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Monday, August 7, 2017

Dominoes start to fall at the schools that had last minute surpluses

Those teachers that remained behind at the schools most hard hit by the unexpected state mandated surpluses are also facing major problems.

Some teachers at these schools have been uprooted and given new teaching assignments to help fill the voids of their missing colleagues. Imagine thinking you were going to teach second grade all summer and putting in the effort to get ready and then on the first day of planning, just a week before kids are to arrive you learn you are suddenly going to be switched to a higher grade? I know I would feel like I was being set up to fail.

Furthermore these kids are going to have to go somewhere and as the state has gutted the class size amendment over the years, I think it is safe to say classes are going to be a little bigger.

What about morale? It's important. teachers that feel valued and supported are going to do a better job than those that don't. It's apparent we have been reduced to little more than replaceable, or not, who cares, cogs.

Then who is going to want to work at these schools after seeing how shoddily the staffs have been treated. These schools were already having a difficult time filing vacancies and in some cases keeping staff, these last second surpluses exacerbate their problems.

Two last things, still nothing from the district, no explanation, no defense, nothing, at this point it feels like they are hoping to just ignore what happened and hope it fades from the next news cycle, which is disappointing. They need to shine a light on how the state works and then redouble their efforts at repairing teacher moral.

Then the media, these teachers may have had bad VAM scores, but nobody knows because nobody has seen them, but that doesn't make them bad teachers by any stretch of the imagination and I don't think the media has done a very good job of explaining it.

I will say it again, the state dealt the district a bad hand, but for some reason the district made it worse and I don't believe we will ever reach our potential if our leadership thinks it is okay to treat teachers this way.

3 comments:

  1. Does Duval have a teachers' union?

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  2. TU finally got around to running a story about it. DTU is a paper tiger. Don't count on them doing anything to help.

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  3. This is an update from the teacher released at 4:42 p.m. Friday. I went to two job interviews but was not offered a position. Now I report to my school temporarily, as they have no openings. Tomorrow, Wednesday I'll report to do what I don't know. The principal is very nice and open with me, which I appreciate. They've told me I'll have a small class of elementary students til the 10 day count. Then, after Labor Day, I'll be assigned a school somewhere. As veteran teachers know, this is NOT desirable. By then students in that class will be totally out of control, probably having run off a number of substitute teachers, and generally having the run of the class. This is a fact, not cynicism and applies to elementary students and older students. I'll obviously work late just to get the room set up; and probably the professional development classes I went to this summer were for naught...Oh well! Like they told me, AT LEAST I HAVE A JOB.

    And why hasn't HR contacted any of us? It would be nice to think they're collaborating with me! After all, I collaborate- who can teach effectively without collaboration? They could make me feel like a person again- not a loser or worthless. Whoops, didn't mean to let that slip out...Mark Felt

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