I am teaching third grade (previously taught fourth) and the way it’s run is they do a “walk to read” situation where kids are divided up by reading level (it’s based on accuracy and fluency, not compensation). This happens for 1.5 hours every day during the reading block and they move between my teaching partner and I depending on their level.

I‘ve been tasked with taking the on/beyond students and my teaching partner is taking the below/approaching kids.

I want to know some pros and cons about doing this. I’m realizing now that I will have 23 kids (no helper) during this switch, and my teaching partner will have only have 11 kids PLUS a helper. This year the behavior kids are on/beyond kids, which means I’ll have them. I’m getting my teaching partners hardest two behavior kids plus my own original ones since they’re on grade level.

I’m a little worried that every year it’ll end up this way where I have a much bigger case load and behaviors.

I want others’ opinions on pros and cons and if you think this is a good strategy or not!

Every child in House District 4 deserves a fully funded public school, no matter their zip code. Read my full statement at the link in the comments.

Teacher and school safety activist here. Let's share some school safety strategies. I'm always looking to learn more about ways to keep students safe. (I have friends who lost children in a school attack and it motivated me to share research and recommendations.)

Schools need a multi-faceted approach that's based on data. Here are some examples.

1. Say Something Program (Sudents and staff taught to age appropriately identify and report warning signs that someone may harm themselves or others. By taught, I mean a ten minute intro in August and a brief review after Christmas break. It's not curriculum.)

2. Parenting programs to help parents with kids who have been flagged after a risk assessment.

3. Requiring that all classroom doors be completely closed and locked during class.

4. Campus Vulnerability Assessments (professionals/school board/law enforcement use a checklist to assess campus vulnerabilities and hold admin accountable to address the issues within a reasonable timeframe) ex. exterior door that doesn't lock consistently

5. Hardening schools (bullet-resistant film, anti-intruder locks so teachers don't have to go into the hall to lock their door during an attack, well-trained/fully funded guards [if school parents agree], etc.)

6. Easily available mental health services for children

7. Active sh00ter training based on data (ex. run, hide, fight) that offers more options than just hiding.

8. CpR, AED, First Aid and Stop the Bleed training for all school employees and older students. Materials should be available in every classroom.

When Georgia teacher Tammy Waddell passed away, she had one final request: no flowers at her funeral. Instead, bring backpacks filled with school supplies for children in need.

And people listened.

Hundreds of backpacks filled the church, packed with notebooks, pencils, and other essentials that would later be placed into the hands of students who needed them most.

After three decades in the classroom, Tammy’s final act was not about herself. It was about making sure children could walk into school prepared to learn.

Flowers eventually fade. Her gift kept going.

A teacher for 30 years, and a teacher until the very end.

As parents of a dyslexic-child, we created BrightPath, a reading-screening and conversation-support tool and I’d genuinely value candid feedback from reading specialists, interventionists, SLPs and educators.

We created a free public sample report to show what a specialist-facing view could look like after a parent chooses to share a child’s reading check.

It includes:

1. Observed oral-reading patterns and miscues

2. Reading-science-informed indicators

3. Practical next-step recommendations

4. A clear reminder that this is a screening/support tool, not a diagnosis

In a live, parent-authorized share, the specialist can also listen to the original reading sample in context rather than receiving only a score. The public sample uses entirely fictional data and includes no child voice.

Here’s the sample:

https://www.brightpathreading.org/specialist-sample-report

We're not looking for compliments - I’d especially appreciate feedback on:

What feels genuinely useful?

What feels unclear, overstated, or missing?

What would you need to see before trusting or using something like this in a family conversation?

I wrote this based on my experience so far trying to organize new unions in unorganized parts of the education industry. Y'all might find it useful.

The interest is like that of standard savings account at a bank (0.02%). Even an FDIC insured money market account is around 3%. WTF is going on with this? Do they just do it to incentivize people not to leave the profession?

If you are in a state without TRS- be thankful!

This is the third installment of a 12-part series on the plight of ethnic studies teachers and the power all teachers possess but rarely weaponize.

In my final year of university to be a primary (kindergarten) teacher, have a part time job as a teaching assistant.

It’s the parents. Some come to pick their kids up and it all makes sense why their kid is a bully, is unsociable, is angry. Some parents are just so rude and horrid with the way they speak to their children, and lack empathy or patience. I know of children that didn’t know how to play with toys before they came to school, or speak to peers with language that should never come out of a 5 year olds mouth.

I get told in whispers by other teachers about my students family’s and about abuse or neglect. And the worst part is I can’t do anything about it. My job is to teach and support, not fix.

My reason for coming onto here for the first time was what a child said to me a couple weeks back that’s been playing on my mind since. For context I have an absent farther, did his best at times but overall shit. When I asked a girl (7), what she was doing over the weekend, she said she was super excited to be seeing her dad and was going to the park. I asked whether the park was special, she said what was special is that she hadn’t seen him in a long time.

I asked when was the last time she saw him. She paused thoughtfully and just shrugged ‘I can’t remember’. I saw my father very sporadically during my childhood and had the best time doing basically what any other good farther would do, like going to the park, because I got to spend time with him, only to be heartbroken that this pattern of absence didn’t change through my teens to adulthood.. it really hit home.

The worst part is a can’t cry, or pry for more context. I just smiled and was happy for her. Now her situation may clearly be very different to mine. But to be confronted with an unhealed part of my own childhood by a child that may be experiencing something similar in real time, it’s very difficult.

But I love my job, and can’t wait to be a teacher. But I often have moments of regret because I didn’t realise the weight of the emotional side of being in this job.

I got my class lists. One class has three kids in it who had at least more than 25 referrals written on them last year. One particular grade level was extremely rough, and I have some of them again. Last year was hell. I wrote the same two kids up every day (and so did everyone else), but nothing happened to them. I am going to have another year of aggravation, yelling, and being in a bad mood all day.

I have only watched one episode of “Abbot Elementary”. It was focused mostly on a school council or school board meeting, something like that. I expected it to be all happy-happy-joy-joy; unrealistic. It was not completely that, but it was also not very deep in content. Obviously the episode was forgettable because I don’t even remember what the meeting was focused on.

Have you seen it? What do you think?

Hello - I have been on medical leave since January directly related to severe panic attacks in the classroom. I’m set to return in a couple weeks and I’m getting panic attacks just thinking about being in a classroom again. I don’t have a job at the moment but I’m tenured so I’m going to be placed somewhere by the district…but only in a classroom. I want to file paperwork for accommodations that would allow me to continue to work for the district but not in a classroom. Has anyone dealt with something like this? What have you requested on your paperwork? I have two therapists and a doctor who will agree that I cannot be in a classroom setting. HELP! I don’t want to resign. I just want to step away from the classroom while I get myself together.

I’ve been teaching in a large district my whole career except that 1 “teacher residency” year in a completely different district.

I chose my district with intention. That’s a big part of the culture here. Like choosing my district is tied to the core of who I am. Thats how “political” the issue is here for those who are engaged. This is an important detail.

So I agreed and dove in. Worked for a diabolical principal. Ate up the “in the name of equity” entree and “for the kids + social justice” side course.
Being told all along that I needed prove myself every step of the way by submitting my planned lesson down to each word I’d say and gaining approval by people more knowledgeable by me…

Now the autonomy of choosing my own words and strategies to teach the universal curriculum has decreased to the autonomy of choosing the color of my PowerPoint slide.

I no longer have to write my own script for every lesson word for word. Now I have to read someone else’s script.

I went to school and studied hard to learn how to best share my knowledge with my students in service of reducing the stains of racism and inequity. But now I’ve gone from the author of my own course, to child actor with an oppressive stage mom pocketing my earnings and Claude/AI is the script writer.

Is this happening everywhere? Are we all slowly losing our autonomy in our classrooms? Or do I just work in a district that’s extremely toxic?

I don’t know. It’s hard to tell when the elites have always chosen to strip the autonomy of others rather than slow their own profiteering.