Florida will be short over 9,000 teachers this fall.

Nope, You made a statement and I added context which you didn’t care for. Again

 

Can't reason with the unreasonable. Back to bashing DeSantis!

 

Teachers and principals should do it as it is their best interest to do so. To be clear teachers meed parent and community buy in.

As an example the general public and parents are rarely informed of school board meetings. As a parent I never got any notification from my children let alone teachers for such events. Meet and greets typically happen once a year at the beginning of the year. Nothing says the meet and greets cannot be done on a regular basis. As a parent I had to take the initiative and the schools knew me on a first name basis. This needs to change.

Not sure about your district but often times children are out of a school for a teachers work day. What goes on during this time? What does a teachers work day entail? Is it catch up time? Are issues discussed that the community should be aware of?

I am sure teachers and principals are capable of getting out information to the community and the public through web sites, sports events, advertisement and parental notification. Many communities have HOA's that deliver news letters to the community. Putting information in these news letters would go a long way. With today's technologies online meetings are an option.

These are just a few of my thoughts and I am sure others can come up with many more. The community and parents must be involved and the educational powers that be need to embrace parental and community involvement versus shutting them out.

 

Great...let's get thousands of parents all with different views being "curriculum" activists. No thanks. WHat the heck do parents know of curriculum? 99.9% don't know jack. Homeschool your kid or send them to a private school. SMDH

PS Leave the books alone please

 

A bit of bizarre statement to me.
From a different perspective (wife taught over 20 and several nieces currently)

Time. It always amazed me the speed at which schools run, a thousand student and teacher personal issues interlaced with ever changing curriculum, funding, admin. Schools almost run 24/7 with all the extracurricular sports clubs etc. The involved teachers and admin are burning the proverbial candle. Of course, like with everything, there are those less involved. But the pace is never ending. Work days? Finalizing grades, state mandated training, admin issues….

I know with the internet portal we could see the progress in every class as well as the school calendar as well as opting in for an email blast of upcoming events.

I think if parents and community believed in strong rigorous education more than say, football it would go a long way. Not sure what coordination you are looking for between the entities.

 

Nice, this is the attitude that is going to win voters over so changes can be made. We don't want your opinion! We just want your vote! It's reasonable to assume that parents are going to be less informed about curriculums. But the response to that shouldn't be to shut them out entirely, it should be to bridge the gap. You want to have an open exchange between the community and the curriculum designers (educate the parents while at the same time getting critical feedback). Otherwise you get the renegade nonsense like what was posted above. You don't want to have a completely closed system when it comes to curriculum.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Not every parent can afford to homeschool. As for the comment I'll believe the scenario you describe when it happens. Like anything else an agenda is put foward and people decide not the other way around.

And now argument is that parents and the community are dumb to understand cirriculum? Does nothing more than keep the community and the public uninformed.

 

I look at curriculum a bit differently. Who do you want developing it? I believe it should be curriculum developed by say developers working with teachers as to what is working and what is not. Teachers have enough to do, especially in subjects with testing goals.
PTA’s can often be like THFGC and schools should be kept neutral. IMHO.
Tough these days and some depends on what power admin has vs Union power? The young woke activists vs Non woke can have weekly dance off’s in the park to vent outrage.
Finding a workable middle ground by staying out of the foray. Ymmv. Go Gators

 

Appreciate the feedback. As for my suggestions in getting the parents and community involved I can see where some options are viable and some are not. To that end I think we both agree transparency and open lines of communication with the community and parents should be a requirement.

To be clear I am sympathetic to the amount of time teachers spend in accomplishing their tasks. That said the open lines of communication are meant to facilitate and work with teachers to alleviate the burdens they face not add to them.

 

I don't know about value, but you are misunderstanding the role of the union (while claiming that you understand its role). I really don't care to engage in any debate about teachers' unions, though.

 

Agree, definitely don't think that the voters/parents should attempt to develop a curriculum. My point is just that it should be open to community feedback (and the feedback and sharing of the information should be encouraged).

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Thanks! My biggest take would be lines of communication take time. Especially with classroom teachers who are often grading assignments on their own time (course specific of course) and said communication would also come on their own time. How much time could one person on a mission take up. Look at some prolific posters here!
Much of it comes down to resources. More staff could create better communication, more ongoing training and teacher development could help students’ outcomes. But everything costs money. Since there a lot of teachers, we want to keep pay low for budgets.

 

From the FEA website (under core values):

They are not doing as good of a job as they could be here. Just my opinion.

LOL (@gatordavisl ), I appreciate the "creative" rating; for what it's worth, I tagged your other post "creative" because you expressed an argument about the teacher's union in the same post that you said you didn't want to argue about the teacher's union. No big deal, just came off as contradictory to me. But let's look at what an experienced teacher had to say about teacher unions in FL:

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Congrats to your wife (!) and thank her for her service.

I've researched the issues a bit and this is the refrain most commonly used by those justifying underpayment and poor working conditions of teachers: They do it because they love it! While true for most teachers, this sentiment serves to de-professionalize the education profession. As a performing musician, I hear this all the time. You will take less pay because you love to play, correct? Malarkey. Imagine using that line on an engineer, a doctor, etc.

I'm glad to hear it. It's about time they step up their efforts to pay teachers better in FL.

Completely false and based upon your singular observation of your wife's situation. I bet she's not a band director, spending numerous nights working at school or at home (just one example). And I disagree about 30min being adequate time for lunch. Ever been to Europe?

Agree about good benefits, but health insurance is most certainly not free. When I taught in FL, you had to work 10yrs before being eligible for the pension plan. It's a great benefit only for those who teach 30+ years. Guess how many teachers last 30yrs?

After having worked in FL for 13 years, I converted the pension plan to an investment plan for a whopping . . . . wait for it . . . 22k. That's shameful.

Completely incorrect. Thanks for your post and I'm happy to hear about your wife's successes and that the profession is treating her well.

 

Thank you, excellent points. One of the biggest points of ignorance for parents and the general public relates to the magnitude of running a school and managing a classroom. Parents should consider how challenging at times it can be to raise a child, or two or three children. Now multiply that by 25. It's like having a six hour 25-child slumber party in your house, five days per week. Please, folks. Time some time to carefully consider.

Oh, and remember that you don't get to choose when you take lunch or get a bathroom break. And then remember that at least three of the 25 kid's parents will complain that your slumber party was not run appropriately. You see, while maintaining controlled chaos among your 25 member slumber party, you were supposed to do a better job communicating with the parents, while developing and implementing plans for your party's success.

But yeah, it's just like any other job.

 

I agree lines of communication need to be developed and maintained. I also look at it from the stand point that there are any number of organizations that would be willing to chip in and help teachers out. Churches and youth groups can certainly play a role in taking on some the time consuming tasks such as grading papers and organizing events. Using resources in the community is a starting point that would alleviate much of the angst between teachers and parents.

 

Churches? No thanks. Separation of church and state. Absolutely not.