I’m on that sub, too. CT teachers have it better than many other states (ahem, South) but teaching isn’t without its issues.

Student apathy and lack of parental support strike me as two of the biggest issues I see daily. Also, we are understaffed and no one cares. Our community only wants to slash our budget, so we cannot add staff to accommodate our increasing enrollment.

The cell phones are an enormous issue in any school that doesn’t have a strict no phone policy. And again, we rarely see parental support on that front. Half the time it’s the parents texting during class. 😑

A good friend was a middle school PE teacher in CT for about a decade. During one class last fall, two boys began fist fighting. Both had been in trouble for bullying/physical violence incidents constantly. He put himself between the 2 of them and lightly pushed them back with each arm to separate them until the SRO could get there maybe 30 seconds later…and then of course one of the boys told his mom that the PE teacher pushed him in class, completely leaving out the part about himself fighting. Said PE teacher was given the option of resigning before he would be fired despite being defended by the SRO and several parents.

If schools (really, the ineptitude of admin) have reached this level of ridiculousness, who the hell would ever want to be a teacher?

This is the kind of stuff I am looking for. Thank you for your response. I don't have children but will start trying to attend my district's board of education meetings to find out if anything is happening like this in my school.

I looked at my district's school budget for 2023 vs 2022 and it looks like most of the budget increase went to the admin versus the teachers (and the teacher numbers were cut a little bit).

That is not uncommon at all.

Also, a lot of special education costs are increasing for districts which means cuts happen in other areas. More and more kids are needing special education services, including extreme ones like outplacement to alternative schools - which the parent district pays typically pays for in terms of tuition and transportation.

My neighbor retired from teaching in Torrington and mentioned cell phones being a big issue. A few weeks after talking to her, I read that the students were having a walkout, protesting a new or potentially new cell phone policy.

What happened to the child you had a few months ago?

They are completely addicted and cannot stop using them. But parents are also unwilling to restrict them, even when they’re failing classes because they’re sitting on TikTok.

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Obviously that child died of covid.

You sound about as brain dead as the spicier ones, if we are being honest. Cool wide sweeping generalization of an entire generation you have there, and based on what exactly?

Edit: Oh.. you blocked me, I guess we all need our safe spaces.

It was so much easier when I started to ply them with drugs and alcohol.

I am friends with 4 teachers in my social circle. 3 of the 4 are currently pursuing different careers, with the 4th holding out until her student loans are forgiven after being in the field for X number of years or something.

They all echo the same things...

• Kids are pieces of shit now
• Parents think their pieces of shits can do no wrong
• Just about anything you say or do to the student could end up costing the school in litigation expenses.
• Pay is trash

(and this is in CT where things are supposedly better teaching-wise than in a lot of the nation).

My MIL has been a teacher in the same school system for 16 years. She hates going to work, and cannot deal with the way kids behave now and how admins handle situations that involve teachers and student conflicts. Many teachers she started with have retired or left the teaching career. At this point she’s just holding out for a couple more years til she can retire comfortably.

As a parent in CT, I don't really engage with the school because I was one of those kids the parents shadowed and bullied through school. Even landed in a good college, then didn't give a bleep. Soured me to education. If my child shows interest in education I will support that. I also show and tell how people who choose to do well in school do well in life,as a result. But my child's life is more than some number graph you guys use to compare educational stats. To you guys they are stats, to us they are people. If they want to be educated they will be motivated to do so. If they are gonna be blow drying someone's hair all nice for a good tip, calling us about them not giving a shit about slopes and angles is a hoot. We can talk to them. I bet your best students are the Italian and new immigrants because the parents are not afraid, yet, of cracking their kid upside the head when they step out of line.

It always kills me how people will be like “I can’t believe the school won’t forcibly take the phone from my child” when I suggest simply taking it themselves and sending them off with a flip tracphone or something similar for emergencies I get scoffed at lol.

>I was one of those kids the parents shadowed and bullied through school.

This sounds pretty bad, could you elaborate on this at all? I'm not sure I understand; if I had to guess they thought you were a danger to the other kids, for Columbine-y/sexual orientation reasons? Sorry you had to go through that.

That's not systemic, that's a specific bad administrator. There is absolutely no reason under any state regulation that that teacher should've been forced to resign. What did the union do?

Rants against millennials are always silly as hell, and I downvoted you, but I have to give you props for at least realizing that they're the parents of kids now; most curmudgeons are just still calling anyone under 30 a "millennial" even though one hasn't been born in over 25 years.

No i mean I was lazy, didn't have direction. Had the whole college bullshit shoved down my throat. Carrot, stick, whatever. Forcing people to learn and anger or discipline seems crazy when you suspect they might be future waitresses or nurses aids. People can always choose to expand their education. Pushy educators, and sadistic make it seem like your cum loude by 23 or bust....lol. I let the kids be kids. I do remind them that a diploma is valuable to future education.

“Everything is about building a relationship with the violent student and trying to coach emotional regulation.”

As opposed to…. What exactly?

School isn’t just for teaching the Pythagorean Theorem, it’s also about proper socialization and how to work with people you like/dislike/hate because that what you do in the real world. The idea that an 8th grader doesn’t need help in their emotional development is laughable, and to think all parents will do their due diligence in teaching emotional regulation is a pipe dream

It's 2023. No parent can ensure their kid doesn't have access to a smartphone.

Oh all right! I'm glad things worked out for you. I just totally gave into all that academic pressure in school, and I have ended up with good degrees and a good job but my entire 20s was a mental health disaster. We make things pretty hard for kids.

It’s literally as simple as not providing one and asking the teacher to let them know if a friend gives them one during class. Then of course following up with consequences if that does happen. A lot of parents just don’t want to parent.

Brain dead take

Honestly I think the serial offenders should just be made to go pick trash off the roadside if they are just using the school system for babysitting and not learning.

So… we take middle schoolers who have disciplinary problems and make them child slaves for the state?

this has to be a troll

That or go home. I’m pretty sure everybody is tired of chronically disruptive and or violent kids preventing the rest of the class from getting a decent education.

“I saw a couple anecdotes… and now I wanna enslave school kids for my benefit cuz I can’t be bothered to do anything that actually helps”

Internet brain rot is real… go touch grass

Sounds like this is personal for you and you were one of those losers in school or your kid is lol

I blame administration for all the BS going on in schools. Most of the teachers and students are good. The ones that are not so good ,face zero to little consequences.

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Nope…. Just graduated college with 0 disciplinary marks from K-Graduation.

I just value what public education has done for my life, and find you to be brain dead for thinking it ok to enslave and ruin the life of a 14 year old without even trying to address the problems that may have led to their lack of emotional regulation.

On a separate note is it the job of the taxpayer to fund a treatment plan for an unruly child? Especially if it can be shown through documentation that the child’s own parents have not been present in the implementation of any action plan to help said child? No, we shouldn’t be making children into slaves of the State but at what point do we finally say enough is enough and that 2% of the children ruining the educational safety and experience for the other 98% is not a viable or realistic request.

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It actually is the job of the tax payer to fund public education. Much like how your taxes fund sports team your kids don’t play on, musicals your kids may or may not participate in, or classrooms your kid doesn’t go into. It is also the job of the tax payer to pay for services that other people’s children may need.

It’s weird to me, I’m sure both of us know full grown adults that can’t regulate their emotions, so why are we to expect the children of those adults to be able to do so? It’s setting people up for failure.

I agree with you on that one. I'm a big fan of Gen Z. My niece and nephew are so much cooler than my sister and I ever were.

My students are not numbers for me. I’ll leave it at that because you don’t really seem open to discourse.

I would argue bad admin is one of the biggest systemic problems there are right now.

They are special education services and their needs are not being met by the parent school. It is federal law. Schools have no choice. ADA and IDEA.

Fair enough. It sure is extremely common. Big waste of money, too.

But still - what did the union do? (Was this a non-union school?) I've known a bunch of teachers who got in much more serious physical dust-ups and didn't face any disciplinary action.

It's not only expelled students who are out-placed at other schools. Oftentimes, it's due to bullying that the school fails to crack down on, so the victim gets placed at another school for their own mental health and safety. This happens more than schools care to admit. In these cases, the school should absolutely be footing the bill.

Totally agree

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I think we would need to see the data on that. In my experience, a vast majority are students with severe special needs, whether social/emotional, behavioral, etc. Documented disability manifestations. My district deals with students expelled for issues like fighting or drugs within our own system.

Here is the problem with the cellphone ban. Parents don't want to ban cellphones in school in case of emergencies like school shootings. Not providing a cellphone to your middle school kids or high school kids will hinder their social circle because a lot of socialization is happening online as well. But you know, that is where all the bullying is happening as well. I have seen some rich ass tech communities where all the parents promised not to buy their kids a cellphone until a certain age, so no one will feel left out.

The problem the teacher face is that they are essentially the bottom of the ladder. Kids not doing well, they get blame from parents and administration and politicians. No one will admit that kids failure in school started at home and it is a systematic change between poverty, parental education, culture and personal responsibility to raise kids. Another issue is that due to the popularity of website like niche and great schools with their rating system, administration doesn't want to suspend kids or punish kids or failed because it will make their rating go down. So you end up with kids who know there are no real consequences to their actions or kids who can't read in third grade. But it can also be that some kids needs one on one attention for these things and teachers can't provide that a classroom with more than 15 kids. I was at the playground yesterday and one kid was bullying another kid for over 5 minutes in front of his own mom and the mom didn't say shit, there are some shitty parents out there

I never said I’m not okay with funding schools. I’m not okay with unquestioningly funding schools when repeat offending children are stomping out their classmates in a bathroom just to come back within the year. It’s not fair to expect the community to pay hefty property taxes just to have their own children feel unsafe. The more it happens in this country the more detrimental it will be for public education in general.

I don’t think the teacher pursued anything or pressured the union to step in…he was kind of looking for a change anyway so that was the push he needed. But I dont know for sure about union, I never really asked about that part.

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So just to confirm, children of parents with the inability to emotionally regulate should be condemned to a life without the basic fundamentals and requirements of even the most “unskilled” labor.

No high school degree, no attempt to curve undesirable behavior, just throw them to the wolves and wait for them to commit serious offenses in the real world.

I am not a teacher, but i feel bad for teachers and staff at schools. The schools are turning into a mental health facility and i blame this on legal system as children have way too many rights and are ill prepared when they become 18 years old. Parents also have so many problems & they too cannot manage the kiddos. This is a whole community problem which needs to be further discussed. On the school level all the kiddos with significant issues are bussed to ACES and there is significant burnt out as kiddos can be aggressive, disrespectful & have no regard for others. Additionally community services such as iicaps, iop are absolutely overwhelmed & cannot deal with the severity, complexities of families that are being referred.

Maybe just put them in a separate school with the other degenerates

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Idk, I don’t remember touching my friends butts in middle school. That sounds like textbook inappropriate. They should be preparing the students by teaching them that that type of behavior isn’t allowed in the real world. If I touched a coworkers butt after they told me to stop I would be fired and/or arrested. I think a phone call home is an entirely appropriate response. Sounds like you’re the type of idiot parent all these other posts are referring to.

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I see a lot of hate for parents and thought I'd provide some perspective as a parent in 2023. We were expected during the pandemic to both be teachers and work at the same time with barely any energy leftover at the end of the day to then coach proper behavior, but did it anyway. This of course means we were constantly stressed. Then the pandemic kind of ends and companies had lost basically all sympathy for needing time off for kids despite the fact many kids still were only partially at school or coming home every week for a slight temperature when schools first re-opened. A lot of us had to use all our PTO on this as a result. Still no chance to recover from the insanity of being a working parent with kids home during the pandemic. We get awful parental leave in the US, which is even more important and needed with so many families needing both parents to work to get by. When kids are sick and you can't work, you're now expected to work anyway since remote work is a possibility. In addition, the nuclear family model is NOT WORKING. Two people (sometimes 1) are expected to teach kids everything under the sun. This isn't to say parents shouldn't parent to be clear, I just think a little perspective is needed on how much society has offloaded onto parents in a way that is failing everyone. We aren't robots that can keep going and going with no break. Finally the modern definition of being a good parent is INTENSE and unrealistic.

Parents.

I completely agree; this is a great comment

Can you explain what are the consequences when a school’s rating goes down on these systems? Do they get less funding? I’m trying to understand WHY the administration cares about these ratings about how many kids they’ve written up.

It takes a village to raise a child. Kids need their teachers, friends, parents, extended family, mentors, etc. to help them along their journey to be a person. Some of the people along the way will be great, others will be shitty. It’s our jobs (listed above per your respective relationship to the child) to not be the shitty influence.

How has "society" offloaded onto parents? What is this "society" that is supposed to raise, discipline, and educate children in lieu of parents? If anything, its the other way around.

A lot of us in "society" are sick of the problem children and adoleacents not being raised by their parents. The juveniles stealing cars and joyriding wrecklessly on the roads, the gangs of young men riding around like @ssholes on atvs and dirtbikes, the physical violence being perpetuated by a growing number of youth...all who now face little consequence from our justice system.

If we tried to ingrain the "success sequence" and some tried and true moral virtue into youth it might go a long way. But the romantic progressives hate that.

A gym teacher in my town had to resign from his coaching position because some of the players kept getting into trouble. Some of them were even arrested. How that fell on him, and not their parents is beyond me. These were high school kids, so honestly, they were.old enough to know better as well. I was an adult when this happened, and by now they would be too. I hope they at least feel bad for the outcome of their immature actions.

I teach a split level position in lower elementary. I think I found my sweet spot because 6-8 year olds don't disrespect and if they do, a quick glare will do the job. I've taught upper elementary before and I will never be back to it.

That being said, staff shortages are killing us. I have SPED kids who are barely getting hours. The school is k-8 with 1 SPED teacher. I have kids who are exhibiting Emotional Disturbance and ADD and I can't convince anyone to stop suggesting ways to deal with it (incentives that 5 days later turn into weapons) and get them tested. These children need behavior techs, documentations, labels, and paras. I cant keep giving up 4 preps a week on having a meeting about the same 3 children doing the same things. And if I don't, I get the "why didn't you do anything about it last year." I tried and no one listened.

Schools should just restrict kids to using flip phones. I know when my son is old enough I'm giving him a flip phone.

Restrict kids to using flip phones. This way you're not taking away the functionality of using a phone for emergencies. Kids can use social media outside of school, because it doesn't belong in the classroom

When schools attempt to restrict phones, there are inevitably parents who push back. “My child needs it to communicate with me. My kid needs it in case of emergency.”

Some schools won’t even confiscate phones because they don’t want to deal with the potential of the phone getting damaged and the parent suing.

I worked in HR for a mid-sized school district for several years. If suspension rates and expulsion rates were too high, the state would cut funding to our district.

Well clearly that is a place to start. We need to make our state leadership understand the huge negative consequences of cutting funding based on disciplinary metrics like this. u/senatorduff

Some of the examples may be district specific. I’m not aware of any effort or policy that cuts state funding based on disciplinary metrics.

Thanks for responding u/senatorduff. Good to know.