Talking to Principals

I would want open and honest communication with our principal. hands down.

2nd Grade Teacher
California

An Exchange of Ideas

Planning. It needs to happen within each grade as well as across grades and with (good) specialists. And none of this mandated/scripted curriculum crap... an actual exchange of effective lessons, etc. and ideas.

Kindergarten Teacher
PGCPS

Connecting Special and General Ed

I would change the communication between general education and special education. There is an overall disconnect between the two and no one ever knows what's going on.

Special Education Teacher
DC

Differentiated Uniforms

I would have school uniforms differentiated by grade level for several school wide management reasons.

8th and 9th Grade Social Studies
DC

Welcome!

Welcome to Give Teachers Voice!

We are 4 teachers who teach in Early Childhood classrooms in areas of DC and Prince George's county. Our goal is to give our students the education they deserve. After teaching and being a witness to what goes on in classrooms and schools, we all have thoughts about how to make the goal of quality education attainable. Each of us has a voice that should be heard. Our voices contain knowledge, carefully thought out ideas and feedback for the schools that we work in. We believe one of the main reasons why quality education is not a reality in many schools is a lack of communication and sharing of teacher and administrative voices. If we, as educators put our voices together, we can be heard!!!! Please tell us your thoughts and your story as we speak up in order to provide our students with an excellent education!

We ask all educators these questions...

What would you say to your administration or superintendent if you had the chance for your voice to be heard and considered?

What areas of your school are you concerned about?

Where is teacher voice needed in your school?


Please feel free to comment on and send us your own blog entries! Send all entries to giveteachersvoice@gmail.com . Although entires can be anonymous, please include your school district and grade level. Thank you in advance!

Our hope is for this blog to start a true dialogue of teacher voices. If our conversation gets loud enough, we will be heard.

A Quick Note About Posts

The posts found on our blog are from actual teachers in the Metro DC region. We post the blog entries as they were presented to us, in the teacher's own words. The views expressed in the blog entries do not necessarily represent the views of Teachers Voice or the founding teachers. Our goal is to give teachers a space to express their honest views and opinions; therefore, blog entries are posted in the voices of the teachers who wish to share with us. For the views of Teachers Voice and the founding teachers, please see our "About Me" section.

Thanks!

Share Your Voice!

So in looking around for ways we can increase the voice of all teachers heard on here, as well as teachers around the country, I came across an opportunity from the Center for Teacher Effectiveness.

The Center for Teacher Effectiveness is reaching out to teachers for their stories. They are going to begin compiling stories from actual classroom teachers about their experiences in the classroom. If you want to expand your voice (and we encourage you to do so!), follow the link below and submit your story!

http://www.timetoteach.com/

This is a great opportunity! We hope you all make your voice grow even louder and share! ;)

-Chasity~

Another Take on a Teacher Voices Blog

So as I was perusing around on the internet looking for good examples of teacher voice, I came across the blog found at this address: http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/tln_teacher_voices/

This blog takes a very different view of teacher voice. While our blog is focused on giving teachers a place to voice their concerns about problems, this blog seems to be focused on giving teachers solid tools for current education issues. As I began to think about the differences, I couldn't help but wonder about the value of each type of teacher dialogue. It also made me consider the varied ways in which teachers can and should use their voice...we should not only just to voice concerns and issues, but then we should also build on these concerns to find ways to address our concerns. Teachers must use their voices to share about problems/concerns in order to them use their voices to find solutions to these concerns. It seems that both approaches to teacher voice/dialogue need to be used in conjunction to get the most out of our powerful voices.

-Chasity~

Sharing Information - Communication is Key!

If I could change one thing about my school, it would be to increase the amount and quality of information shared between staff members and between staff members and families. Many parents ask me about the details of school activities that I've never even heard of, or I'll mention a particular event to a fellow teacher who will be surprised because s/he wasn't aware of it. To effectively education our children, we all need to be on the same page, both in terms of our vision for them and in terms of the little details that make up their school experience.

-First Grade Teacher
DC Public Charter School

Reliable Special Education

A special education department that was reliable and did their job. If that were the case, after going through the SIT/IEP process, I know my students would receive the services they need.

The SIT and IEP processes are so grueling and then nothing happens if the students end up getting an IEP. What's the point? I might as well teach special ed myself.

-Third Grade Teacher
Prince George's County Public Schools

Parent Help

If I could change one thing, it would be parent communication. I would want to add more people to help us communicate with parents. There aren't enough translators - we have mostly Hispanic parents and only one parent liaison.

Kindergarten Teacher
PGCPS

Administration

You know I hate to be cliched, but I am going to have go with the administration. I have been there 12 years through 3 prinicipals and 5 assitant principals and I would have to say they have a huge impact. If the administration is difficult, then teachers are unhappy/stressed, and unhappy/stressed teachers are not working to thier potential.

Tech Teacher
PGCPS

More Collaboration

If I could change one thing about my school, I would want more time to plan and meet with other teachers (to observe and bounce ideas off of).

Kindergarten Teacher
DCPS

Special Needs

If I could change one thing about my school I would request a special education department that was reliable and did their job. If that were the case, after going through the SIT/IEP process, I know my students would receive the services they need.

Third Grade Teacher
PGCPS

If I could change one thing about my school.... well that's hard.... If I could change a few things about my school it would be better communication with the staff about events/suspensions/etc and consistency with behavior management. I've been outspoken, but talk doesn't always lead to change.

4th Grade Teacher
DCPS

Planning Time

We've suggested so many times that planning time should be across grade level and not across subject, but the administration refuses to listen. It is useless to meet weekly with science teachers in third and fourth grade when I don't even know what the other sixth grade teachers are doing with my students...

Sixth Grade Science Teacher
Prince George's County

Redirecting Behavior

The best advice I've been given, I just received - two years into my teaching career. It was to use "soft voice". After observing many of my assistants and other teachers, I noticed yelling was not only acceptable it was the primary method of discipline at our school. However, after attending a talk by Doug Lamov, I was determined to find a teacher in the building that epitomized his behavior-redirection method, which focused on quieter redirections and more positive reinforcement. After observing one of the best teachers in the building, I started really assessing my own behavior management techniques. What I realized is that quiet redirection is so infrequently a natural response, but it is in the long run FAR more effective. It also has a much greater impact on students. Rather than waiting for explosions, they learn to make the right decisions with fewer reminders. It feels to them that they are choosing the correct path instead of being told to loudly or commanded to choose a certain path. This advice in itself may be the reason I continue teaching, and I only wish there had been more of an inclusive culture at my school that this had been shared or emphasized sooner.

Head Start Teacher
Prince George's County

Understanding Feedback for All Ages

One of the things I've noticed most about my school is that the administrators have created a culture of competitive rule following. It is what we expect of students and teachers alike. The barometer of a quality classroom is how obedient children are: whether students are quiet, raising hands, and following orders (or directions as they are more euphemistically called). While I believe in structure and routines, I think that they can look extremely different in different classrooms. However, the standard is always set by administrators who, in our case, do not have such a flexible understanding of what education looks like. Similarly, when we are observed and assessed, much of what we are critiqued for is if we are teaching exactly what the curriculum requires of us at the exact moment that other teachers are also teaching the same material. Yet still, they somehow emphasize differentiation and making adjustments for our students who have IEPs or speak English as a second language during all meetings and PDs. Strict curriculums don't offer the flexibility that is necessary to meet students at their level and keep them engaged throughout the day. Similarly, following strict curriculums is easy. What is challenging is creating inventive lessons and long-term projects; differentiating for each and every student; providing parent feedback that is tailored to each family; etc. However, this is not what is expected. It is the look of your displays and the orderliness of your students that is most important. The result, in the best cases, is that teachers are overly stressed trying to impress the administration and keep up with their own priorities, burning out quickly. The worst case scenario is that teachers become lazy - doing the bare minimum to meet the administrators' expectations because true dedication is often unrecognized.

Head Start Teacher
Prince George's County

Former Teacher Reflections

After having nearly a year to reflect on my experience in the 2008-2009 school year, I'm struck by several policies or actions that truly need to be altered.

The use of recess deprivation as punishment seems entirely counterproductive. I know we have discussed this in the past and that many teachers see few other ways to punish the kids, but come on, we are clearly punishing ourselves when we do this. People, at least from the ages of about 1 to 70, need a certain amount of physical activity each day in order to become focused enough to think and absorb new information. I'm sure you can find plenty of statistics that support this. When kids miss P.E. or recess or don't even get to have either (I seem to recall that HRA did not have recess for middle school kids), just like adults, they will be infinitely less productive and capable of learning. This is not just with the ability to learn new academic material, but with how they will learn to cope with emotional stress for the rest of their lives. Teachers should not allow students to participate in other fun, creative classroom activities if they fail to comply with the rules i.e. science projects/experiments rather than deprive them of a necessary physical and mental out that is recess.

This might be an easy one, as I am now working to supply healthy foods to private schools, but our public school meal plans often seem atrocious. The outdated dietary guidelines that most plans follow hardly force the schools or companies to provide natural or truly nutritious items. A great deal of the food that I saw served last year did not even resemble actual food and I can't tell you how many times the kids just dumped it in the trash, but I'm sure you have all seen it. This issue aligns with my first problem, as it is a physical, nutritional deficiency that people often do not realize to be so powerful in the ability to help children learn and retain new information. I recently read an article in TIME about a post Teach for America program direction who is helping to form a catering company that provides healthy, fresh food to lower income areas. Seems like a fantastic idea, though I don't know how exactly she turns a profit or how the schools pay for it.

Well trained, more available counselors for the students is a must. Dealing with one of my students, who shall go unnamed here, had difficulty with the help of a consistent, reliable counselor. Initially, we had a counselor who seemed not only unable to connect with the children, but was also out of the building so often that she had little effect on my student. He never felt able to trust her and thus, whenever I was completely unable to take time to talk to him (i.e. my aide was absent and I needed to move the other children forward in a lesson), he would have a tantrum and have to be sent to the office because the counselor was out. People in the office are tending to other things and rarely have the time or ability to handle temper tantrums. Thus, issues were never fully resolved.

We know that data implementation and use is essential to a successful classroom. Frequently, testing and maintaining awareness of your students' learning levels is necessary to moving forward. More methods of doing this should be rigorously taught to teachers.

-Former DC Public Schools Teacher

The Paradox of Consistency

If there is one profession that is definitely underappreciated in the United States, it is teaching, especially teaching in inner city schools. Besides the financial stresses inner city schools must face and the typical behavior problems most Americans hear about, inner city school teachers also have to deal with a plethora of other obstacles on a day to day basis. Every day these teachers enter a hostile environment where they are underappreciated, harassed, and overworked. These teachers are expected to yield the same results as teachers in other areas who have infinitely more support and time. Inner city school teachers are constantly reinforcing routines and procedures throughout the day (no matter what time of year). These teachers do not have a free moment in their day because they are either constantly monitoring their students to prevent severe conflicts from occurring in their classrooms or they are preparing for lessons because they are not given planning periods.

It is easy for an outside observer to simply believe that a teacher who is successful at classroom management will have the time and resources necessary to make the same gains as teachers in more affluent areas. Those individuals, however, do not consider inconsistent school policies that many inner school teachers must face. When students physically and sexually assault their teachers without serious repercussions, other students believe that they can act in the same manner and receive the same consequences. Many of these inner city schools have lowered their behavioral expectations to the point where students are allowed to physically assault their teachers on a daily basis. Expulsion is a rare, if not nonexistent, thing in many inner city schools. Teachers in this environment are constantly trying to provide their students with some form of consistency while facing inconsistencies all around. This paradox is their downfall, if anything.

-DC Public Charter School Teacher

Hands Tied So the Little Ones Suffer

My principal does not seem to focus on the children in lower grades. Early childhood ed is not a concern when you have to worry about the testing grades. Therefore, at the beginning of the year, our kindergartners did not receive the extra ESL support, because the "support needed to be given to the testing grades." I know from school and research that if we start out young, our children will excel in the older grades. However, there seems to be a disconnect. They are telling us to do this and that, and then never support us in the schools the way that we need to be supported. What is the deal?

I think administration needs to be AWARE of what ACTUALLY HAPPENS in the classroom. I do not mean to just take courses or to read up on the ages or to visit the classroom ONCE. I think they should be held accountable for who they are "supporting."

-Kindergarten teacher
Prince George's County Public Schools

A Broken System

Our school requires us to fill out an SST form before any special/extra services can be given to our struggling students. Each year we have a professional development focused on how to fill out an SST, when to submit an SST, why we should submit an SST, and examples of SST's are given to teachers. They talk about how successful this program is for the students it services and they stress the importance of following the procedure- ie. observe the student, write an anecdotal, fill out the form, attach the necessary paperwork (anecdotal,school work, parent meetings, etc), then submit the SST form to your SST coordinator.



I have been a part of this system for almost 2 years and I can say it does not work. By the time the coordinator reviews the SST and arranges for the SST meeting, weeks have gone by. My struggling student is now frustrated and acting out more than before, grades are declining, and everyday seems to last forever for me and the student because he is not being serviced. Once the SST meeting is held with the parent, usually the least amount of services are provided- ie. a behavior management plan, once a week counseling. A follow up SST meeting is then scheduled for 6 weeks later. I have seen this follow meeting happen, but never after 6 weeks. Usually the six weeks pass and I have to email and hunt down the SST coordinator (because she is assigned to more than one school) to remind her about the follow up meeting. By the time the second meeting happens, the student has spent at least 2 months struggling to work with their plans when they clearly need more and the SST process is "all good" because a "plan" has been implemented and the meetings have happened.



It is now February 18th and on December 7th I was required to submit SSTs for the students that were below grade level in my class. I spent my time filling out and submitting 8 SST forms and hoping that my struggling students would be serviced. I have not had one meeting and one has been scheduled but fell through. How is the SST process helping my students? They need interventions and in order to get them, the SST process must be respected, but I don't have respect for the process. The system is broken and there needs to be a better way to help meet the needs of my students.

Organization and Support

Concerns:

• organization and allocation of resources


• teaching assistants/aides for 1st grade, especially when there are over 20 students


• more support from social workers and guidance counselors


• specialists should create unit plans with teaching points so that teachers can focus on how to teach, not what to teach

-1st grade teacher

DC Public Charter School

We Need Reliability

I am frustrated with the reliability of administration and timeliness.

I am frustrated with lack of money in the budget.

-PreK Teacher

Virginia Public School

Early Intervention is Key! We Need Support!

We need more ESOL and SPED support for young kids. Solve the problems sooner!

-Kindergarten teacher

Prince George's County Public Schools

One Word Answers, A World of Difference

Concerns:

• assessment


• curriculum


• discipline

-Kindergarten teacher

DC Public Schools

Sinking

I need a working sink in my classroom. The classroom bathroom is "out of order" because there are holes in the ceiling that leak water (or something). But even before that, the sink only produced scalding hot water (which meant no 5 year old would wash their hands). The other sink only works sometimes and usually produces brownish water. This has been consistent for 1 1/2 years and I've been told it will NOT be fixed this school year.

-Kindergarten teacher

Prince George's County Public Schools

Flexibility and Heat

Concerns:

• curriculum to be used in grade level


• ability to determine our own classroom schedule and flexibility to alter the schedule


• lack of heat in the classroom

-Kindergarten teacher

DC Charter School

Another Look at Data

There is an unclear evaluation method when looking at data for IMPACCT system. Protocol says one high quality source should be used to evaluate, but AP used multiple measures in an unfair way. After concerns were talked about, nothing was done.

-3rd grade teacher

DC Public Schools

Scripts, Scripts, Scripts.

I would have liked to be allowed to use my assessment data to plan my lessons. When I did, my boss came into my room, interrupted my lesson and told me to use the scripted lesson with standards that are not academically appropriate.

I would have liked to be allowed to express my opinions in a staff meeting without being told my opinion is not accurate because I grew up with white privilege.

I would have liked to be able to speak to parents without the mandatory administrative script review before the conversation.

-Camille

A former PreK 4 teacher

DC Charter School

Discipline Needs to Be Addressed

There is no consistent discipline plan/process for unruly behaviors.

There is limited support for students whose behavior is disruptive to other students' learning environment.

-LeDetra

3rd grade teacher

DC Public Schools

Held Back from Success

My school does several things that hold us back from succeeding. Here is a short list:

1. The reading curriculum is scripted, developmentally inappropriate, and, in general, terrible.


2. The literacy and math "specialists" do not create strong professional development opportunities.


3. There is very little collaboration and this prevents us from educating the "whole child."

-Meaghan

Kindergarten teacher

DC Charter School

Get the Substitutes!

At my school, when a teacher is out, we put 2-3 extra students in each class instead of getting a substitute. As a result, teachers are getting overburdened and burnt out by extra students, the split students are losing a day of education, classroom students are distracted, and it creates negativity amongst teachers for those who are constantly out. I have this this issue probably once a week for the past year and a half, but nothing has happened.

-Kindergarten teacher

DC Charter School

Eliminate the Yelling and Screaming

I wish that my principal would abide by DC laws and not allow the teachers and aides to yell and chastise chidlren. She has been witness to teachers calling names, and althought she does not participate in the yelling, she does not stop it. There is always yelling and screaming done by the adults because the students are misbehaving, but how are students supposed to learn how not to yell and scream?

-PreK Teacher

DC Public Schools