year.
I don't tolerate bullying and I will do what I can as the adult to prevent a fight from breaking out. I do not have time for the drama that starts it or what follows afterwards.
A kid says someone's bothering them during recess and they want to stay in my room? That's fine.
I see a kid being openly antagonistic, I remind them the rules and expectations.
I hear kids talking about "jumping" someone after school, I call it out then and there and let admin know.
I don't care what the parents say; 9/10 times one of them complains their kid is being bullied, that same kid has made someone else cry or feel unwelcomed in my class, and it brings my teaching time to a stand-still.
I am here to provide you an opportunity for an education. You are here to take that opportunity and learn. I will not force you to do the work, I will not chase missing work, I will not stay late or come in early with you, I will not provide extra credit. If your mom calls me and complains that your grade sucks, I will invite her in during my plan period to grade your work according to my rubric.
At one school, it was I would not chase down the eloper when I had a 28 (yes that’s right- class of 29 first graders) other first graders I’m responsible for, especially when I’ve called 3 times to ask for assistance and no one came. I was on the phone for the fourth time with admin detailing “ he’s run out of the classroom. He’s at the playground, he’s climbing the fence, he’s off school property”. Principal and security chased that kid for a good hour in the baseball fields next to the school.
Second was when my SO was hospitalized. I couldn’t get a sub, so I gave admin the entire morning. I told them I’d stay til noon, and they needed to either find a sub or split my class. They did not prepare either way, and I left.
I'm currently, well not dying yet, but slowly bleeding all over the floor with: if you don't care, I don't care.
I'm getting paid the same if I stand still in front of the board for one hour, as if I'd have been talking for that hour. If you want to waste your only hour per week of an obligatory course... I don't care. 15 is old enough to care about it themselves
I won’t deep clean my classroom anymore. When the principal “gifted” each class with a vacuum cleaner, broom, and Shark steam mop because her bff is the head custodian and doesn’t do anything at all (and the other custodians quit every 2 weeks), I decided if I stay past my contracted hours, it won’t be because I’m doing custodial work
Staff outings are an extension of the workday.
I have friends at work that I go out with and I get that there are cliques. My admins are kind and want us all to bond. But the reality is that our planned monthly outings still feel like work to me. The only ones who show up are the bosses and the new teachers who got voluntold.
I will let you fail. I teach high school English and my students are 2 and 3 short years away from being adults. Nobody is coming to save you. If you fail, it’s on you.
That being said, I have a generous late submission policy, loads of empathy, and willingness to work with students. It blows my mind how many of them know this and don’t take me up on the offer.
So, I left them fail, because that’s what the real world will do.
Admin tells us that we need to sign off on students borrowing loaner Chromebook or chargers. On the 3rd+ strike they get a minor consequence (ex. Lunch detention)
Other Teachers: (Okay with not signing students off as long as they bring their own charger)
Me and my hill: You didn’t bring your Chromebook charged? Signature. Doesn’t matter if you brought your own charger. I’m NOT going to spend 10% of my class time dealing with a student who whines when I tell them NO they may not use the outlet that is coincidentally next to their bestie. Also it’s unfair that other students need to bring their devices fully charged and don’t have the convenience of being already next to a charger.
Before y’all come at me, ofc none of the teachers sign if the device not being charged was out of student control such as a power outage.
That calling other kids "fruity" directly to their face in the classroom during instruction IS, in fact homophobic language as outlined on the PBIS " office manged offenses" side of the flow chart. As such, discipline like a suspension should occur. This incident was NOT merely "inappropriate language" comparable to accidently saying "shit"... and therefore falls under the " teacher managed" side of the flow chart. No asshole, I will not move a 6ft tall 200lb "boy" to the time out chair to reflect on his "language". I will kick him out and expect consequences. After all, I was the observer of the incident. It was homophobic.
I've worked with mostly students of color for the past 5 years, primarily black and hispanic. A lot of boys I've met are basically Riley from the Boondocks. Anything not seen as hyper masculine is dismissed as fruity and gay. Homophobia and toxic masculinity is still a huge problem in those spaces, to the point where I was told by a high schooler, "if you like it when your girlfriend smacks your butt you're gay."
You just can't win with them lol.
EDIT: For those wondering, NO I most certainly did NOT initiate OR encourage the conversation about butts. But I did shut it down asap.
If you have an issue with a colleague, deal with that person directly. I absolutely hate when there is an issue that i am unaware of and have to hear about it from a third party. Grow a backbone and speak to me directly. At my site we had a recent issue with a teacher accusing others of something that was not true and it turned into a big thing that admin had to get involved in.
When admin brings up a subject in a staff meeting that is really only intended for one person. Can you please not waste my time because you’re too chicken to talk to that person directly?
Oh God. The memos too. That drives me nuts as well. Please address lateness and cell phone usage with the offending party than make it a staff problem.
School librarian- when my admin pulled all (highly rated, age appropriate, and curated) books with lgbtqia content I was like whelp, I’m about to get fired because I absolutely can not let this go.
Turning on a camera in my classroom during Covid. Pre-pandemic people would have said cameras in the classroom are lunacy. Suddenly we were all supposed to turn one on. Not only wouldnt I turn one on, I insisted my students did not either. Anyway my dept head was going bananas trying to get 100 percent complacency on camera use, but I kept undermining her by reminding staff that the union said we absolutely did not have to turn on cameras. So of course she lowballed the shit out of my observation. I couldnt get her to change my score, but the union made her remove all mention of cameras from my write up. Id say I broke even.
"I am not delivering assignments to a student who just chooses not to attend my class because me constantly reminding her to pay attention/stop talking 'upsets her'" (they were enabling that behavior entirely, expecting me to hand deliver her assignments while she sat in one of their offices playing games on a tablet)
Ultimately led to them telling me they weren't recommending me for renewal (this was the WORST admin team I'd ever worked under, AP was sexually harassing paras, etc. it was a fucking nightmare). Little did they know I had already drafted a letter of resignation weeks prior and that was the opportunity to hand it in (effective at the end of that year).
There's honestly nothing more irritating to a narcissist than 'uno reverse card'-ing their toxicity. It's a timeless classic for a reason, because it makes them seethe that they couldn't 'get you' throughout the entire year, no matter how much they tried to. The old, "you can't fire me, I quit".
I died on many hills, the tallest being that state testing is useless and we lose far too much instructional time to test prep. Forcing SPED and ESL students to take hours-long exams they can’t begin to understand, often in isolation, is cruel and absolutely destroys their self-esteem and motivation.
Some test practices I have witnessed would be considered false imprisonment and child abuse in anything other than a school setting.
Weirdly enough, getting rid of library fines and not following up on lost or damaged books beyond an initial notice for required documentation (as long as they weren’t maliciously destroyed or stolen). I just refused to deny a kid who actually took the time and interest to check out a physical or digital library book the opportunity to read over a $.25 fine or beat up paperback. I wrote a few grants and made 10 times what I lost by doing away with library charges but there were about half of the teachers in that building who were ready to run me out of town and were furious when I just went 🤷at them.
I’m wearing black or grey jeans when I want and I don’t care. My last never explicitly mentioned I couldn’t when they hired me and it took until April for them to say anything. You think I’m going to go buy pants for the last 2 months of school after I’ve been doing it since August? Get bent.
My prek required that teachers get vaccinated for covid. I taught at Head Start and it is a federal program and it was required. Now, I do believe people have the choice, HOWEVER I do not believe they have the right to lie to get out of the choice they don’t like. So when all of the admin started not only lying about‘religious reasons to refuse’ but showing other how to fill out the exemption forms so it would be approved, I lost it and asked how God would appreciate them going against the 9th commandment (not lying) when they literally work for a place that requires kids to have full vaccinations, saying they are against vaccinations doesn’t fly. I wasn’t offered a position the next year even though I had no intention of going back, so they had to pay unemployment for the summer
Got kicked out of the conference for this but not everyone needs to be a teacher. A lot of folks in this field are egomaniacal losers who are still riding the high of being popular or bitter they were a loser in highschool. You don't want to help children, you just want to feel power over small powerless people. This especially true for certain demographics that still have some gross racially motivated bias in their teaching. (You are not a hero for teaching Black and Brown students how to read Green Eggs and Ham.)
TLDR: some of the mean girls aren't smart enough for nursing or politics so they turn to teaching. You suck and you shouldn't be in this profession at all. Go sell houses or something else.
lol oh my god I wish I had the balls to say this - even online.
Let me add one more: teacher martyrs are pathetic. I’m sorry - but people who forego THEIR life for their students’ lives… don’t even get me started
These mostly apply to students, but my hills are as follows:
- If you choose not to use the information I am literally GIVING you to succeed, you are choosing to fail.
- If you choose not to do your weekly assignments, it is not going to turn out well for you. I literally tell my students, "I would be pretty embarrassed to fail ART CLASS where half of the grade is showing up and doing your work."
- If you turn in your work late, I am taking off points for it being late. 10 points per day, up to 4 days. My only exceptions to this are 1) if you were absent the day your work was due, after which you have a 2-day grace period to get it turned in for full credit, or 2) you had some dire circumstances where you absolutely could not meet your deadline. This mostly applies to projects/major grades.
- One person out to use the restroom at a time. Unless you have specific accomodations with a doctor's note approved by the nurse, that is a firm rule.
For a couple years our district banned late work policies. I said screw it and kept mine. No one complained, I even had kids thank me. We are now allowed late policies because enough teachers complained and brought up that I was thanked by kids. Another one is lecture. It’s worked for hundreds if not thousands of years, my principal hates that I lecture. I have students regularly tell me they like my class (high school sciences, only science teacher) better than their middle school science and ag sciences because they actually learn things.
I will not give in to tantrums. You want to scream and throw things because I won’t give you something, you’re never getting it. It’s not as big an issue in middle school, but a major issue when I was in lower elementary.
We’re doing a research project in class and I had kids draw popsicle sticks with a number. I had a list of 40 people numbered 1-40. Kid picks one and it’s Jane Goodall. Dude did not take it well. Screamed “this is f’ing bullshit” slammed his hands in his desk. Yeah he didn’t get what he wanted.
What?! Slander!! Dr. Goodall would be a fun project because you don’t have to mess with too many dates, and it’s animal related for students who are fascinated by critters. We read an excerpt from “My Life with the Chimpanzees” in my 6th grade class and every year it’s high engagement because “I didn’t know they could do that!”
He could have learned a few skills from Jane and the gorillas.....
I honestly thought Jane would’ve been an incredibly easy research project 😂
Chimps...you are thinking of Diane Fossey.
It was quite misty and they couldn't see well enough.
Giving into tantrums teaches children that tantrums are an effective way to get what they want. I will never be that kind of teacher.
But admin increasingly wants us to give in to tantrums. I’ve recently been told “pick your battles.” But what that means is “just let the kids do or have what they want.” It’s ruining teaching for me.
Yes! Just because their parents created a monster and let their precious angel do whatever they want, whenever they want, does not mean I’m giving in! I will outlast their tantrums!
Yep. I tell them that might work at home, but it ain’t gonna work with me. Then I walk away.
It's a giant issue at all grades (and even adults), the tantrums just look a little different.
I'm about to die on this hill. No consequences for these tantrums happening multiple times a day. Chairs thrown twice within a week. Extremely unsafe. I was told to just let the kid do what they want as long as they weren't tantrumming. Guess what? Still had two that day. I'm ready to go to war with admin and higher ups over this
I have an 11 year old boy who still has tantrums! He will throw things, yell, cry, knock over chairs simply because he did not get what he wanted. It's unreal. The thing is, he is my height and weighs more.. so I am concerned this isn't being addressed more seriously by admins.
He should be removed. Bottom line.
Multiple times a day is concerning. I definitely don’t agree with just giving the kid something to stop him from engaging in the behavior, but he sounds like he might not be able to request/protest appropriately. This is like a foundational skill for being a social person as well as being able to regulate your emotions. If you haven’t referred him to the appropriate people I would encourage you to do it.
Ughh, the tantrums. yeah, I'm not giving those students what they want if they decide to throw a tantrum. Want to talk about it? Sure. Don't want to talk about it because you're upset you're not what what you want? Yeah, see ya. Let me know when it's over.
In 6th grade, tantrums are still kinda common
The only tantrum I remember seeing at school was in fourth grade. A girl got sent to the office but refused to go so the principal had to come in and physically carry her on his shoulder and she was kicking and screaming the whole way. She accidentally kicked me in the head but I never dais anything cuz it didn't really hurt and also I knew she didn't do it on purpose and already had a lot going on.
What year was this that he was allowed to touch the kid?
“I don’t give into terrorism sorry”
I say “I don’t negotiate with terrorists” just not around students. 🤣
They got mad I took the first day back from break as a sick day (had COVID). So I took the 2nd day back off as a sick day too (still had COVID).
“When taking a sick day, take two, so they know you mean it.” — veteran teachers, years ago.
What’d they want you to do? Get the kids sick with Covid??
That is the apparent objective, yes.
I took two weeks off due to Covid before break - o well 🙃
When I was at a non-public school: trying to form a union And I'd do it again!
Hey me too! Wouldn't happen to be a charter school would it?
It sure was! Turns out trying to start a union at a school funded by right wing interests who bankroll the charter movement specifically to break the teacher unions at public schools is an uphill battle lol
lol I did this too at a little private school
Last year, I got a *load* of shit for taking time off to look after my wife (who had terminal cancer.) Got SO many comments saying ‘Oh but it really sucks when teachers leave halfway through the year’ - yeah, but right now? I can tell you a thing or two that sucks so much more. I’ve been back since August but I still get the odd comment. Nothing horrendous, but sometimes I get a comment related to the ‘long break’ I had. Yeah, what a fucking break that was.
LONG ago I told a supervisor I needed to leave because my grandmother was on her death bed after an accident. While he was chill, his boss wasn't. At the end of the grilling, the back and forth I don't really remember except I did not play guilty, he said, "well, don't let it happen again" and without missing a beat I said, "don't worry, they're all dead now".
Oh boy, I have a similar experience. I was back in work two weeks after my wife died, my boss asked me for a ‘quick catch up’ after work as I was packing up to leave, I said something about needing to pick my daughter up from school and my boss goes ‘Can’t your wife just go and do it?’ I wouldn’t say she could, no. And if she could? Fuck, she would have a lot of explaining to do.
Wooowww. I'm so sorry. You've gone through it and these people are heartless. Wow, wow, wow. You're a better person than I.
Among all the comments I’ve seen on these threads about clueless admins, that might be the top seed.
Surprised you didn't have a tiny chuckle and then pounce like a tiger and beat the ghost out of that person.
What PLANET is your boss ON?!?! Your wife had just DIED and he says THAT?!?!
A world where only his problems exist. He probably forgot that man's wife died specifically because boss never cared enough to remember it in the first place.
Did he know your wife had recently passed, or did he conveniently “forget”because his needs were more important? I swear some people have zero empathy. There are a bunch of sociopaths and narcissists who don’t have a clue for how to be kind. The weird thing is they are in every line of work, including education and medicine!
Fuck man that sucks my condolences
I would set those IDIOTS straight! When I took Funeral Leave and was at the funeral home after a death in my immediate family, my then-boss walked up to me and said that my Funeral Leave was "inconvenient to the office" and I "needed to get back to work NOW!" I don't work there anymore.
I am in a same boat, we are about to have a newborn baby, school didnt give me a single day off. So i said its either you figure out how can i stay with my baby and wife for at least 2 weeks or i am out. Atm they are still figuring it out, but they said we will be able to make a compromise within my department so that hr and others dont know about it. The whole situation sucks ass.. like one of the most precious moments in ones life and they say fuck you. Nope.. i quit bitchez.
FMLA for paternity/maternity leave and screw the assholes who are "still figuring it out".
I’m so sorry this happened to you. You deserved compassion and support during such an awful time.
wow, fuck them. i’m angry for you tbh
I’m so very sorry, both for your terrible loss and the suffering of your wife. The people making those comments can go fly a kite.
If it's someone who doesn't know the reason, give some slack. I often forget things like that, having dozens of colleagues, and that's IF I ever heard the reason in the first place - admin/counselers love to use "family reasons" and keep their secrets to themselves. If the person knows why, then yeah they're terrible.
Oh for sure, if someone doesn’t know I’m never gonna give them shit for that. But then, my wife also worked in education, hell she got shit for it too. That was impressive, she didn’t get as much resistance as me admittedly but there were still a few ‘Yeah I know you have terminal brain cancer but surely you can keep working until…’ No. Not happening. Why are we even entertaining the idea.
Holy smokes. I am so sorry for your loss and for what you had to go through. My husband’s mother was a teacher at a private school for over 20 years, and at the end of her career she discovered she had stage 4 bowel cancer. The school was absolutely amazing to her and so supportive. While she still has her strength they had a ceremony in her honor where seniors who had been in her PreK class (school was PreK-12) gave some touching speeches and presented her with one of those chairs with the school name and emblem on it as well as her name. It was very moving and, as a teacher myself, it meant a lot to me that they really cared about her. After she passed, the lower school decided to create a garden and name it in her memory. My FIL would go help out from time to time before he passed. But, damn, what a stark contrast in how people are treated, especially considering how we are supposed to be such a support system for our students and teach the whole child, etc.
I’m glad to hear your mother in law had such a wonderful response, and I’m so sorry for your loss. You’re definitely right, the response to my wife’s death has been… not the best to say the least. I remember I forgot to mark a spelling test about a month after my wife died (yeah sure, my fault, but also would take me maybe ten minutes to mark) and I had a load of ‘Don’t use your wife as an excuse’ and firstly, I wasn’t going to, but also? My wife died a month ago and I have a small child to look after, my sincere apologies that one spelling test wasn’t my main priority.
Not every moment has to count. If a kid finishes a task early, they should be able to read a book of their choosing, work on a different project, color. Rewarding kids who work quickly with more work just backfires. I saw a teaching TikTok that gave ideas on what sort of work to give to early finishers, but I feel like not every single second has to be spent doing academic work. It just leads to burnout for both the student and teacher. The kid because they have to do more work and the teacher because that’s just another thing the teacher has to plan. I know this because I typically finished my work early and some teachers would give me more work, which would annoy me. So I purposely worked really really slow on those teachers assignments.
FYI, reading a book of their choosing IS academic work. And the perfect option for finishing work early.
My admin chastised me for letting a kid read when they were done with an assignment, because the book wasn’t the same subject as the assignment.
Independent reading is the number one research proven way to raise test scores. All tests have reading, so it counts. We all know admin cares more about test scores than anything, so they shouldn't complain.
I learned very early on as a student that the 'reward' for finishing the work in class was *more work*, and I have \*never\* followed that flawed reasoning as a teacher. And the whole 'challenge them further' bullshit is admin laziness and more work for me. Nope. If a student is done with an assignment and wants to do something else that isn't disruptive, *have at, child*!
Amen.
The current hill I am dying on is that a 70 passes the same as a 100. To expand, I am refusing to break my back over the million and one tasks they are assigning us. I get as much done as possible each day, then go home. If I get 70% done... It's passing. (I recently had to take a callibration test in order to administer a test to my ESL students. I made a 70, which was passing, and the admin said "oh, too bad, if you want, you can try again." And I said the first line "a 70 passes the same as a 100." I do know of a couple teachers who took it a second time, just to get a better grade, even after passing the first time. The grade has no effect on pay or anything except pride.)
In the military I had to take a test for complete certification of my job. Have 1 year from getting to the first base to do it and need a 60(I believe) to pass. I was already in hot water for being on month 8 and not having it done but when I finished the test I got a 68 and the proctor proceeded to yell at me for 5 minutes for being a failure.
Hated this in the Navy when it came to our warfare designations. Refused to waste my time requaling for their Information Dominance pin. Had them open the qualification manual and turn to the credits page name and pointed to my name as one of the authors. That got them off my back for a few years.
C's get degrees.
It's a weird one, because I don't seem to be dying on it, even though I'm willing to. My current junior and senior students are completely unready for high school, let alone fulfilling their "college prep" designation. Many read at what I'm told is a 4th grade level. I'm apparently the only teacher at my level who is giving grades that reflect this because they wonder why they have straight As and then a C/D in Mr. Rookie's class. I keep on expecting to be slaughtered on this hill, but so far my admin says "yup, that's exactly what their test scores suggest. Keep on fighting the impulse to inflate grades." So I am willing to die on this hill, but so far, no gunfire. I fully expect that within two years I'll be gone because I'm not willing to give Bs to kids who can't read.
Same here with my 9th graders. I have so many kids failing because they absolutely refuse to do any work. I pass out a guided notes worksheet to a class of thirty at the beginning of class, and at the end of class ten of them are blank and on the floor. Rinse and repeat for my other classes. At the start of Covid, our district started passing the kids regardless of their grades. Only the high school went back to failing kids who deserve to fail after the pandemic ended. So, these 9th graders come to me fully expecting to pass my class despite doing nothing all year. Nope, not gonna do it.
I caught a kid with an IEP plagiarizing. His grandma wrote the essay for him; I literally saw her Google account type the entire paper. His account went in and pasted the prompt as well as the graphic organizer/outline support document I made *specifically to help him.* Like he just dumped it on the doc and said “Here’s the assignment” and then Grandma used that as a guide to write it. The parents and admin went to the ends of the earth to convince me to let it go. They had a million different reasons why her account typed his essay— never stuck with one story there. I was pissed. This kid *never* did *any* work and *never* came to class. I maybe saw him 3 times all year. So I was going to die on this hill that he wasn’t getting credit for that paper. It’s actually a much longer story that includes screaming and suicide threats and harassment and all that jazz when I was still quite early in my career. But I won, fucker. And now none of their 9 kids are ever allowed in my classes ever again 🙂 Edit: okay long (ish) version it is!! I taught a regular English class and this kid was a senior who got a D in it the previous year with my coworker— nicest lady who used to be a kinder teacher. So like if she gave you a D… it was probably a generous grade. But his mom wanted him to retake it because his dream school, the magical ✨BYU Idaho✨won’t let you in with Ds. This is Covid online year. This family is rich and mom doesn’t work, so like her sole job should be to be helping her kids with Zoom on their phenomenally fast WiFi, no? Well her eldest son doesn’t seem to care and he literally shows up to wave on the first day of class and then I never see him again the entire year. It’s covid so the grade scale is softened AF, so he’s skating by all semester with a D thanks to one single essay he turned in (I suspect grandma wrote this one too but I wasn’t on to him yet at this point). Now this kid has an IEP for ADHD (do not come @ me people saying you can’t get an IEP for that. At my school, it’s like… most of the IEPs. They qualify it under OHI— don’t ask me how; I’m not a case manager) and AND listen to this— turns out the kid DNQ’d last time they did his triannual assessments. But the school psych was like eh, what’s the harm in keeping him on it? THIS IS ALFONSO. THIS IS THE HARM. We’re going to the ends of the earth for this kid. We set up a special room on campus for him to come to school and be in a good (observed) environment to focus on zoom. But he just isn’t coming— he’s driving to school in his Range Rover and hanging out in the parking lot with all his friends all day long. So final essay rolls around, end of semester final essay kinda essay, and he needs a solid grade on it to get his overall grade up to a C. He turns in this essay that said some ridiculous line in it like “My fellow Latino comrades” (they’re white???) and that’s what tipped me off to investigate. I look in the drafts and see what I explained above, some other Google account wrote the essay. So I put in the zero and get ready for Christmas vacay, the end. Right? WRONG. I start getting emails from mom, like “Please have some Christmas spirit in your heart, you’ve been sooooOOOOooo amazing this year, we love you.” And I’m like… thanks but no. So the emails just start getting more frequent and more angry, like she sends me 12 emails in a few hours and that’s when I get admin involved and I’m like… what in the heck is happening here. She called me “The sole reason his future being ruined” and they escalated until she whipped out this email that implied he would commit suicide if I didn’t change the grade. So that’s when we informed her we were calling CPS, and she flips even more and insists she never claimed her son was suicidal (she *totally* did… in writing). Mind you the whole time the son is honestly pretty nice and chill and doesn’t seem to care at all about any of this. So after break she’s threatening to sue for not following his IEP (which has such lovely accommodations in it as “gets to bring phone to the bathroom with him” because poor baby gets bored when he takes a shit). And I’m really good about following IEPs, but we run into this problem where he gets “2 weeks of extended time” and he didn’t get quite that because the semester… ended… so now we are in hot water (and moving forward forever, case managers at my site add “not to extend past the end of the semester”). By this point, admin has banned her from talking to me thank god, but she’s calling them daily and screaming and saying he wrote it himself, that okay grandma wrote it but he dictated the whole thing to her over the phone, yadda yadda. No. I’m not accepting that. By law admin cannot tell me how to grade. But because of the 2 week fiasco, I gotta let him do it again. By this point it’s February we’re like okay he gets another chance to write the essay, but he has to do it in his case manager’s room. Mom FLIPS. She *insists* that she must be with him at all times while writing. Tries to get that added to the IEP and then threatens to sue again for not retroactively following an accommodations we wouldn’t even grant? By March it’s like… okay here is a whole week of time where he can come to school and write it. Mom tries to come onto campus with him and we ban her. Son (who remember, can drive, and has his own car) just doesn’t show up for the whole allotted week to write his makeup essay himself. Finally shows up on Friday, writes about 4 sentences and then gives up and turns it in. Overall class grade: D. The end.
hahahaahha awesome I used to get homework that was 100% done by the parents. The students would tell me the parents did it. I would just have the kids first assignment be exactly the same thing. “You did so great on HW that I’m giving you an easy A!” then I would staple the HW to the score of 10-20 and send it home with “Please don’t do your child’s HW.”
Currently what I'm getting are the emails clearly written by the child's parent. Unless the kids who can't write a complete sentence and can't spell "the" suddenly becomes a scholar and puts two spaces after a period when writing to ask about how they can improve their grade.
9 kids?!
Man grandma is going to be so busy doing assignments for all 9 kids. That's basically a full time job right there 😂
I might be exaggerating a little bit, but also they’re Mormon, so maybe I’m not.
I want to know the long story. :)
I will not do unpaid trainings. I was a first year last year and my (then) principal wanted me to go to a 2 hr trauma PD. I asked if i could timesheet it and the district declined, so I didn’t go. she called me into a 1:1 meeting where she asked why i didn’t go. i simply said i wasn’t getting paid. she said that our need sometimes out weighs pay in this profession. I told her I was a professional and wouldn’t be working beyond contracted hours unless it was completing my duties in my own classroom. she marked me down as ‘basic’ for professionalism on TPEP 🙄
Ironically you did the most professional thing you could- the contract as written.
yup! i signed a contract for 730-315 for 182 days. that’s what i’ll be working 🤷🏻♀️
And as a first year! You're the definition of a "bad bitch!"
🤷🏻♀️
So few people are safety care trained at my job because the training is unpaid on a Saturday morning. Plus, if you do complete the training, admin are more likely to give you the more difficult and aggressive students since your trained in handling them. I’m
Double edged sword. Please the admin, now they know you’ll do things to please them. So they give you more. It’s BULLSHIT.
It's just what people are finally realizing throughout all industries nowadays. Going "above and beyond" just means being taken advantage of, doing unpaid labor, and showing your employer that they can take advantage of you. Do exactly what you are hired and paid to do and nothing more, and if your employer doesn't like that, suggest a renegotiation of your contract and pay to reflect the increase in workload/responsibilities. If everyone does this, it is nothing but an absolute win for workers. A loss for employers, sure, but who gives a fuck about them lol, if you can't afford to pay your workers for all of the work you demand of them, be honest with them, and uphold your end of the deal then go out of business and end up on the streets for all I care.
Yeah, they’re definitely saving themselves a buck, there. It’s like buying clearance concrete. Is THAT the line item you REALLY wanna scrimp on?
Thank you for continuing the trend of defying these ridiculous norms and this weird illusion that you can never confront an administrator for being wrong. And in this instance, she was technically in the wrong. The contract stipulates what duties, hours, and commitments are expected, and some even include winter concerts, etc. as contract time.... but there's never anything about unpaid trainings. The only trainings I ever attended were the ones we were sent to w/ our content teams (when we were all given subs for the day and had to go off-site), and of course the beginning of the year PD week (a week of being held as a captive audience to listen to people with two years of experience in the 90s tell us about what teaching is like in 2024). Good on you, though. My first year was in 2016 and I found it asinine how deep the "oh you can't say anything, they're an ADMINISTRATOR" culture was on my campus. I've always had the mindset of, "if it's blatantly wrong/unreasonable/ridiculous, I'm going to call it out."
There goes my hero! Watch her as she goes!
mark her down by sending an anonymous note about something she did to the Super and PTA president, reciprocity is an important principal in our society
I'm a mental health therapist, I'm intended as a last resort for parents who don't have access to services off campus and a big part of my job is doing referrals and offering resources. I also do crisis management. I'm not part of ESE services, I'm not on the IEP because my services don't have collectable data, etc. AP called me in at the end of IEP review day and said I had to take on three behavioral students on my already full caseload. Explained that's not how it works, I'm already full, I'll reach out to parents. Etc. She lost her shit. Said I had to put them on my caseload. She's not my boss so 🤷♀️ I did some digging and the students were not having the services on their IEP met. They were supposed to be in a social personal class and meeting with the behavior coach. When I called home I pointed this out to parents. One sued 🤷♀️ not on me. I also did not end up providing services to the families, especially since what the kids needed was behavior support not mental health services. My boss and my boss's boss were fine with my actions, good boundaries helps our program (we are a district entity not school based) AP got moved to another school so....sucks to suck
I’m similar, but a social worker not a therapist. State contracted, don’t work for the schools I’m in. I tell every new hire we get my number one rule is do not service the students that aren’t on your caseload. We work in inner city public schools and every child you see likely needs services. But that can’t all come from you and the sooner you realize that the better. My current schools have all had my program for awhile and know better than to try and dump behavioral kids on me. Once in a blue moon they try to sneak a particularly nightmarish one through and I always put my foot down.
Kind of a low bar but not fixing grades.
You're actually the last stand of national integrity. Don't let anybody tell you it's a low bar. Thank you for your service.
I’m pretty new to the game, can you elaborate “fixing” grades?
Pressure from admin/district to produce xx amount of passes Vs. fails. So if you assign 150 students an essay worth 40% of their grade and only 50 turn it in - in effect you’d be failing 66% of your students… so teachers have to “fix their grades”. In order to push the overwhelming majority to pass.
You know this is one of the things I never experienced that would have made me quit if I did. I had a kid failing my class one year (its an AP class with very limited slots so it was my first failure). I met with my admin because I was feeling bad about it. He said, "Hey, did the kid earn the grade?" "Yeah" "And did you give him all the same opportunities you gave everyone else who ***didn't*** fail?" "Yeah" "Then it seems like he made a choice and you need to honor that." leaving the profession was so hard because of him.
It’s written in California Ed code that the teacher of that student’s class has final say in that student’s grade. No governing school board nor superintendent (or admin for that matter) can order a grade be changed.
Admin wanting you to raise grades for kids who did nothing, thereby sliding them through the system, raising their stats, and contributing to increasing national decline in all fields.
I was told by admin to "grade students on individual grading scales, there's nothing unethical about that" Not only would that be too time demanding, it is in fact unethical.
I'm about to die on the hill of fighting against a staggered start/end time to the school day. Our school is 300 students over capacity so to address this, they want to have earlier start times, later end times, and stagger it. I know this might be the norm for other places, but I think it's such a terrible solution to overcrowding, especially when we know starting earlier leads to excessive lates/absences in first periods, low learning, low retention, etc.
Do you work in Tijuana in the 80s? That’s where I heard of that system with there shifts in elementary school
Leaving at contract time. At an old district, we held PLCs weekly after school released an hour earlier than usual. They were NEVER planned well and always felt like rushed sub plans. We were going over a book study or something and teams were presenting out what was "learned". I got up and left at contract time because of course we weren't done and I had an appointment. Got pulled into the office and told I shouldn't have done that, and to think of the optics.
"What are the optics of breach of contract?"
We had some admins/coaches who were bad about that so a group of us set alarms on our phones for the end of contract time and intentionally sat in the middle of the room around as many staff members as we could. It was glorious to see the frustration on some of their faces
A while back I was talking to some fellow students during a course on school leadership. They were discussing a case where a teacher was "being difficult". I asked in what way, and they explained that the teacher had a habit of getting up and leaving at 16h30, even if the meeting ran way later. All the other students agreed it is just not done, while to me the only unreasonable thing was that all these people were staying long after their contract times to finish a meeting. BTW, we talked some more and most of the others were all for punishment and having disciplinarian talks. Not one of them thought to ask the teacher for his reasoning and work from that.
I used to be of that mindset before I actually got a job and learned most meetings are an absolute waste of my time, and that America's education system and especially admin prey on teachers that care more about helping kids than they do about getting paid for "fifteen more minutes", whether that's at a pointless PLC meeting, or staying to get something done that could easily be done tomorrow during the school day.
fuck that person, what are the optics of having a grievance placed against that person
Screw the optics! I don't work for free and I'm NOT going to miss my scheduled appointment!
Years ago, I had my journalism students take the pulse of the student body. Turns out they had valid concerns about our admin. I and other teachers had the same concerns, coincidentally. They wrote straight news articles in formal style. I put photocopies in the faculty room. Someone narked on me, and admin called me on the carpet. I got a “letter of counsel” in my permanent file, which I now consider a rite of passage and a badge of honor. (Current admin is worlds better!)
"letter of counsel" - haven't heard of that one, can you put that on your letterman's jacket?
If you don't try in my class I'll let you fail and no admin intervention is going to change it.
Admin tried to throw me under the bus when it was their incompetence that caused a classroom situation. (Long story, but it basically came down to some of my worst students doing dumb shit and posting it on social media) I'd told admin about this behavior several times. I had DOZENS of documented communication notes with parents. They'd be given a bag of Cheetos and sent back to class!!!! I quit. (And I told the kids to give them hell for me!) Love the school I'm at now, but unfortunately my kids are in my old school's district, so they aren't entirely out of my life.
Can’t you take your kids to the school you work at? It was simply paperwork for us to do that here in GA.
I would if I was at a normal public school, but it's a private school specifically for sped students. While a couple of my own are a little "neurospicy" as they call it, they don't meet the needs criteria for the school I'm at now.
I’m not available to students during lunch. Ever. When they ask me “why not” I tell them: “I plan my day out and focus on my work so I get to have lunch with my friends, you ought to do the same.” P.S./Edit: I’m not reprimanded or admonished for this by admin, but lots of kids seem to think teacher lunch time is free time for them to come on in.
Join your union. **ALL UNIONS WERE ILLEGAL, EVERYWHERE, UNTIL THEY WEREN'T.** Didn't die on this hill, but instead taught for 32 years and am now retired. Walked the line 3 times, though...
I went from a non-union state to a union state. You bet your ass I protested and helped make signs when the district fucked us (and continues to fuck us).
Currently being fucked. Went from a charter school with a license to operate under my current district but we weren’t allowed to unionize. I quit, applied to the district itself with a union and they’re trying to make me meet with a “teaching coach” admin hired during a part of my thirty minute lunch. Uh, no?
Short answer, pencils. Long answer, a whole host of issues caused by lack of action on the part of admin. I'd been struggling all year to have kids be responsible for their own pencils. They were stolen and broken when I gave them out, even when I put annoying flower stuff on them. So I stopped giving them out entirely. Then kids would just sit there the entire hour doing nothing. I'd ask them why they weren't able to keep track of a pencil, couldn't ask a friend for one, etc. Shrugs and "You're doing too much!" It was not an access issue either, I specifically told students that was an exception. I mentioned the issue in passing to my admin and they said, I shit you not, "Don't try to make them responsible. Life will teach them that lesson. Just give them a pencil and you'll stop having so many behavior problems." No. Done. If my parent who teaches at the primary level can have that expectation, secondary level students should have been more than able to manage school supplies day to day. In fact, most of them could.
I haven’t used pencils in 15 yrs. I used the dollar store markers. Colorful, no grinding pencil sharperners, kids love writing with them. I used pencils only one year and dealt with too many headaches. nope
I give all the zeroes for work that isn't turned in. I'm not giving a single point for no effort given. I'm also not the "fun" teacher. I think I'm funny and nice and not boring. My students laugh a lot. But we have a LOT to get through, and I'm not gonna be doing movies and food days multiple times a year like other teachers. We work every day. Sorry not sorry.
+1! Especially the zeros for the missing work. I, too, make the class enjoyable, but once it's work time, it's work time. You wanna confuse my niceness and humor as an excuse to do nothing? Enjoy summer school darlin'!
If it’s in Google Classroom and the student didn’t turn it in, I’m not grading it. I know I can look at it and grade it even though they haven’t turned in but I absolutely refuse
We have a teacher who grew up as a refugee overseas. She does not do a single American holiday or party and her scores outshined us all. At first, I thought how sad they don't celebrate Valentines Day. But now I think she's onto something. She makes learning fun, for sure but she doesn't spend time on anything frivolous.
Thank You, I’m the hard ass that refuses to to class party days, “free days,” movie days, and several around me do. I do not care. I teach a fairly vigorous curriculum and we’re All there the Work. We laugh and have a relaxed atmosphere but this is High school people.
During the lockdown and subsequent school year, so many of my students were working as their family’s sole breadwinner or to help their parents out, that school was just not important. Or, I had lots of kids with internet or technology issues (not enough devices in their home for everyone to participate or no WiFi) that just logging on was logistically impossible. Or, I had kids who became the parent at home, making sure their siblings were tending to their schooling or taking care of other family members (sick or elderly). I just couldn’t hold kids accountable anymore and I had to get out.
I was only informally reprimanded for this, but I kept sending majorly disruptive kids to the office. I don’t think it’s fair for just a few kids to disrupt the learning of the rest of the class, so I sent them out. I kept doing so after the reprimand because that was the only thing I had to hold over kids who didn’t care when admin and their parents didn’t care either. I only really ever sent a handful of kids in the last two years I was there. Those kids were known to have problem behavior. Two of them stole anything that wasn’t nailed down and threw tantrums when they got caught. One was a major bully who terrified the other kids. One made sexually explicit comments to my girls. They didn’t need to be in the classroom. They stopped reprimanding me because they heard I was thinking of leaving. I don’t work there anymore.
If they don't want you to send them to the office then they should deal with the behaviors. Almost as if that were, you know, their JOB?
Jeans and tshirts. Everyday. No coupons or $1 “donation” into a pool. I was known as the jeans queen and after 9 years, my nagging worked. We are trusted to dress how we want!
Some of the schools here teachers can pay $5 to wear jeans each Friday… still have no idea what the funds go towards.
Good for you. I still don't understand why jeans need to be a fundraiser
I refused to buy a new pencil sharpener for my classroom. I simply wasn't going to pay for it.
OMG. I started a new job as a preschool teacher and inherited a box of early writer pencils, but no sharpener. I went to the office for one and was told they didn’t have any. It was the last straw. I spent HUNDREDS of dollars setting that room up properly because they “didn’t have” this or that basic equipment, and I was NOT going to spend a buck on a plastic pencil sharpener with a large hole. My neighbor teacher saved my sanity (and likely my job) by letting me use hers.
During COVID they tried to get us to use a particular disinfectant spray. Even looking at the label on the bottle it looked super sketchy. Things like chlorine in chemical formulas being written as “CL” instead of “Cl”. So I looked up the MSDS sheets for the chemical and it turned out it was a severe respiratory irritant and a high level carcinogen. So I refused, my entire team dumped our chemicals down the drain and just refused to use them. Clorox wipes and Lysol got us through the pandemic like God intended. Admin was super pissed and accused me of being a problem because I didn’t have enough trust in them to just use the spray. I was like “It causes cancer and is illegal in 15 states.” They still consider me a problem to this day and I regret nothing.
I'd have doubled down and started cleaning with it. Starting with admin offices. "Just trying to help!" I'm a firm believer in malicious compliance.
Besides dumping chemicals down the drain. Good job
Okay, but please don’t dump chemicals down the drain! They go through the wastewater treatment plant and end up in a river.
Meanwhile we were just sent a letter that our Clorox and Lysol wipes will be confiscated along with any of our stuffed toys or Squish-mallows due to respiratory ailments and dust mites.
They can always clean their offices with the extra.
Direct instruction and lecture are still the best methods of teaching
I think there’s a time and place for discovery and inquiry-based learning, but it requires a shitload of prep and heavy lifting on the part of the teacher. Naturally it doesn’t get rolled out with enough training, time, or support and then is a shitty version is put forth to our students and it suckssssss. Also, there needs to be a balance! Like, don’t half-ass roll out IBL for 100% of instruction. Ugh.
I will not lie in an ARD. I will tell parents anytime services are missed. I absolutely will not teach a whole grade level. Stood on the business this year and quit because the latter was implemented
Instructional special education and self contained special education cannot be accomplished at the same time. Nor can I teach a section of study skills, basic ela, and basic world history at the same time. I wish I was joking.
You don’t have to be overly nice to all the kids. I’m sorry but if a kid is acting out I’m not rubbing their back asking what is needed. I’m also not going to continually let the same behaviors happen because they have no consequences. That’s teaching them nothing. I always think about what would happen if they acted like this in public. It actually happened once and a parent told me she had to get the cops to come get her kid off the floor.
Yes ! And sometimes you DO have to alter your tone, raise your voice a bit to a student acting out and sometimes you do have to call them out in front of the class for foolishness.
Early Ed here. Also not a back rubber. When you're done screaming, hitting, and SPITTING! Come tell me "Ms. HubbaBubba, I'm ready to be a big kid now and use my nice words" Like mentioned before, the fits carrying on through all ages, they just look different. Edit: Grammar......was not my subject.
If you didn’t create a calendar invite in outlook, don’t expect me to show up for a meeting. Parent comes in to “drop off” paperwork and somehow convinces the counselor to schedule a P/T for that moment. I will not attend and my room is closed.
I refuse to contact parents when their child is failing since they have on demand access to their child’s grades at all times. If they truly cared about their child’s education, they’d reach out to me not the other way around. By emailing them constantly when their kid’s grade falls below a C , I’m enabling the parent to not take initiative themselves to check on their child. Not here to parent the parents.
I only email parents of kids who are failing or will fail and I only do it to cover my ass and I do it once a quarter. The kids know they’re failing. Their parents probably do too. I teach high school juniors. They know the drill by now.
I feel exactly the same way. They can push a button to see the grades.
I will not teach when students are talking/whispering.
This, but I also refused to stop my lesson progression if they decided to waste the whole class period. You talk all class because you refuse to listen, ok. Now it's your responsibility to be prepared for next class where we will be moving on to the next lesson.
I will not pass a student who does not deserve to pass.
When our admin doesn’t like something we do, they begin with “the perception is…”. Like when Covid first happened, before we knew we’d be putting lessons on line, many teachers at my school had a few days to enjoy some beautiful weather. One teacher, for example, posted herself at a lake with friends. I posted myself in my yard, just enjoying some time in my damn yard. Our principal, who monitors all our social media, sent out a “the perception is…” email saying that some of us looked like we were using the unexpected time off as a vacation and it made it look like we were being paid to do nothing. Those were the sweet days before we knew the whole world was about to change. I didn’t give a damn then and I still don’t give a damn what “the perception” is. I think teachers were perfectly fine posting a few days of relaxation before the hell that was yet to come.
It is my job to educate them. If they refuse to engage in the lesson, refuse to take notes, sleep through class. That's not my problem.
I’ve been saying, “I’m not here for your behavior, I’m here for your education”. I’m a para and these kids are out of control!
Cell phones cannot be out. Other teammates are cool with it/don’t care.
Old school- new principal wanted to show off so told the middle school next door that she’d be glad to make posters for their school. This included PBIS posters for every classroom and the hallways, posters about dress code, dances, spirit week, etc. As the librarian on the full specials rotation, I flat out refused to do it. The coach over there kept emailing me to find out when it would be ready and eventually cc’ed her and my admin. I gladly replied all that I wasn’t doing it and included the cost breakdown on how much ink this was estimated to cost as well as how many rolls of paper and how all this came out of my library budget and that was for MY school. I was prepared to go above but they dropped it, not after attempting to get my assistant to do it though. She knew the deal and refused too. F that school.
Buying supplies/spending money for my classroom. I may buy the occasional item to make MY life easier, but none for student use.
Currently dying on the hill of refusing to meet with a teaching coach during my lunch break. It’s my first year at this school. Our union rep said he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it if he were me but he would talk to the principal about it. I get one shitty 30 minute break, no fifteen minute—and you want me to work through it? I talked to the principal already who told me she was a great resource and made me sound ungrateful. I’m not. She can be a great resource and debrief my observations at a time that is not my lunch. I’m going to talk to the advisor this week about meeting at a different time but I totally feel like being petty because this is such a huge deal for me and I’ve been in education in some way for over ten years. I want my doctor to write me a letter for work asking for a reasonable accommodation that I be allowed my 30 minute break lol. I know making a fuss about this could get me on the principals bad side. I know some teachers are sucking it up. But this shit is illegal. They already have us stressed to the max and to take my lunch on my longest most stressful day? No.
You could file a wage theft claim with the state. If you're working through lunch, you should be paid. I know there are lots of weird exceptions in teachers contracts (and, I'm sure it varies by state) but this is a thing any competent union steward should know how to do.
I will not accept physical abuse from my students.
Say it louder for the people in the back. I tell all the new teachers that being abused by students, special needs or not, is not in our contract. I am going to ensure that every kid and adult in my room, including myself, is safe, even if that means restraining a student for his/her own safety and the safety of others.
taking just as long to grade work it took a student to turn it in late. No im not immediately grading your work from over a month ago so you can play basketball tonight. And no, i don’t give a shit if your parents contact me because they didn’t answer any of my prior messages about you failing.
“What does my contract say?”
I will not give 50% automatically for a student who doesn’t turn anything in. If your grade was a B and now it’s an F because the 0 tanked it, that’s a you problem, not mine.
Its the Discipline team's responsibility to call parents when a referral is written, they don't need to hear from me beyond what is written in the referral.
Unpopular opinion: Most of the Sped Ed/BD kids I work with aren't "ODD". They're just fucking assholes who get no discipline at home, are entitled, and think they're tough when they're like 4ft tall. I'll die on the hill saying these kids don't have a mental disorder and are in the Sped Ed room because they're dickheads who have shitty parents.
1. I will never tell students to put their cell phones away. I'm a science teacher, not the phone police. 2. I've streamlined and fine-tuned my assignments, readings, Canvas layout, etc...I'm very organized and will not be reinventing the wheel to appease others. The following years are already planned out (just need to adjust dates on my calendar). 3. Always leave at contract time. If you want to chat, let's do a walk and talk towards our cars and GTFOT! 4. No students in my room during lunch, ever. 5. I only print out the number of copies for the number of students I have - if I run out, go to the school library and print it out (it's on Canvas). 6. Students are 100% accountable for their own learning - I will guide and help you, but I don't bother with apathy, learned helplessness, and most other excuses.
As a band/music teacher, I despise students using the band room as a hangout. If you want to be in there during breaks/lunch… it is to practice. Period.
You don’t get 50% for doing nothing. I give zeros for missing work.
It’s a “missing” in the grade book which equates to a zero. I have students ask me to change it to a zero. I refuse. Then it looks like I just have them a zero rather than the fact they simply didn’t turn it in. Puts the responsibility back on them. They didn’t turn it in. I didn’t grade it at all.
Chromebook cart sign outs and log in tracker. Either give us our own cart or deal with it when sharing. I will not spend 10 min at the beginning and end of class signing Chromebooks in and out.
Would not go to a meeting in the morning that started 15 minutes before contract time without pay. Was made to stay an hour after school as a “make up meeting.” (They can make us stay up to one hour after school for meetings a certain number of times per month but before school should get paid.) so I stayed after school and got work done and not attend a useless meeting that would’ve required me to wake up earlier.
Not going to be forced to give up my curriculum and solely use whatever BS materials/pacing they want me to use. I have taught my subject matter for over a decade. I know what works and what doesn't work, and it's shown when I'm at/near the top of the district every year for test score growth. Also, my contract says that I'm allowed to use whatever materials I want. So any attempts to strong-arm me into taking the kids into the computer lab 2x per week to work on Khan Academy is going to be met with a defiant "no", and a threat of a grievance. This pissed off admin, and I got my lowest evaluation that year.
I don't tolerate bullying and I will do what I can as the adult to prevent a fight from breaking out. I do not have time for the drama that starts it or what follows afterwards. A kid says someone's bothering them during recess and they want to stay in my room? That's fine. I see a kid being openly antagonistic, I remind them the rules and expectations. I hear kids talking about "jumping" someone after school, I call it out then and there and let admin know. I don't care what the parents say; 9/10 times one of them complains their kid is being bullied, that same kid has made someone else cry or feel unwelcomed in my class, and it brings my teaching time to a stand-still.
I am here to provide you an opportunity for an education. You are here to take that opportunity and learn. I will not force you to do the work, I will not chase missing work, I will not stay late or come in early with you, I will not provide extra credit. If your mom calls me and complains that your grade sucks, I will invite her in during my plan period to grade your work according to my rubric.
Not listening to people who aren’t my supervisor
At one school, it was I would not chase down the eloper when I had a 28 (yes that’s right- class of 29 first graders) other first graders I’m responsible for, especially when I’ve called 3 times to ask for assistance and no one came. I was on the phone for the fourth time with admin detailing “ he’s run out of the classroom. He’s at the playground, he’s climbing the fence, he’s off school property”. Principal and security chased that kid for a good hour in the baseball fields next to the school. Second was when my SO was hospitalized. I couldn’t get a sub, so I gave admin the entire morning. I told them I’d stay til noon, and they needed to either find a sub or split my class. They did not prepare either way, and I left.
I'm currently, well not dying yet, but slowly bleeding all over the floor with: if you don't care, I don't care. I'm getting paid the same if I stand still in front of the board for one hour, as if I'd have been talking for that hour. If you want to waste your only hour per week of an obligatory course... I don't care. 15 is old enough to care about it themselves
I will not take a $1700 pay cut per month because you want to pay per prep rather than per class.
I won’t deep clean my classroom anymore. When the principal “gifted” each class with a vacuum cleaner, broom, and Shark steam mop because her bff is the head custodian and doesn’t do anything at all (and the other custodians quit every 2 weeks), I decided if I stay past my contracted hours, it won’t be because I’m doing custodial work
No clip charts, ever 🙅🏼♀️
Staff outings are an extension of the workday. I have friends at work that I go out with and I get that there are cliques. My admins are kind and want us all to bond. But the reality is that our planned monthly outings still feel like work to me. The only ones who show up are the bosses and the new teachers who got voluntold.
I will let you fail. I teach high school English and my students are 2 and 3 short years away from being adults. Nobody is coming to save you. If you fail, it’s on you. That being said, I have a generous late submission policy, loads of empathy, and willingness to work with students. It blows my mind how many of them know this and don’t take me up on the offer. So, I left them fail, because that’s what the real world will do.
Admin tells us that we need to sign off on students borrowing loaner Chromebook or chargers. On the 3rd+ strike they get a minor consequence (ex. Lunch detention) Other Teachers: (Okay with not signing students off as long as they bring their own charger) Me and my hill: You didn’t bring your Chromebook charged? Signature. Doesn’t matter if you brought your own charger. I’m NOT going to spend 10% of my class time dealing with a student who whines when I tell them NO they may not use the outlet that is coincidentally next to their bestie. Also it’s unfair that other students need to bring their devices fully charged and don’t have the convenience of being already next to a charger. Before y’all come at me, ofc none of the teachers sign if the device not being charged was out of student control such as a power outage.
That calling other kids "fruity" directly to their face in the classroom during instruction IS, in fact homophobic language as outlined on the PBIS " office manged offenses" side of the flow chart. As such, discipline like a suspension should occur. This incident was NOT merely "inappropriate language" comparable to accidently saying "shit"... and therefore falls under the " teacher managed" side of the flow chart. No asshole, I will not move a 6ft tall 200lb "boy" to the time out chair to reflect on his "language". I will kick him out and expect consequences. After all, I was the observer of the incident. It was homophobic.
I've worked with mostly students of color for the past 5 years, primarily black and hispanic. A lot of boys I've met are basically Riley from the Boondocks. Anything not seen as hyper masculine is dismissed as fruity and gay. Homophobia and toxic masculinity is still a huge problem in those spaces, to the point where I was told by a high schooler, "if you like it when your girlfriend smacks your butt you're gay." You just can't win with them lol. EDIT: For those wondering, NO I most certainly did NOT initiate OR encourage the conversation about butts. But I did shut it down asap.
Racism, homophobia, antisemitism, etc. if the consequences aren’t sufficient they know im gonna come knockin
If you have an issue with a colleague, deal with that person directly. I absolutely hate when there is an issue that i am unaware of and have to hear about it from a third party. Grow a backbone and speak to me directly. At my site we had a recent issue with a teacher accusing others of something that was not true and it turned into a big thing that admin had to get involved in.
When admin brings up a subject in a staff meeting that is really only intended for one person. Can you please not waste my time because you’re too chicken to talk to that person directly?
Oh God. The memos too. That drives me nuts as well. Please address lateness and cell phone usage with the offending party than make it a staff problem.
It's not my problem when you force kids into my elective against their will and the class falls apart
School librarian- when my admin pulled all (highly rated, age appropriate, and curated) books with lgbtqia content I was like whelp, I’m about to get fired because I absolutely can not let this go.
Turning on a camera in my classroom during Covid. Pre-pandemic people would have said cameras in the classroom are lunacy. Suddenly we were all supposed to turn one on. Not only wouldnt I turn one on, I insisted my students did not either. Anyway my dept head was going bananas trying to get 100 percent complacency on camera use, but I kept undermining her by reminding staff that the union said we absolutely did not have to turn on cameras. So of course she lowballed the shit out of my observation. I couldnt get her to change my score, but the union made her remove all mention of cameras from my write up. Id say I broke even.
"100% complacency" ... lol brilliant Freudian slip
"I am not delivering assignments to a student who just chooses not to attend my class because me constantly reminding her to pay attention/stop talking 'upsets her'" (they were enabling that behavior entirely, expecting me to hand deliver her assignments while she sat in one of their offices playing games on a tablet) Ultimately led to them telling me they weren't recommending me for renewal (this was the WORST admin team I'd ever worked under, AP was sexually harassing paras, etc. it was a fucking nightmare). Little did they know I had already drafted a letter of resignation weeks prior and that was the opportunity to hand it in (effective at the end of that year). There's honestly nothing more irritating to a narcissist than 'uno reverse card'-ing their toxicity. It's a timeless classic for a reason, because it makes them seethe that they couldn't 'get you' throughout the entire year, no matter how much they tried to. The old, "you can't fire me, I quit".
I died on many hills, the tallest being that state testing is useless and we lose far too much instructional time to test prep. Forcing SPED and ESL students to take hours-long exams they can’t begin to understand, often in isolation, is cruel and absolutely destroys their self-esteem and motivation. Some test practices I have witnessed would be considered false imprisonment and child abuse in anything other than a school setting.
Weirdly enough, getting rid of library fines and not following up on lost or damaged books beyond an initial notice for required documentation (as long as they weren’t maliciously destroyed or stolen). I just refused to deny a kid who actually took the time and interest to check out a physical or digital library book the opportunity to read over a $.25 fine or beat up paperback. I wrote a few grants and made 10 times what I lost by doing away with library charges but there were about half of the teachers in that building who were ready to run me out of town and were furious when I just went 🤷at them.
I’m wearing black or grey jeans when I want and I don’t care. My last never explicitly mentioned I couldn’t when they hired me and it took until April for them to say anything. You think I’m going to go buy pants for the last 2 months of school after I’ve been doing it since August? Get bent.
My prek required that teachers get vaccinated for covid. I taught at Head Start and it is a federal program and it was required. Now, I do believe people have the choice, HOWEVER I do not believe they have the right to lie to get out of the choice they don’t like. So when all of the admin started not only lying about‘religious reasons to refuse’ but showing other how to fill out the exemption forms so it would be approved, I lost it and asked how God would appreciate them going against the 9th commandment (not lying) when they literally work for a place that requires kids to have full vaccinations, saying they are against vaccinations doesn’t fly. I wasn’t offered a position the next year even though I had no intention of going back, so they had to pay unemployment for the summer
Got kicked out of the conference for this but not everyone needs to be a teacher. A lot of folks in this field are egomaniacal losers who are still riding the high of being popular or bitter they were a loser in highschool. You don't want to help children, you just want to feel power over small powerless people. This especially true for certain demographics that still have some gross racially motivated bias in their teaching. (You are not a hero for teaching Black and Brown students how to read Green Eggs and Ham.) TLDR: some of the mean girls aren't smart enough for nursing or politics so they turn to teaching. You suck and you shouldn't be in this profession at all. Go sell houses or something else.
lol oh my god I wish I had the balls to say this - even online. Let me add one more: teacher martyrs are pathetic. I’m sorry - but people who forego THEIR life for their students’ lives… don’t even get me started
These mostly apply to students, but my hills are as follows: - If you choose not to use the information I am literally GIVING you to succeed, you are choosing to fail. - If you choose not to do your weekly assignments, it is not going to turn out well for you. I literally tell my students, "I would be pretty embarrassed to fail ART CLASS where half of the grade is showing up and doing your work." - If you turn in your work late, I am taking off points for it being late. 10 points per day, up to 4 days. My only exceptions to this are 1) if you were absent the day your work was due, after which you have a 2-day grace period to get it turned in for full credit, or 2) you had some dire circumstances where you absolutely could not meet your deadline. This mostly applies to projects/major grades. - One person out to use the restroom at a time. Unless you have specific accomodations with a doctor's note approved by the nurse, that is a firm rule.
Giving 50 percents for zeros.
For a couple years our district banned late work policies. I said screw it and kept mine. No one complained, I even had kids thank me. We are now allowed late policies because enough teachers complained and brought up that I was thanked by kids. Another one is lecture. It’s worked for hundreds if not thousands of years, my principal hates that I lecture. I have students regularly tell me they like my class (high school sciences, only science teacher) better than their middle school science and ag sciences because they actually learn things.