OT: - Teachers of Boneyard...Back to School Time | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: Teachers of Boneyard...Back to School Time

My brother is a teacher in Philly public school district, middle school. Paid his dues for years but for last several years is at a target school for the Philly school system that the kids need to apply to,
teaching STEM. He loves it so much he said he’d teach year round.
My wife is a school counselor, my father taught high school biology for 30 years and a chemecology course he designed 30 years ago before it was a “thing”. My mother in law taught kindergarten for 40 years and my father in law was a college professor at Harrrisburg Community College for 50 years.
I have great respect for all of you in education. I strayed and became a pharamacist because I couldn’t survive teaching for a week. Best of luck to you all.
 
98Uconn said:
father in law was a college professor at Harrrisburg Community College for 50 years.
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Community college is where it's at for PhDs these days. The tenure-track, publish or perish rate race is not good for 99% of people. My wife is making close to 100k teaching 4 classes a semester at CT comm colleges with a 3 month summer. Amazing gig.
 
husky429 said:
My guess is that When the recommendation to the superintendent, he's shooting it down for budget reasons. If you're not sped, math, or science that is likely the reason. I've been on 23 hiring committees in the past year and justifying hiring a 15 year English teacher vs some brand new kid from Central is tough. We had a few recommendations for hires shot down for that reason.

If you're sped, math or science it's probably something else. Are you white and straight? Right or wrong, that's a factor working against you too if you are.

@Dream Jobbed 2.0 and I have gone on and on and on about how ridiculous hiring can be via DM (including my own district shafting him pretty bad).

Good luck.
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Yep, this has been what I've been thinking - and what my wife has been saying.. It's nice to see it typed out in print, what a racket it is.. There just has to be a better way, but this is what we all must suffer through. Thank you for your honesty.
 
BFieldHusky said:
@M.S.G. ....not sure if this will help. I have heard some crazy stories as well.

My girlfriend is a school psychologist. Top of the scale. Over 20 plus years of experience, plus it's a shortage area in CT right now. Was offered a job in early July at one of the better districts in the state after interviewing twice, and after getting glow reviews from her references. She accepted.

It took HR a week to get back to her to set up an appointment to finalize everything. The HR director was almost an hour late to her meeting, and then said the district was offering her 25 grand less than top of the scale because she had taken 2 years off total during her career (1 each for the birth of her children, which were complicated births).

The HR manager met with her on a Tuesday afternoon, and gave her a Wednesday deadline of 5 p.m to take it or leave it as he put it. He said any questions let me know.

She had one question, emailed him, left 3 voice mail messages over 2 days, and he never got back to her. Finally, on THURSDAY, at 6 p.m. he emailed her and said they were pulling the offer because they never heard from her, and he had consulted with someone in the district who wasn't even part of the interview process. She called the principal who hired her, the Super, and no one would take her call.

Beyond this being ridicilous, unprofessional, etc. she lost almost 2 weeks of time where she could have applied at other places.

Luckily, she just found another job, but it is a wacky world out there.

At my school, we can't find anyone for our psychological services team. Everyone seems to be leaving the field...
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Holy moly.. It does help. I appreciate you typing this out. Thanks for sharing. Mind boggling, yet totally believable considering what I've dealt with and seen!
 
Kudos to those in the profession….their love of kids is overwhelming. Unfortunately, today so many are undermined by ambitious administrators, overbearing parents and catering board members. I retired in 2009, 34 years experience….still miss the kids. Lotta fun! Can’t imagine what virtual learning has done to the development of kids….educationally and socially. Then the mask issue! Just let teachers teach and eliminate the B.S. Best of luck to all kids and teachers…..and parents….do your job!
 
Anyone out there with kids in daycare/pre-school?

We’ve seen massive jumps price recently. I knew it was basically a mortgage going in but a 20-30% jump in cost is a lot ($5k-$6k more per year).

Anyone see the same thing? They say it’s because of inflation, teacher gas costs, they want to increase teacher salaries because they aren’t making much more than minimum wage, budget balancing. I don’t mind paying more but we’re barely getting by as it is. Wild.
 
Year five for me as a 5th grade gen. ed teacher in NY. Staff reports on the 30th and students on Sept. 1. A nice and easy two day week to start the year off before LDW.

We’re departmentalizing this year which is an exciting change of pace. I was hoping to teach math, science and social studies but as the untenured teacher (entering my third year in my current district) I didn’t have a lot of say when my principal told me they needed me to teach reading and writing. C’est la vie.

Best of luck to everyone!
 
I’m a school psychologist who works with preschoolers. We work year-round, so not a true “back to school” for me, but there is a definite different feel to August/September.
 
Wednesday here.

Been at the place for 2.5 years but I've had one foot out the door for over a year now. Admin has pulled all sorts of fun stuff. Last March (2021) they told me I would move from Year 6 to Year 4 for the next year and then, in June, told me I wasn't going to be a Year 4 teacher anymore and they didn't have a position for me, but they wanted to keep me. So everything was up in the air for part of summer. Got called in the middle of the summer and they asked me to take a position in secondary. Weeks later they asked if I could also teach secondary Maths (no! Don't even have the qualifications.)

Oh ya, and I was told they would be withholding my summer pay, so that was a stressful summer, vacations were already planned. I finally got my summer pay in installments over the course of the first few months of school. They wanted to make sure I wouldn't take my summer pay and leave at the start of September. Gee, wonder how many times that happened to them in the past.

One important person in admin left and they never said a word about it, or explained it in any way to the staff and we all just had to pick up the slack for her unexplained absence (termination or she quit).

That is it for now.
 
Travelman32 said:
Wednesday here.

Been at the place for 2.5 years but I've had one foot out the door for over a year now. Admin has pulled all sorts of fun stuff. Last March (2021) they told me I would move from Year 6 to Year 4 for the next year and then, in June, told me I wasn't going to be a Year 4 teacher anymore and they didn't have a position for me, but they wanted to keep me. So everything was up in the air for part of summer. Got called in the middle of the summer and they asked me to take a position in secondary. Weeks later they asked if I could also teach secondary Maths (no! Don't even have the qualifications.)

Oh ya, and I was told they would be withholding my summer pay, so that was a stressful summer, vacations were already planned. I finally got my summer pay in installments over the course of the first few months of school. They wanted to make sure I wouldn't take my summer pay and leave at the start of September. Gee, wonder how many times that happened to them in the past.

One important person in admin left and they never said a word about it, or explained it in any way to the staff and we all just had to pick up the slack for her unexplained absence (termination or she quit).

That is it for now.
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Where are you teaching now? Last I heard was the Balkans maybe?
 
Start my first full year as an administrator at a state approved private tomorrow. Hired for the position last October. It was a terrible year and after a handful of interviews I can as offered a position in a large urban district. However, the person who offered me the job called me a couple days later saying HR wants to go another direction. Think I ended up being too straight white and male for a leadership role in this specific district
 
I report on Wednesday, the kids come the following Tuesday the 29th. My district, for whatever reason, is switching from Google Classroom to Schoology - anybody have any experience using Schoology? I had a PD on it at the end of last year and didn't find the interface to be particularly user-friendly.
 
husky429 said:
Community college is where it's at for PhDs these days. The tenure-track, publish or perish rate race is not good for 99% of people. My wife is making close to 100k teaching 4 classes a semester at CT comm colleges with a 3 month summer. Amazing gig.
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Ive been saying the same thing for years…state job, state insurance, state pension, and good pay with plenty of time off. Absolutely an amazing gig.
 
Ts5034 said:
Ive been saying the same thing for years…state job, state insurance, state pension, and good pay with plenty of time off. Absolutely an amazing gig.
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Jobs are getting harder to get. They basically don't hire without a PhD in this state. Great career though.
 
crazyUCfan23 said:
I report on Wednesday, the kids come the following Tuesday the 29th. My district, for whatever reason, is switching from Google Classroom to Schoology - anybody have any experience using Schoology? I had a PD on it at the end of last year and didn't find the interface to be particularly user-friendly.
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Once you get used to it and figure out all the ins and outs it’s way better than any other LMS. Everyone will complain. There is a learning curve - more so for the older teachers. But once you get there you’ll realize it blows google classroom out of the water. Google classroom is prettier. That’s it.

Edit to add: feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I used to run PD for it at my old district.
 
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Hey Adrien! said:
To the Teachers of Boneyards, godspeed to you all and hope everyone has an excellent school year.

I'm back for meetings on Tuesday with students coming the following Tuesday and an overnight camping trip in NW NJ from that Wednesday-Friday. Nice way to start the school year without anything heavy content wise.

Also, I'm in a new classroom after staying in the same room for the first twelve years at my school, so I'm looking forward to that change.

Best of luck to all!
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My 14 year old grandson is almost 1/2 way through the first quarter .
His school district started on 7/21 the first qtr ends 9/30 .
His district has a plan I think most teachers would like. . They get 2 week vacations at each qtr break , Oct and March Plus 21/2 weeks for Christmas. Thats over 6 weeks plus holidays during the greatest weather.They get out by Memorial Day.
First of all summer is the worst weather of the year so a short summer vacation is no big deal.All the schools have AC .
Getting and keeping teachers in Az except for some districts is difficult as the pay is terrible.
The Districts out here are crazy the Town you live in might not be the District.
My daughter has taught SPED in Ct for years
 
AZHuskiePop said:
started on 7/21 the first qtr ends 9/30 .
His district has a plan I think most teachers would like. . They get 2 week vacations at each qtr break , Oct and March Plus 21/2 weeks for Christmas. Thats over 6 weeks plus holidays during the greatest weather.They get out by Memorial Day.
First of all summer is the worst weather of the year so a short summer vacation is no big deal.All the schools have AC .
Getting and keeping teachers in Az except for some districts is difficult as the pay is terrible.
The Districts out here are crazy the Town you live in
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They've done studies on schedules like that. They're pretty effective in stopping some of that summer slump, but teachers and parents are generally not in favor. It complicates things like summer camp, family vacations, etc. Personally, I'm in favor of it and would definitely vote in favor if given the opportunity. I think most people would get used to it pretty quickly.

AZ is an absolute disaster educationally. They (and quite a few other states) should be embarrassed by what's happening in their public schools.
 
AZHuskiePop said:
My 14 year old grandson is almost 1/2 way through the first quarter .
His school district started on 7/21 the first qtr ends 9/30 .
His district has a plan I think most teachers would like. . They get 2 week vacations at each qtr break , Oct and March Plus 21/2 weeks for Christmas. Thats over 6 weeks plus holidays during the greatest weather.They get out by Memorial Day.
First of all summer is the worst weather of the year so a short summer vacation is no big deal.All the schools have AC .
Getting and keeping teachers in Az except for some districts is difficult as the pay is terrible.
The Districts out here are crazy the Town you live in might not be the District.
My daughter has taught SPED in Ct for years
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That's a balanced calendar and it was pitched in the school district I used to teach in about 13 years ago. The problem was that what they ended up with wasn't a true balanced schedule is was a modified version and it doesn't really do what it was supposed to do.

Balanced calendar is really where it is at though and that is something that every school district should move too.
 

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