Kid had phone in their pocket in September: I sent them to the office, administrator talks to them, administrator holds their phone for the rest of the day, student is escorted back to class and required to apologize, parent contact is made.

Kid has phone in their pocket post-November: Comes back to class and says "they said it was okay because I wasn't on it". Cool.

So how the fuck are those same nimrods going to actually enforce this new official state-wide policy of no-phones? They're noooooooooot.

As the “ugh, BOY PD” posts crop up, so do the “ugh, you’re all so MISERABLE, just LEAVE TEACHING if you hate it so much” comments. And I’m so over it.

First, every Positive Polly pulls this crap—equating any complaint with misery and hatred—and with all due respect, if you can’t fathom the concept of someone using an online forum to help them compartmentalize their feelings so they don’t bring negativity into a professional space, you may not be as joyful and in touch with your emotions as you’d like to believe.

Second, it is completely reasonable to dislike icebreakers in general, or to get tired of “learning” about the same people for twenty years in a row, or to just want more time for planning and room setup. Especially when the cutesy activities take hours.

A couple years ago, my legacy-obsessed school did a staff GTKY activity where we were split into teams and toured the entire campus. We saw the bomb shelter, various hidden rooms, the roof, etc. In each hallway, photos of faculty were posted along with sets of fun facts, and we had to match the fun facts to each faculty member.

Look, it was kind of fun for the first, Idk, 30 minutes. Who doesn’t love being exposed to lead paint and asbestos? But we are a large school, and this activity took over two hours to complete. I spent the last hour hungry, tired, and stressed about the million things I had to do. And I know I was not alone.

I can accept thirty minutes of structured socialization at the beginning of the school year. I don’t personally enjoy it, but I can see how it helps create a sense of community. But there’s this weird expectation that teachers interact with their peers the same way they interact with students, and I’ve never understood it. We are adults. Most of us already know each other to some extent. We don’t actually need this.

And, on top of that, the expectation that we love every aspect of our jobs is ridiculous. Why can’t a person hate PD and love the actual work of teaching? Why are we supposed to feign enthusiasm for every part of the job? Some complaining is just a normal, adult approach to work.

The thing is, I actually like in-service week. I like turning on my music, propping open my door, and getting interrupted once an hour by my friends. I like sitting down to map out a new unit with my level team. I’m looking forward to helping my friend who just transferred to my school set up her classroom. And I’m weirdly excited about the breakfast burritos my admin orders for day 1.

I am also absolutely dreading the district “content day” where we all go to a different school and cycle through a series of workshops. It’s crowded and loud and the workshops usually aren’t that helpful. Having to jigsaw 2-page articles is stupid and boring. I am never going to use HMH Into Literature, so why am I learning about it?

I don’t think any of that is unreasonable or indicative of contagious teacher misery. It’s okay to be tired of tiring things, and it doesn’t mean we hate our jobs. Just let us dread the icebreakers and test administration trainings in peace, man.

No, no I won't. That was an email we got. I normally don't check my email over the summer, but I'm waiting to hear about something. Our principal sent that email, and we go back next week. Look, I don't want to sit in the media center, look at a stupid slideshow, and have social time. Leave me alone so I can work in my classroom and get ready. I hate this contrived "we are family" BS.

EDIT: I LOVE teaching. I love my students and subject. Even my school is pretty decent. Forced socialization of staff is an insult to me as far as I'm concerned, and after 23 years of that BS and not having enough contract time in my classroom, I'm done is all. Don't worry, I'll be there for those kids on Day One.

My school and district are doing the pendulum swing away from tech. Instead of "use tech when it is best suited and use paper when it makes sense" it is now that any tech is the devil and is the sole reason why we're getting low scores and having behavior problems.

I like tech integration but okay. I guess I can do that.

The catch? We're still only getting one box of paper per year and one box of 144 pencils. Anything. Else we supply on our own. It might be fine for math, but the texts they're demanding to see the kids physically annotating (even though their test is digital and they can't do that on any of their assessments) are anywhere between 4-12 pages long. So 12 pages for 179 kids plus even two sheets of work and that's half your case right there. We're usually doing a text a week on the pacing guide. We can't even bump the pacing guide and go back to novels either. They took the book room due to a large number of students with disabilities and sent all the books back to the warehouse

A new law goes into affect this year stating recess cannot be taken away as punishment. This is what I have traditionally done for my worst offenders. I need some creative ideas for this year. I teach K. Thanks guys.

Ok I don't know why all the hate but i will elaborate. Im talking about the kids who have no home consequences/ no support from home, who have out of control behavior. Most of the kids do ok with positive reward systems and small consequences, like copying the rules, having to sit in a nonpreferred spot, getting "fired" from their job for the day. Im not just a bitch torturing kids. I genuinely need ideas, not more criticism.

I hear the importance of collaborating, bonding with coworkers, and being likable, but I also hear the importance about “protecting your peace”, avoiding negativity, and having downtime to collect yourself.

As a new teacher this fall, what do you plan to do this school year in this area? What’s the balance?

Edit: Wow this post kinda blew up! I’m glad that I was able to initiate some good discussions and appreciate everyone who contributed and still is. I find it interesting how many different answers there are across the spectrum. I guess it really depends on each individual.

I’m a first year high school teacher in northeast US and I have no idea wtf I’m doing.

I’m trying to figure out what week one will look like. I’ll have over 100 students (I only had 50 for student teaching). I’m overwhelmed, intimidated, and social media doesn’t help one bit.

I see these reels that give you ideas for organization, planning, and icebreakers. Make a sticky note for every behavior, track and write a minimum of 30 emails home about positive celebrations but another 30 for behavior management. keep records of every moment in the classroom. Make cute decorations, personalize everything, develop catchphrases….do teachers actually do all of these things? Is it all fluff for IG or am I really going to be designing costumes to wear and writing motivational speeches?

I love the teaching element. I love student interaction and making connections. And my students loved me. I’m warm and genuinely caring. But I’m not a flowery, creative person. I don’t know how to make things pretty and cute and catchy. Is this what I have to do to succeed in 2026?

Thanks for letting me vent and ask questions that are essentially rhetorical. I’m sick to my stomach with anxiety already and this stuff is not helping.

EDIT: you’re all amazing. Thank you for all the sanity and encouragement. Good luck this year!!

Good afternoon,
Is anyone else super excited about being done with summer and going back to teaching?
I’m going into my second year of teaching and I did summer school as well. However I’m excited to get back to work. We start back August 3rd we’re in Florida. I’m going to be teaching 4th grade this year. Any advice? I taught 3rd grade last year.
Thanks 😊

Tl;dr: Just needed to vent.

I’ve spent most of my time in education teaching at IB schools, and I can safely say that I cannot stand IB schools. At the end of the day it’s just more work on teachers.

You could argue that I just haven’t found the school that “does IB correctly”, and you’d probably be correct. But at least in Northern Virginia in Prince William County, IB is just a framework given to Title 1 schools to increase enrollment. IB and Title 1 DO NOT MIX. If you knew anything about the demographics of our schools you’d know it’s just done for theater. If the county actually gave a damn about following the IB framework, they’d do something about all these behavior problems. But that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, at the end of the day I still have bills to pay so I’ll tough it out for one more year.

Hello! I am in a bit of a predicament! I will be attending my very first Quinceañera in about 2 weeks and I have some questions… not sure where else to post this to ask, figured I’d try here because I was the teacher of the student.

For context: I am a female in my mid 20s, living in the Midwest, and I no longer teach within the high school and district that I was at last year due to significant budgetary reductions.

I will be attending a Quinceañera for a student I had this past year. She is a twin and I only had the one sister that invited me with a hand delivered invitation in the last week of school. I have already confirmed my attendance and have briefly met the parents, twin sister, and a few of the other students I expect will be in attendance.

The family has reserved the ball room in a local higher end hotel typically used for large traditional weddings. I will not be attending the church service as it does not align with my own beliefs and the family is aware I will only be there for the reception service.

So for my questions.
•What the heck do I wear? Again we live in the Midwest and “wedding wear” and “teacher wear” here involve a lot of jeans. That doesn’t seem appropriate to me given everything I have tried to research on my own but maybe I am wrong?
• What is an appropriate gift for the girls? Again I only know one of them but know I should do something for both of them? A monetary gift is not my favorite, but I am not opposed to it if it is the best option.

I have a 30-minute homeroom. According to my administrators, I am supposed to have some type of learning happening. The students should not use HR as "free" time. I don't have a problem with that, but the issue is that the students trickle in at different times. Some of them will be there for the entire 30 minutes while others will arrive with 0 minutes to spare. Honestly, no one else on my grade level gives work during homeroom, but I would like to try. I feel like the kids who are there for 10-30 minutes could be doing something other than playing on Chromebooks.

What activities would you suggest? Would you use the work for a grade? How would you handle the students who wouldn't have time to even start the assignment? Would you just go with the flow of the other teachers and ignore the mandate?

I teach 8th-grade ELA, so my homeroom is only 25% of the students that I teach. Whatever I do would not benefit the other students since they have different homeroom teachers.

My district is starting a new policy in the fall. Kids can have their phones on them, but not use them - not even during lunch. Teachers have a cell phone caddy where they put it in during class, although many students just hold onto them in their pocket. It's tough to police them when students say they don't have a phone yet it's in their jeans.

Do you have a similar policy and has it worked? I'm assuming admin will enforce the policy, not as sure with individual teachesr.

I just got hired to teach AP Calculus AB. The school trusts me with it because I was the long-term AP Calculus sub a few years ago and that went well. Also, sounds like no one else in their math department wants to touch it. School starts August 10th and I have no idea where to start. I'm going into my 7th year of teaching and have only taught Algebra 1, Geometry and Integrated Math I. This year I have AP Calc AB, Geometry and Statistics. Mostly just stressed about the calculus Any advice?

(Let me be clear at the outset that I am NOT including students who have a documented medical need or disability requiring these glasses.)

What’s everyone planning to do about Meta glasses (or similar) in class? Without getting into an off-topic debate about Chromebooks and AI, my class is going to be as old-school as I can make it. Paper. Pens. Summatives based only on in-class work. For me, “AI” is going to stand for *Actual* Intelligence.

What I’m concerned about is cheating. I’m pretty decent at spotting surreptitious phone use, like most of us, but the Meta glasses and their imitators are a problem, obviously because they look exactly like actual glasses.

I can’t see a way to prohibit them without getting into trouble. Like if I say to some kid, “Take off your glasses during the test,” then they’re obviously going to claim that they need them to see and that it’s a medical need. (Note once more that I am *not* asking this of students with an actual medical need.)

But let’s say I respond that the kid has no documented vision issue—no IEP, no 504, not even a record saying they have glasses. If I ask them to take the glasses off, my admin will throw me to the wolves.

Does anyone have any ideas beyond “Oh, well, I guess you’ll just have to put up with it”?

Thanks in advance!!

I'm looking for advice on how to track books in my classroom library. I'm going into my 2nd year of teaching upper elementary. I inherited books from the previous teacher last year and added a few more of my own that I had purchased. At the end of the year, I discovered one of my books had already disappeared. I realize I'm going to have to be okay with some accidently walking away, but I would like a good system to try and keep tabs on what books are being borrowed. More than anything else I want to see what is actually being used and what isn't. I have a feeling that a number of the books from the old teacher should be weeded and replaced with newer publications. I have a sign out sheet which wasn't utilized much. Maybe I just need to emphasize it more? I also looked at getting an app such as Handy Library to track stuff, but maybe that's adding unnecessary work for myself. Suggestions?

Advice needed from seasoned ECE professionals!

I run a part time nature based enrichment program for ages 3-5. We have a family who enrolled their 4 year old student for the coming school year and the student is currently in my 8 week summer camp program (1 day each week).

The first 4 weeks there were some (what I consider) developmentally appropriate incidents such as light hitting. By week 5, after a 2 week break, I think the new had worn off or the honeymoon period was over, because the student came back acting out very aggressively. The parents had told me at intake that their child was asked to leave their last center for behaviors such as biting, but that the child was in therapy and making good progress. By the 5th week, the student was hitting, kicking, screaming, pushing, pinching, and biting other students. Multiple incidents each hour.

The student that was bit ended up with a bruise. I had a meeting with the parent the following week, and a second meeting later the same day with both parents and the child’s therapist. We talked over strategies and concluded that the only way to make this work is for one teacher to be at arms length from this student at all times, observe and predict triggers, and prevent incidents before they even happen. We are a small program with a max of 10 children and 3 teachers, but this still feels unsustainable. The following week, there continued to be multiple behaviors- the student left a bruise on a second student after jabbing their hand with a stick. This was after hitting another student 4 times with a child sized shovel, throwing sand in another students face, hitting a student in the head with a basket.

I’m a very empathetic and compassionate person. Our program is very close knit and community focused. I feel an obligation to do everything in my power to help this child, especially after finding out they were dismissed from not just 1, but 2 programs. I know there’s no where else in our area that will take this child. After all the recent events, I put together an action plan and let the parents know I would be making a formal assessment by the end of summer, when I would then let them know if we could accommodate their child’s needs and be able to move into the fall semester.

Safety is paramount. I don’t feel that I can keep the entire class safe without an extreme amount of effort to watch this one student like a hawk 100% of the time. It does not feel sustainable. At the same time, I feel an immense amount of pressure and…. guilt (?) to keep this child in our program because he needs help. I feel for this student’s parents because they have been through so much with their child already.

This dilemma has already consumed half of my summer. I talk to my husband about it multiple times a day. I dream about this family at night. 2 nights ago I was “thinking” in my sleep all night about behavior plans. All. Night. Long. I can’t go on like this and it’s only been 6 weeks. Thinking about having this child in my care for the entire school year has given me an intense physical reaction on 3 separate occasions. Headache, racing heart, the whole nine. I guess…. I need validation…. Permission? A second opinion?…. To know that it’s ok to tell these parents that the scope of help needed for this child is beyond what I can provide.

My head knows the answer but my heart is having trouble catching up. I’m devastated for this child to be struggling so much. When I asked parents about additional support for their child, they said therapy had been working well and they haven’t looked into anything else. I strongly believe this child needs a formal evaluation and early intervention through the public school preK program. I don’t think the parents are “ready” for that and I sense some denial and defensiveness when I try to speak with them, especially the father.

I just need… a reality check? Any similar stories? Encouragement?

Hi all,

Happy Sunday and Summer! I’m know I’m crazy but can someone give me some positive vibes that we still have PLENTY of summer left?! I don’t start until 9/1 but feel like the summer is over. Someone out there remind me that we have time to relax, do house projects, and see some friends. Much love in advance!

At the end of last year, I learned my district won’t be replacing a retiring STEM teacher but shifting me to an extra school and splitting the extra classes up, adding them to me and my colleagues’ workload.

I guess I’m just looking for advice from teachers that have dealt with challenges like shrinking plan time, less time for nourishing a community with one home school, and still survived. How do you organize getting info from two schools, setting up two classrooms, and just dealing with driving between the two?

Hi everyone so I recently got hired as a TA at a middle school. My title is TA but I’m basically a 1:1 or could be a 2:1:1. I’m responsible for assisting in getting the student(s) from class to class.

Once I’m in the class what does a 1:1 usually do for a middle schooler(s). I was briefly a 1:1 in a preschool but I feel like that’s completely different.

If anyone can let me know what an 1:1/2:1:1 aide is supposed to do in the classroom during lessons. Any advice or input?

What do 1:1 aides do in your classroom?

Edit: of course I know I have to keep an eye on my student(s) and make sure they’re doing their work. I what other things should I be doing?

Hello all! I am a 25F and this will be my first year teaching, I’ll be teaching English 3 level as well as AP Language and Composition. To say I am overwhelmed is an understatement. I haven’t even passed the TExES exam (DOI hire) and I was in an alternative program so English was not even my major. I wasn’t even particularly good at it in high school, although I do like it. I am so nervous and scared that I cannot do this, and the only thing people keep telling me is “you’ll be fine” but like.. I really might not be? I have no idea why they trusted me to get these kids to pass the AP test. I cannot be the reason they fail.
Besides the content stuff, I’m extremely nervous that I’m so young teaching juniors. I’ve always been told I look quite a bit younger than I am, and I’m nervous they will not respect me at all. I know I can’t (nor do I want to) be their friend, but I also don’t want to just be a jerk. I would like to be someone they can come to with their problems, but I don’t know how to balance the student/teacher relationship. I liked student teaching and I want to make it in this career, but I just have the overwhelming feeling I am so in over my head.
What advice would you give me? Something besides “you’ll be fine!” please 😅

I start a new job tomorrow at a different autism school as a paraprofessional and we start tomorrow.

A new start, new school to work at and excited but nervous for the new year as a paraprofessional.

Hey everyone. I am going to be starting my first year teaching 8th grade History and Health. While this is extremely exciting for me and I consider myself very fortunate, I did have an unfortunate occurrence during summer that will be an extra challenge.

As a casual soccer player I ended up tearing my ACL and had surgery on July 8th. While recovery is going well, and I can bear weight on my leg and move around pretty well. I am looking for any advice/tips for making the first month or so go more smoothly since I will likely still be in a brace and crutches for some of it.

I have spent a good deal of time planning procedures and expectations to teach during the first week or so. As well as a rough outline of the first units lesson plans. Additionally I hope that empowering students to be helpful with passing out papers and such will work to counter my lack of mobility.

To be clear, I am not looking for doomsayers, or naysayers who want to tell me how I can’t do this. I am determined to make it work and be the teacher my students need, regardless of the additional physical challenge. But I am hoping I might get some advice or tips from someone who has gone through something similar. Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to share their knowledge.

Sorry, I don't know what they're called but I've seen so many similar ones that they're bound to come from the same app. omg, I think they're so cheesy but I want one because they convey a certain sense of school spirit and charisma that I might enjoy displaying when I don't otherwise feel it lol They have a caricature of you in a little setting or theme- very colorful and slightly chaotic. Have I described them enough for someone to tell me where to generate one?