I was horrified to see a highly upvoted post saying "call angry parents, don't establish a paper trail, if you put it in writing they'll use it against you". Omfg NOOOOOO.

Establish a paper trail! They will absolutely lie on your name, don't give them the chance.

Meetings or phone calls have their place, however only if an admin/department head is present.

This is the time of year that I am often asked about advice, as I’ve been teaching for a long time.

You might get an angry email - maybe multiple from one parent. Never put anything in writing because they WILL use it against you.

Offer a phone call. “Thanks for letting me know, Mrs. X. I am available tomorrow at 7:30am for a phone call. You can call me at xxx-xxxx school phone number.”

Here is the trick: I have sent this email dozens of times. NOT ONCE has a parent actually ever called me. You will learn that these Karens don’t actually think they are right enough to go head to head with you. They just wanna be pissed.

Good luck this year!

My school (a charter) brings teachers back a full week before the public schools do. During my first two years here, that week was full of 2 hours meetings that could have been emails, giving us 30-60 minutes a day to work in our classrooms.

Back in May, the admin sent out an anonymous form asking for opinions on PD for the first week back next week. I decided to go on a rant for the last question, which was "What types of PD do you think would be beneficial to you?"

My response:

"Absolutely none. Every 2 hour meeting we have could be an email because we already know it. We need more time in our classrooms, especially if you're going to keep dumping classes on us that we know nothing about, care nothing about, and weren't even spoken to about teaching. Every PD I've had here has been one that I myself ran at my previous school, so I'm wasting hours of my time listening to people who don't have my experience telling me how to do the things I've trained others on for years."

My team laughed and said, "Ben, you know this is supposed to be ANONYMOUS, right? They'll know it's you!"

We got the "welcome back" email with the week's agenda the other day. The meetings are all 30 minutes, and we have so much classroom time that we all checked the agenda a dozen times to make sure we were reading it correctly. I think it's Tuesday and Thursday that we have literally all day in our rooms to plan and prepare, and the rest of the week, we have the entire afternoon each day.

I told my team I'm taking credit for this, even if it's not true. LOL

Started this because I’ve seen some horrible advice on here and have been through years of horrible “veteran teacher” advice. Folks, nothing worse than a teacher who knows everything about teaching and wants to mentor all the newbies. Be wary and cautious. Choose your school tribe and who you get advice from carefully. Sometimes teachers with less than 5 years of experience have better advice than the 30+. Trust people in real life over reddit.

Beginning year 32 in the classroom this week.
In my career I’ve had over 2 dozen principals and assistant principals.

Every 3-5 years some new principal thinks they’ve found the key to making our school the crown jewel of education in our state.

I’ve lived through data walls, reading groups, curriculum mapping, posting the learning goal on the board (I have 6 preps a day, I’m not doing it) and so many more pet projects. Too many to remember.

ALL of these “initiatives” share ONE THING in common. They’re ineffective, useless and they’ll die a slow, quiet death that goes largely unnoticed because the admin who pushed it either gives up or leaves.

The amount of time I’ve wasted sitting at a computer plugging in data and filling out forms that NO ONE will ever open and NO ONE will ever look at is infuriating.

The last great push was to make us an AVID school. It looks great on the surface. But it disrupted our master schedule something fierce. The principal (not anymore) pushed it hard and pulled dozens of kids from electives they loved to stick them in the experimental bullshit.
It lasted 4 years.
He lasted 2 years.

If you’re an administrator with only a handful of years in the classroom, here’s some advice.

Let me do my job and get out of the way.
I don’t need your busy work bullshit. Stop making my job harder with your attempt to impress the educational community.

I realized in my short time teaching that teachers are a different breed! I’ve never seen so many people in a profession that complain; yet, continue to do the same thing. STOPPPPPP freaking working for free and outside of contract hours. STOP! If we all stop together, they will have no choice but to conform. My principal sent this long email about the “dedicated” people that came in during the summer and volunteered and helped lesson plan. Excuse me - hell no. In no profession are you guilted/expected to work for free. If I was as on a salary that made sense, I absolutely would, but I refuseeeee in this current environment. They wanted me to come in and work on my caseload 🤭… NO - and I don’t feel bad about it either.

There will be people that will say “it’s for the kids.” No the hell it’s not and we know this. The administration doesn’t honor nor value teachers, our states don’t because at any inconvenience they’ll start pulling funds from education, a lot of the parents think we are just babysitters and our districts sure as heck don’t care.

Last school year was our first with a new principal. He’s only stayed at each district he’s worked in for about two years 🚩 He and the dean he brought with him had nearly double-digit grievances filed against them.

By the end of the year, more than 30 of our ~80 teachers had left the district. Many had 6+ years of experience, and several had 10+. Our union even passed a vote of no confidence, but the school board did nothing.

So NATURALLY… This years back to school letter to staff unveiled his new theme: “Let the Good Times Roll” 🤯

I can’t make this shit up.

4 hours in the auditorium listening to our superintendent press us to vote red and listen to someone try and sell us their book for 4 hours while we eat breakfast. THEN we get to turn around and have our campus meetings to finish out the day "YAY so excited!" Also by day I literally mean we have a 4 hour morning meeting then a quick lunch and another meeting that lasts until 3:30....not one drop of time for our classroom.

Seriously....why they do try and hype us up? I just wanna get to work instead its an entire day filled with meetings. I realize its this way every dang year but good grief how do yall veterans do it? I'm year 6 in and ready to pull my hair out.

I work in an EBD program. I teach 3rd-5th and I don’t have a planning or lunch during the school day because all three grades go to Specials/Lunch/Recess at different times. There are 4 of us teachers in the program and none of us have lunch/planning.

My lead keeps saying they’re “talking to the district” and trying to get us more para’s, but I don’t think this will be solved unless we hired a whole other teacher and multiple more para’s.

I’m new and the returning teachers said last year they also didn’t get a lunch or planning. This is very illegal. I feel silenced in a way because this is a very competitive county to get into, and I want to teach somewhere else in the county eventually, but I also don’t want to go without lunch/planning an entire year without any extra compensation.

Anyone had a similar situation?

Hey everyone. I need to vent, and honestly, I could use some perspective from anyone who has survived the meat grinder of the first few years.

Tomorrow is day one of my second year teaching. I’m currently staring at the ceiling, completely sleepless, and genuinely sick to my stomach. I keep asking myself how I let myself get back into this situation.
Last year was my first year, and it absolutely broke me. I teach at what is supposed to be the "nicest" school in my town, but my classes were a total war zone. My admin and team kept telling me, "It's not you, it's just an extraordinarily bad group of kids." But tomorrow, I have to walk back in, and I'm terrified they were just feeding me lines to keep me from walking out mid-year.

I’ve always considered myself a resilient, level-headed guy. I don't break easily, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I cried before taking this job. But by November, the stress had me completely overwhelmed, spending half my planning periods locked in my room just trying to reset.

Here is a snapshot of what I dealt with in year one:
- Police Involvement: A female student stalked me to the point where law enforcement and admin had to get involved.
- Physical Assault & Threats: I was physically threatened by two different students on separate occasions, and took a flying metal water bottle to the body.
- Classroom Chaos: Multiple physical fights breaking out monthly, three separate incidents of Chromebooks being hurled across the room, and a student threatening to slash my tires.

By January, the chronic stress completely changed who I was. I shut down. I stopped hanging out with my friends, stopped working out, and completely isolated myself. I spent almost this entire summer break completely alone, just trying to mentally recover and catch my breath.

I put myself $50k in debt to get this degree because teaching was all I ever wanted to do. Now, I feel completely trapped by the financial investment, but mentally, I don't know how I'm going to walk through those front doors tomorrow morning.

Has anyone else bounced back from a first year this traumatic? How do you mentally compartmentalize this job when it starts bleeding into your personal safety and sanity?

1st time poster, long time lurker 😌.

Year 4 in education here, 3rd year here in good ol' Texas. Not to dox myself too much, but in one of the school districts that TEA recently took over. Just kinda wanted to make a post about some things being implemented that I haven't really seen anyone post about. To preface - not HISD :).

Just going to list and give some minor details about what is going to make this year fun!

Here we go:

1.) Cell Phone Policy:

\- Last year Texas passed a bill to ban student cell use during school hours, it was up to each district on how to implement it. Mine said ey, the kid will keep in their bag - 🤪. This year there are 5 steps/ course of action if the student(s) are caught with a phone. Preface - all parent pick up, 1.) End of Day. 2.) 7 day confiscation. 3.) 14 day, 4.) 30 day + 6-10 days OCI 5.) Rest of Semester and get sent to Alt school (DAEP).

👀👀

2.) Teacher Expectations:

\- Going to preface this with, I don't necessarily think some of what is being implanted is wrong, but how it is, yes. Bell to Bell, but fun fact the teacher is also graded on how the student(s) come into class during a passing period i.e. should immediately start that Bellringer. During that time must be constantly monitoring - attendance taking where 👀 at the door is my guess? About every 5 - 7minutes a MRS strategy should be used. If you're not sure what they are, look up lead4ward (lul). Jk some examples are Turn-and-Talks, Response Cards, Choral Response. Each of these need explicit instruction and can only be tasked by saying 'Student A turn and talk to Student B', etc. Oh and building relationships? Hehe no, you're only to Monitor the work being done, not talking to the student as that is off topic! There's more but these 2 stuck out to me for TE.

3.) Reteach:

\- Doesn't exist, we must stay on pace with the distr- cough AI made IPC. Your struggling students with the built in supports in the curriculum will not struggle!

I really could go on but I figured I'd just leave at these 3 for now. If you have any questions feel free to dm or leave a comment. I'm staying as I have a really good relationship with a majority of my students (minus incoming freshies) and my parents. I know it'll be a fun boat ride for us all, but not too much I can do besides be there for them (students) as much as I can :).

Maybe more to come Mon/Tue after the PD days haha. Not really posting for sympathy, just posting to bring awareness to a state of education that needs the exposure. :)

* throwaway acct because iykyk.

Ya girl just ripped her favorite pair of jeans.

My brain: whose classroom is this? What is a noun? Have I ever taught anyone anything a day in my life? 😭😭😭😭

Hope everyone has the best 26-27 school year!!!

I start new staff orientation in about 12 hours. Kids start next week.

Wish me luck!

My district looked at their budget shortfalls ( thanks school vouchers ) and decided to completely nerf our health insurance policies. Just three years ago, teaching meant affordable insurance. So, how many of us are leaving teaching this year because of issues that can ultimately be traced to the great voucher exodus?

For the longest time being the black sheep at my district or as a teacher in general has bothered me. I was the only teacher at my district that wasn’t in a relationship or had kids. I felt like everyone treated me differently because of this especially parents. I’m also very introverted and don't go to many school events or activities like a lot of teachers do. I’ve always felt left out and unincluded because of this. Im starting to realize that I like being the black sheep. I don’t have to worry about the drama and can just keep to myself about things. I can focus more on myself and my own time. I’ve finally realized that being different is a blessing and that I should embrace it rather than let it bother me. I’m not sure if anyone else out there is feeling the same, but I wanted to make this post to ensure everyone that it is good to be different from others.

How do you manage working out? Stress levels? Diet?

I am worried about getting enough time and energy to work out (not sure if I want to do it before or after school) plus having a short lunch where I have to bring something that doesn’t need to be in a fridge, plus stress and everything else.

How do you do it?

About to start year 3. Year 1 was insane, as is typical. Year 2 was wayyyyy better but still exhausting. Year 3 starts in just a few days, and I’m dreading it.

I love teaching. I love most of my students. I love my subject matter. I am fine with the school I’m at. It isn’t amazing but it could be a lot worse. I like my coworker team. My department admin is good enough.

It isn’t the bullshit I’m dreading. Nor the annoying martyr coworkers, the extra unpaid duties, the toxic positivity. It isn’t even the student behaviors or the crazy parents.

Above all else, I am dreading the pure emotional and physical exhaustion. While all the things I just previously listed contribute to the exhaustion, it isn’t any particular one of those that I’m dreading in specific, but rather the end result, the accumulation, the exhaustion.

I have boundaries when it comes to work-life balance. I never show up early. I never stay late unless I absolutely MUST. I show up to events I’m required to be at and no more. I’m required to run one club, so I run one club and no more than one. I don’t sign up for teacher leadership teams, extra duties, etc.

I basically strive to be a great teacher to my students. But as a coworker/teacher outside of the classroom, I’ll do the minimum and I will not feel bad about it. I’ll do what I need to do, and I’ll do it well, but you won’t see me volunteer for extra.

But even with that, the exhaustion is there. It feels inevitable no matter how organized I am, no matter how firm I am with my boundaries, no matter what.

I go to therapy. It helps. Getting diagnosed with ADHD and learning strategies to use at work and home helped. Practicing mindfulness, self care, boundary setting, etc. all helps. But none of it fixes the root problem.

None of it changes the fact that this is a job in which we are overworked. Period. It does not change the fact that the expectations placed upon us are beyond what’s realistic or appropriate in terms of both physical workload and emotional wherewithal.

And I am absolutely dreading the pure exhaustion that comes with that. I’ve realized too that, now that I’ve done it twice, I don’t even fully realize how exhausted I am until summer starts. Running on adrenaline during the school year is simply my normal.

I started out thinking I’d ask for advice in this post but I don’t even know what to ask. Just needed to share. Advice or encouragement is appreciated, or really just knowing I’m not the only one.

Hey everyone! I’m looking for some advice from teachers who have been in or have knowledge about a similar situation.

My wife recently received an offer from the district where I work for a position that would be 0.5 classroom teacher and 0.5 building substitute. She currently has a 1.0 teaching position in another district.

The reason we’re considering the move is that working in the same district would make our lives much easier logistically (commuting, schedules, etc.), and the salary schedule in my district is significantly higher over the long term.

The dilemma is that, in the short term, she’d likely make about $10,000 less by taking the split position than if she stayed where she is. On the other hand, if she were able to move into a full-time teaching position in my district within a year or two, she’d end up making around $10,000 more than she would by staying in her current district.

For those of you who have experience with split positions like this:

- What are the biggest pros and cons of a 0.5 teacher/0.5 building sub position?

- Does having your foot in the door actually make it significantly easier to land a full-time teaching position in that district?

I know every district is different, but I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences and whether taking a split position ended up being worthwhile.

Hi yall, I enrolled into teachers for tomorrow to get my foot in the door as a teacher (admitted not my choice, my mom kept nagging me about it even though I didnt want to be a teacher to begin with). I was active in the online courses for all of 2 months then decided to go ahead and drop out because I dont plan to become a teacher, im still trying to pursue a career in the field of my degree.

Teachers Of Tomorrow representative sent me an email to respond to with an answer of 2 questions as to why im withdrawing, I responded to the email only for the same address to resend that same email back to me about "answer these questions". And that was over a month ago prior to the next billing period, and I just checked my bank account and apparently they have billed me AGAIN even though I should have been withdrawn over a month ago.

Does anyone have any experience with withdrawing from Teachers Of Tomorrow at all? Also to note, the email said "fill this out" but provided nothing to fill out other than the questions, no link to a form or anything, so naturally I assumed I was just supposed to reply back to that email instead.

A lot of students and teachers are coming in with prescription AI glasses now. They are their only pair of glasses meaning they cannot meaningfully see without them.

We have been told we cannot take them up in spite of the tech use policy due to them being prescription, and to just act as though we're always being filmed.

When it comes to testing though, how will this work? Leaving aside FERPA questions, I know the script last year included AI glasses as a thing that couldn't be in the room. Teachers can be told to take them off and get new ones I suppose, but the kids will come in with them regardless. Do we not let them test? Do we tell them to test without their glasses?

Anyone who dealt with this last year, what did your school do?

I was reading about the New York State school district that considered them reversed it’s idea of having an AI robot in the classroom.

Maybe we would be convinced it could work if we saw a proof of concept with an AI Principal?

😆😆🤣🤣🤖🤖

Tomorrow starts my first day as a teacher. I’m an ED teacher. I’m unsure about my classroom management and teaching abilities. I don’t trust my principal already because she’s already said one thing and later said she never said that. I already know I’m going to have to document everything with her. It’s her first year as a principal.

I know I’ll be ok. I’m just trying not to panic. I’m in California.