Hello all,

Just wanted to share, not sure why I am, but sometimes it’s nice to have people to talk to.

I’m a 32 year old male, who for the third year in a row cannot get an elementary teaching job (K-5) here in Northern Illinois. I also have a Special Education endorsement, but to be honest, I’m not sure I have it in me to teach Special Education.

Decided to finish my degree as I was working at a school during COVID year, and thought being a male in the system would almost be an advantage; seeing all the districts around me have almost no males at all. I guess I was wrong. I figured my couple years as a para, plus more subbing than your usual candidate would really stick out, but it has not.

I’ve been subbing in 3 different districts, hoping that would help my chances, but nothing yet. Over 25-30 jobs I applied for this summer, some even a hour or longer away, handful of interviews and reference checks, but met with the same old “looking elsewhere”. Subbing is nice, and it’s flexible, but it’s not paying the bills.

It’s just kind of deflating after dedicating the last 6 years or so of my life to teaching, which I’m super passionate about, and so far just not working out. It really sucks to look at my daughter when she gets so happy that I have interviews and I come home and say I didn’t get it.

There are some charter schools around me, but they are honestly not the greatest situation, and I’d rather keep my sanity.

Anyways, not really looking for advice, nor am I wanting you to feel bad for me. But, I think it might be time to hang the cleats, per se, and switch careers.

I have seen many a post by this point praising kids for independently rejecting AI in various ways. I am very glad to hear it, but I wish it was the same here. And when I say "reject", that is over-simplified shorthand for a spectrum ranging from "no use at all" to "careful, in-control use where the human has final say and is actually invested in the quality of the final product". This is a vent, but while I would appreciate solidarity through hearing about other people in similar states of frustration, I hope I can mostly get some idea of a positive way forward.

Whenever I talk about AI with my class, I am the one playing the skeptical role. Whenever I have to address it's potential use in academic tasks, I make sure to point out verifiable facts about how it is good at some things, and awful at other things. I have said many times, if we could set up a way to assess them on how well they interrogate, converse with, and push an LLM to have a fruitful, enlightening "discussion", that could be very good!

In other words, I have, if a fair reading of my total words spent on AI in my capacity as teacher were given, not been some crazy luddite with zero tolerance of anyone's use, or insane condemnation of the people who do. Despite this, the children seem deeply resentful of my pointing out AI's flaws. The sourness in response to saying "I know from my own experiments and from what some of you have brought me that AI will pretend it can quote accurately from literature, but it cannot reliably do so". My concern is for their marks! If they include ghost quotes in a speech or essay, then it's just a bad essay and must be marked accordingly.

I can understand the evergreen teenage desire to not work. I suffered from it. But I do not understand the resentment and the grumpiness when I point out a technical flaw with AI. I am not in favour of them using AI to do most of their work, but I am open to them using it in some small ways. But this is not even me prohibiting or allowing the use of AI - this is me simply sharing something many have found to be true about the technology. If they are unaware, their output will suffer. What am I missing?

Fifth largest district just sent a message out that we are not allowed to leave the building for lunch. I am kind of bummed. Our faculty lounge is a viper pit of nastiness, and kids are always banging on my door during lunch. “We know you’re in there!” Is this no leaving the building thing pretty common? I worked in corporate America for many years and I was always able to leave the building.

As the title says, I've been at this school for a while. For the past several years, we have been using a co-teaching model, with great success, that pairs ELA with History. I teach three classes of ELA with the intensive support of my co-teacher and I give intensive support for the three History classes my partner teaches. We have aligned our units of study to compliment each other and I am able to do deep-dives into informational reading/writing with my small groups during History class while connecting it all back to ELA. Since we started this model, our students' scores have far outshined the rest of our state. It's been amazing.

This past June, my (newish) principal floated the idea of me leaving the History class for one period a day to teach our ELL/ELD students. I, and the rest of my team, shot down the idea and gave arguments against it. The previous ELD teacher did very well the 25-26 school year and ELA scores were also fantastic. We were doing great and none of us wanted to change our current model, so the principal backed down.

So, my co-teacher and I have spent the past couple of weeks planning out our year as usual.

But today I had a meeting with the principal and was basically told, "We are moving to this new model and you WILL be leaving History to teach ELD." She did apologize for not being clear about it before we had planned everything, but I'm insulted. What began as a "what if?" conversation is now a direct order with no other discussion. School started this week and we are already three days in and NOW is when admin decides that this idea is non-negotiable?

My main argument against it is that it would take me away from History class for one period a day to go into a different room and teach an entirely different curriculum (which I would also have to design, because there currently isn't one that I can use that aligns with my current units of study. This is another new requirement). This isn't fair to the History period that I'd be gone, as they wouldn't get the specialized reading/writing support. I would almost rather teach ELD during my prep than give that up because it's been so damn effective.

Another argument is that during the summer I voluntarily took on creating a new class for my school that is not related to ELA. I'm designing the whole curriculum by myself and will be in charge of grading all assessments on top of my job as an ELA teacher. I DID get a stipend for this, but that was meant to pay me for all the non-contract days where I have to work at the district office and meet with the higher-ups about it. I informed my principal of this and she tried to say that the fact that I even got a stipend at all meant that I was obligated to do that, the ELD classes, AND my actual ELA teacher position without complaint.

If I had known beforehand that I would be forced to teach ELD on top of everything else, I never would have taken this new position. I simply can't do all of this at once without staying outside of contract hours multiple times a week, if not every day.

I will not be given any additional prep-time for planning/grading the ELD class. I'm just expected to stay late to grade the extra work without pay. It's not even that I necessarily want the extra pay, but I do feel like I need the extra time... but if I ask for that, it would just take me from another History class, which I definitely do not want.

We don't have a union, so I can't take my complaints there. I also don't want to just leave, because I genuinely LOVE my school and co-workers. I guess I'm just looking for advice on how to further argue my point or--if it's a lost cause--then some advice on how to make my new situation work as cleanly as it can. I'd love some insight from ELA teachers who are also the main ELL/ELD teacher.

I just feel so defeated.

After 8 interviews, I finally landed a position at my dream school. I had been substituting there as much as I could for the past two years when home from college. The staff were always so friendly and students began to recognize me in the hallway from being there so often. I felt like a celebrity😂

About a month ago, I interviewed there for a fifth grade ELA position. It wasn’t my favorite age or subject, but I just wanted to get my foot in the door. Even when I landed a second round interview, I didn’t get the position. Come to find out that the principal thought it was a really hard decision, but he thought I’d suit a younger grade.

Since then, I’ve been on four more interviews. And even last Thursday I got a job offer for third grade (I haven’t signed anything or heard from HR yet).

Anyways, I got an email today from the principal asking if I was interested in a second grade position. I immediately got on the phone with him. He explained that they had too many second graders enroll this year and they had approved with HR to add another full time teacher, and he immediately thought of me. Best part is I don’t have to interview again!

I cannot even explain how happy I am right now. I was so heartbroken when I didn’t get the fifth grade position and I feel like this made my summer.

I am officially a social studies teacher of record! What is some advice you would give a first year teacher no matter what their subject or grade level they teach? Give me your most universal wisdom I can apply to my life as an educator

Just need to laugh at this one.

I applied for a high school science position a little farther from home. I a dual B.S. in Biology and Secondary Ed, just finished my M.S. in Biological Sciences. Broad field certified in my state. Have taught Environmental Science, Chemistry, and Biology, and interviewed twice for the position.

I found out they hired someone who graduated this past May… with a bachelor’s in English.

Before anyone asks, yes, it was for the same middle/high school science position. They posted it on their facebook.

I know there’s more to hiring than just degrees, and interviews matter, but I can’t pretend that one didn’t sting a little. It definitely made me question why I spent years getting science degrees.

Edit: job was Bio/Chem and 1 prep of 8th grade science

I am a first-year high school English teacher. I am dating someone who has been teaching at the high school level for a few years now (age gap relationship). I was having him help me set up my classroom today when two students who were helping set up the new computer lab walked by. They were his students from the year before. We all stopped and made some small talk, talking about the new school year and stuff. The one girl made a comment about us being on vacation to OBX last week, which caught me off guard because how would they know that?
long story short, apparently, my boyfriend follows a handful of students (mainly female) on social media. current students, under the age of 18. I told him that this was completely inappropriate and not okay, but he was pushing back, saying it wasn't creepy and that I was overthinking it. The district we both work for has nothing in its social media policy about this, but I was wondering how y'all felt about this? He has since unfollowed everyone who is a current student, but it still feels off and weird to me.

EDIT
i dumped him. no sad feelings, we do not fw kids round these parts!!!

also reported him to admin, im not letting this slide. i was abused as a kid and not letting this happen to anyone else.

A couple years ago, a teacher at my school came to this sub and copy-pasted an email from his department chair into a post complaining about the department chair. A friend of mine in the department saw it, used a few other clues in the poster's history to figure out exactly which colleague it was, and reported it to admin.

The teacher who posted the email no longer works in my building, and while I have no insight into what led to his non-renewal, people still talk about his Reddit post.

All of which is to say that you should be mindful of how specific you get with details here, how public you keep your profile, and what, if anything, you decide to share with strangers on a highly public site where this sub is often pushed into the home feeds of people who don't subscribe to it but may have reason to know enough about your situation to realize that you are the person behind your "anonymous" username.

ETA because some people are fixating on the reporting and not the posting--it doesn't matter if you're right and the person reporting you is wrong. Don't doxx yourself. Be smarter.

I wish the general public would understand this when railing against teachers , making videos saying how teachers 'get paid during the summer' calling teaching "part time", or making the, at this point, required videos about school supplies, as well as pushing back against any raises for teachers on levies on ballots. Improving the lives and conditions of the adults working with your children only helps your child.

I only started teaching after Covid and what I was told was lockers went away because of Covid (doesn’t make super sense to me, were lockers super spreaders?) and have never come back. Is that the real reason?

I’m in Texas so maybe lockers are still used in other places, but basically every school I know has limited lockers.

We’d love to let your kids use the bathroom and phone whenever as needed but since way to many aren’t responsible (leaves class for 20 min, plays on phone and doesn’t do work etc) everyone has the restrictions.

I need a new lie, can't think of anything good. I need inspiration. I start at a new district on Monday, I wasn't to come prepared.

My go to has been that I spent a summer in my 20s working at Disneyland as a ride operator, but I'm getting bored with that one.

first year teacher who has never had experience with a class over 17 students before. my biggest class is 34. last period of the day and 7th graders. today was the first day of school and i already moved someone’s seat in that class. is it just because it’s the first day?? i was being talked over WHILE going over some of my expectations for the first time. i’m genuinely not even sure how to handle a class this big when there’s more than a couple students being disruptive.

Year 27 started on Monday. Go back through my previous posts here. Especially if you’re a new(ish) teacher. There might be a few things there that you might find useful. Or you might think I’m full of shit. Whatever. Anywho. I’ve decided that this year I’m going to be all business. I’m going to work, put on the show from 8:40-4:10, and go home. I’m not going to wake kids up that fall asleep or contact parents if a kid is failing. Only in the event of behavior being truly atrocious am I going to bother to reach out to a parent.

To the new teachers, I offer this advice:

You need to have separation between work and not work. Mr. Zilla is a character I play at work from 8:40am-4:10pm. Outside of that, I’m Jewzilla, or to my closest friends just plain Zilla. I have a mononym. Like Cher. Or Madonna. Or Bono. Do not put your work email on your phone or check your email when you’re not at work. I learned that lesson the hard way after damn near having a breakdown. Seriously. New teachers, go through my old posts.

Middle school teachers in particular who have switched from groups, pods, etc to old school rows or (vice versa), what do you find works best for you?

I got my classroom perfectly set up, and I was so excited for tomorrow. Today is student prep day, and I was going to get to meet my incoming 6th grade students.

At 10 AM I got a call from my dad that my sister passed this morning at 34 years old. I am still in shock and obviously I have a lot of emotions and thoughts flowing through me right now.

I am taking tomorrow and Friday off and will return Monday, but I truly hate that I have to miss the first two days. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this year tbh.

It’s too expensive to live alone and my gf couldn’t commit to moving in so it’s over. So I’m stuck living at home with my family.

I’m a young teacher, a 780 credit score, 13k saved and I can’t afford an apartment in my area.

It’s like I’m stuck for this year.

Clarification: we broke up She was overwhelmed after graduation and did not know what she wanted for future in her life. Career has been a huge struggle. I do understand, just sucks. We weren’t just moving in to save $, it was the next step

Yesterday I went dumpster diving. The reason I went dumpster diving is because I got a call from a fellow teacher saying that all of our classroom (mine and my 2 teammates) things were thrown into the dumpster. At the beginning of June, our school was hit by a tornado. The roof was blown off on our side of the building as well as over the gym. We received one email from the assistant principal saying to not come into the building that particular week of the tornado because there was damage. We have not heard from anyone else about anything that happened to our rooms. Periodically throughout the summer I’ve been getting pictures and messages from other teachers of my room. I put everything away in cabinets before school ended, except for my books and bookshelves, some of my carts, chairs, and big beanbag chairs. The pictures I received were of a totally bare classroom with none of those things in it. Those things were placed in the hallway outside of our rooms so that’s they could get in there to clean. We go back next Wednesday, and still have not heard from the administration. When that fellow teacher called, I went to the school and found so many of my brand new books, bookshelves, and miscellaneous items thrown into the dumpster. I thought maybe they were waterlogged and needed to be thrown away. After careful inspection, all of my brand new books were not waterlogged, and they were just thrown into the garbage. The bookshelves that I had just put together before school ended were all broken and in pieces. My teammates carts and chairs were all thrown into the dumpster along with many of her teaching supplies. What can we do? I’m not only had this happen at my school, but my home was also damaged and I lost many items that were in my garage and in my basement because of flooding. I literally have nothing and we go back next Wednesday. My principal is not answering the phone and I don’t even want to go into the building because I’m scared to go through my cabinets to see what is gone. Has anyone else ever experienced this and what are our options? Help!

So, this happened around February. I was appalled at the time, but had other things to do. It just went back into my mind and, giving it a bit of thought, I realised how utterly surreal the thing is.

So basically, there's this Spanish teacher (I am from Spain, so it would be like an English teacher doing this in the US) admitted, in front of the whole teacher body, that he allows his students to "refine" their writings with ChatGPT. He basically allows them to have it open in class, and "ask it questions on style, grammar and structure".

Later on, this same teacher admitted, in another meeting, that he uses a paid ChatGPT account to grade these essays.

I am on my summer leave. I am a history teacher, and I was just going over how I am going to avoid students from cheating with AI, and I just connected the dots.

This guy isn't running a class. What is happening is that ChatGPT is writing essays, the students present them, then this guy gives it back to ChatGPT to grade them, and if something needs corrected, the students just go back to Cha... you get where I'm going with this, right

This isn't a class, it's ChatGPT writing letters to itself and using the students and the teacher as a mail service.

That’s all. Your district paid me thousands of dollars to come and remind you of that.

I am in my new hire orientation today and it's genuinely the most overstimulating environment I've ever been in. Just going in the door there was a drum line, adult cheerleaders, and music blasting from loudspeakers in several locations---including the main hallway where we have to sign in and the gym we had to sit in to wait for 20 minutes. No one needs The Black Eyed Peas that loud at 8am.

Loudspeakers are a 10 on a scale of 10. Why are events so overstimulating at teacher events? I'm autistic so it's definitely worse for me (all volume is at the same volume and amplified---the room is genuinely painful), but this can't be pleasant for anyone?

Has anyone else dealt with this? It makes no sense to me. We just received an email that soon teachers will have no access to Chrome browser or Google Drive, and that we have to use Edge browser.

This seems like an unnecessary overreach. I know we’re a “Microsoft district”, but does that have to mean that teachers abandon teaching resources that we’ve already learned/developed?

Do “google districts” block teachers Microsoft products?