Was this filmed before Bri quit? I hope she stays with the podcast even tho she had to leave teaching. Truth, I respect her so much for that choice and I had to do the same (due to horrible leadership) and felt so validated when she shared her story.
Yeah I think it was because a lot of these are prefilmed weeks in advanced. I'm assuming she will stay and probably go back to working with bored teachers. Might be easier too because she won't have to "filter" stories she tells!
I had a principal several years ago, who told me at the beginning of my summative evaluation at the end of the year, that I was a much better teacher than he was getting ready to put on my evaluation, but because our school was low-performing, it wouldn't look right on paper to have teachers that had good evaluations and a school that was low performing. He refused to give me anything above proficient. I sat there dumb-founded, not really believing I was hearing what he was really saying. I was a people-pleaser, though, and I just smiled and told him I understood. They had done this to other teachers at or school, as well. Why do we tolerate such disrespect? I am a different teacher today and have learned to stand up for myself. I wish I had then.
I am currently in the process of locking horns with my principal over a bad observation. It is clear that the majority of it is scored based on interpretation and not objective analysis. I can tell you it’s not fun speaking up, as it is clear this principal is not going to budge. I have realized for a long time he does not like me and is using any means to make me look bad. It’s the worst feeling knowing you are not wanted despite all the work you do.
I change nothing about my lesson when admin comes in and one day that made for a really funny (for me) class. My VP comes in for an unannounced walk through while my Spanish II students where taking a speaking test. They test in pairs and their partners record their answers, it's a small enough class that I can still hear everyone talk so they stay honest in their grading. Well the topic was Human Rights, and more specifically children's rights. The kids were shooting me death glares because I asked them "Are there any of the rights on the board you feel you don't have at school?" while their principal (who is also one of my student's mother) was sitting right there! I could help laughing at the horror on their faces when I told them to be honest. I did remind them that she doesn't know Spanish so as long as they answer in Spanish she never needs to know lol
@@lightyagami6362 Why would you discourage someone like that? It's not like she's going it alone. She (?) will be joining the 3.2 million schoolteachers already on America's payroll. Not to mention the millions who are already comfortably retired. Teaching provides someone with an uninterrupted stream of income from cradle to grave, plus the luxury of being able to go out on strike at anytime for any reason with zero ramifications. Does your job do that?
@@zephead843 No look teaching is a Nobel profession but I do strongly think that people need and society need to give teachers more respect otherwise you'll see more and more of them quitting. I understand their quitting, I would too if I was a teacher. My bad if offended you. Actual i stand by my words but ill make it clearer, if your studying to be a teacher i would highly advise you to think carefully on it and really consider the many difficulties that teachers face. That's all and if you decide on it I would say good luck and god bless you.
Ey! Thanks for the shout out to the custodians! We try so hard to get everything done the best we can. Sometimes we don't get the right supplies though. I have been slowly working on a BRIGHT PINK 2' wide stain in the carpet of one of the classes for about a month now. The supplies we're given just don't do much, so all I can do is scrub at it and add more cleaner every couple days and lift it a tiny bit at a time. I'm hoping that once school let's out, I'll have access to better carpet cleaner
One of the teachers at a school in Louisville (that I had my practicum at) got docked beside their room didn’t have a window…..then for her next observation she posted a picture of a window on her wall 😂
I'm a junior in high school and for my first two periods, I have the same teacher. We normally don't start class until second period and since I sit towards the back of the room with some friends, we have the job of listening out for admin. The doors don't have any windows so if we hear keys, we have to yell out pineapple to tell our teacher they're coming. Then we all put our phones up and he jumps up to make it seem like we were working the entire time.🤣🤣
I'm a high-school student and all of the students have a favorite principle because of how amazing she is. She makes going to school worth it. You can tell that she really cares.
My mom teaches special ed and usually has 30 to 40 kids she teaches. she got stuck in the only room in the whole district without windows and spent so much money trying to make it work. I’ve never seen my mom so sad in her life I felt so much better when they gave her a room with some windows.
I was hired as a floater at a daycare & one day I started getting put in the school age room every day, then found out it was bc that teacher did no call no shows and basically just quit. They never told me I was assuming the role of the main teacher for that room. I just kept getting put there. I was never told what was expected of me, I was never trained for the position as a teacher. Therefore, I had no idea of the state standards or even that we were supposed to have a different theme every week. I wasn’t making lesson plans, I didn’t have a schedule. I had no idea!! First job working with kids, I was like 18 (I’m 20 now), and I was trained as a floater, which has like zero responsibility compared to being a main teacher. Then, we got evaluated. I literally failed so bad. And quit soon after. It was so totally not cool and that whole experience gave me so much anxiety. Especially because I had a kid who was difficult to work with. We ended up being good buds bc I spent a LOT of time with him. Our director is my aunts best friend, and one morning I got into a terrible argument with my partner and I could not handle a bunch of kids until I calmed down. I called and said I had a family emergency and I would be in before noon. My director called my aunt and asked what the emergency was. Like wtf. No boundaries and I still see her to this day at functions and whatnot & she acts like she has no idea who I am. She would gossip the worst out of any other employee.
I emphasize with this so much. My first (and only) teaching job I was simultaneously studying to be an early childhood teacher and usually if you're studying the expectations are different so you can focus on your studies and come up with lesson plans or such related to study... not this early childhood centre. It was full time expectation plus studying full time. My tutor came in to assess me and she was surprised at how much responsibility I had as a first year student and then when I started I started tell her about all the behind the scenes responsibilities and this and that. Her face just went completely 😳 and was like "...that's a lot for a first year student. You're doing more than what some full time teachers are doing" Was like. Huh that explains the burn out 😆 Was such a trash job and the head teacher kept wondering why we were cycling through so many teachers 🤦♂️ and why so many had complaints about the leadership but by the time they left were just so done that didn't take it higher.
I can't believe you guys did this topic for today! I am losing my mind over evals recently. I teach PreK in North Carolina and in the past 3 weeks I've had everybody and their mommas come into my classroom telling me what to do and not to do. First it was my admin who are really amazing. I got a great report there. They were blown away. Then a week later my state mentor comes in and tells me I do not have enough materials related to the study we are doing and that I should add some before my state evaluator comes in the following week. Then my state evaluator comes in and I get a great report again. Then my coach from the county comes in the next day and tells me I am missing materials in my music and movement center. I am still waiting on state licensing and ecers (star rating) before the end of the year. Can't wait for the conflicting opinions of even more outside parties. 😮💨🙃 JUST LET ME TEACH! #tiredprekteacher
This is exactly my point. Our jobs are so vast and all encompassing that it is literally impossible for anyone to take in the whole of what we do except for our students who have the oportunity to be in our rooms day in and day out, and even then that oportunity is sometimes squandered due to poor attendance or behavior. I have a friend who teaches head start so I already know the reality is that it is on the teacher to insure there are materials, but SHOULDN'T that be up to the district or school. Shouldn't those evaluators have said "You don't have enough materials in music and movement, let me bring you a ..." and then show up with it like the genie in Aladdin the next day???
So I struggled at the beginning of this school year to get my Clear Learning Target (objective/essential question) on my board. Both times my principal evaluated me that I didn't have it on the board he said, "You didn't have your CLT but I asked the kids and they all knew what was going on." All I could think was no kidding and I quit stressing over my CLT.
My high school had no windows except in the art room and its hallway. I asked one of my teachers about it, and apparently all the staff there were part of a study to see how lack of sunlight affected people long-term. Very bizarre.
The fact that we're in a teacher shortage and admin is actively attempting to catch teachers doing something wrong is straight up bullshit. Of course teachers need some sort of evaluation, but a little more understanding from the people who aren't teachers would go an extremely long way. Our elementary teachers just almost went on strike because the school board tried to extend the school day into the morning without listening or consulting teachers. I met up with a friend who is a high school art teacher and he was like, "I don't know if I can keep doing this. This is my 3rd strike in 7 years." We have to listen and love our teachers. They are the people teaching the future of our country and world. They have far more stress than we can understand. I have no doubt that the elite at the tippy top want to see our teachers scramble, especially those who love the current status quo. The more time teachers spend looking for lamps in the classroom and worrying about the random pop in from admin or spends time navigating new laws that are not necessary (looking at you "don't say gay" and anti-CRT bills everywhere), the less time they're spending teaching. The more difficult it is, the more likely the good teachers give up because they aren't babysitters and they aren't there to appease parents. They're there to teach kids. The elite want us to stay dumb and avoid questioning the status quo because we don't understand civics or economics or basic biology, so just let the rich elite make the rules for us. Dumbing down the populace has been part of the plan ever since they started making education mandatory. It's been slowly eroding for decades. Think about it. The less people know how government and economics works, the less likely they'll be to rise up and change things. Given the quick way info can now be spread also speeds up the erosion process. Which is why we see more and more school boards and admin and lawmakers doing their best to make the lives of teachers unbearable. They will never say it out loud, but based on how things are going, I can't see how this isn't the case. Hang in there, beautiful teachers of the world. You're needed and are appreciated far more than you realize.
we're in a teacher shortage because the admins had their cake and ate it too! when they were teachers THEIR ADMINS HAD THIER BACKS AND DID STUFF TO HELP. now, the teachers turned administrators think they can throw the teachers under any bus that comes along!
24:19 AMEN! I became friends with a phenomenal teacher who is now a principal at another school. She was my favorite person to be around and now I can't even stand to be in the same room. Being a principal changed her, and not for the better.
Me being a high school student when admin comes in I attempt to give a whole run down of the lesson to protect my teacher. Even in high school level we are so protective of the staff.
I remember in hs I was the kid who always listened and got my work done, so when someone came in for a teacher evaluation they sat next to me and asked me what’s going on so I told them everything we’ve done the last week up to that day (making it sound like a lot but tbh we didn’t do much lol). I remember she smiled, wrote it down, and my teacher looked at me and sighed in relief 😂
When I was in my first years of teaching, I had an evaluator tell me not to put on a "dog and pony show" for my observation. (Everything was adversarial with him.) I realized I had just been put in a lose-lose situation. If I did well, he would accuse me of faking it for the observation. If I didn't do well, then I didn't do well. There is no way I could get a satisfactory observation. That guy changed schools the next year, had several controversial lawsuits against him in the news (including physical threats against students), was rumored to have an alcohol problem (and it was also rumored the district forced him into counseling, although the district would not confirm or deny that when the lawsuits happened), and ended up fairly quickly becoming a superintendent at yet another school district. It never fails to amaze me how quickly people can fail upwards in education, but it seems districts will do anything to get rid of someone who is a hot mess--even give them recommendations for other districts. (He was WAY too hard on me at the beginning of the year. It was truly bizarre. But I pushed through because he had me believing I was terrible. I improved some, and he gave me faint praise at the end of the year and "invited me back"--code for "I am not firing you" even though he couldn't have done that anyway. There was no cause whatsoever for firing me. I was doing more than anyone in the department! The job is hard enough, but when you are hired for your expertise and skills, and those expertise and skills not only are not recognized, but CAN'T be recognized by some people in charge of evaluating you because they know absolutely nothing about it and have never actually done it (he was a former shop teacher)...it really makes you want to quit. I changed districts a couple years after he left, and am much older now, so I don't have to deal with this kind of harassment anymore. But it still makes me sick thinking about it.)
Your comment about how they deal with ineffective higher-ups is too true. At a system I worked in, bad principals and APs were always just shuffled to the better schools in the county where they could do the least amount of damage. An incident which had me rolling on the ground laughing was one principal who was investigated for testing fraud and subsequently removed from the school setting. She was sent to work for the board…as the county-wide testing coordinator. 😂🤦🏻♀️😂
I'm living this nightmare right now. I just received a bad evaluation (I was deemed basic). I'm a SPED teacher and the principal and her two minions, the asst principal and the Dean of Instruction, have no background in SPED. They're incompetent, they micromanage and harass me. I was given a list of demands that contained areas of improvement that I needed to "work on," or I would be in danger of not being retained. They also had the nerve during the evaluation meeting to tell me that my kids aren't making enough reading growth, which is bringing down our school's overall performance. I was infuriated, disheartene, and left that meeting in tears. I'm not part of their clich, and I think they're pushing me out. Oh, but they "believe in me" hope I turn things around. I've already contacted HR and was told by them to stick it out and wait until March to apply for positions. I just want to extricate myself from this building and teach in a place that values me. Where I teach now, I just feel like I'm drowning.
@@dostagirl9551 Wow. I don't have a story that bad, but I do know there was a history teacher at my old school who was apparently looking at pxxn on his school computer. Was he fired? No. He had been there 35 years, yada yada yada. So they put him on the school board. (Well, I think he was elected to the school board, but still. You'd think that he would at least be disqualified...or no one would vote for him. Whatever.)
Admin "you need more lights. You should get some lamps". Me "Excuse me sir, did I just hear you say you're buying me more light? That's what I heard you just say."
I'm a student, but our (new) principal was doing an evaluation in my band class. It was after we'd done festival (think of it as a musical standardized test) and were sight reading a song (as in, we'd never seen it before, it's a skill we were trying to work on in the interim of festival to marching music). The key of the peice was one we NEVER play in (concert D#, I think, to G#, it's a Sousa march) and it sounded SOOO BAD. And he walked in after the 1st time we ever played it and he looked so confused and flabbergasted by our terrible noises 😂 It was the worst day he could've picked, and if he had come in *the day before* he would've heard our festival songs that we'd been playing for almost 2 months
Evals are just so subject by nature. What one person would mark as expert, another might mark as adequate. Many times there is no rubric or the rubric is so veige that they are difficult to fight if they are unfairly unfavorable.
THATS TRUE. i did the same VISUAL THINKING STRATEGIES LESSON with two aps. one ap was wonderful and understood the reality of education today and she gave me EFFECTIVE IN MOST AREAS. the other ap INEFFECTIVE IN EVERYTHING EXCEPT FOR THE PROFESSIONALISM. when i was up for 3020a i mentioned this and ineffective ap was RAKED OVER THE COALS FOR HIS fifteen pages of single spaced 'reasons you should die' evaluation!
I remember back in 1st grade there was someone who came in with the jingly keys, and was SUPER loud. Looked at my teacher, Ms. Kaleta and teacher assistant, Mrs. Biggs, and mouthed, "Don't mind me." and sat down behind me. After about five minutes, she bent over and tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. She quietly asked me, "Do you think Ms. Kaleta is a good teacher?" I nodded confusedly (Because she was awesome and at the time, I was confused on how this person didn't know that), and turned back around. The next day, before class started, Ms. Kaleta walked up to me and asked, "What about me do you not think are good teaching qualities?" So, I then stared at her for like, 2 minutes before saying, "Whaaaattt???" She looked me dead in the eye and said, "Yesterday I had a teacher evaluation, and the person said that you thought I'm not a good teacher." I explained to her that I never said that, and I forgot what happened next, but apparently this person thought I was annoying and was trying to get me in trouble. Ms. Kaleta would never do that though. Not a super hilarious story, but an interesting one at that.
I was told by a superintendent that he was disappointed that I didn't do (unpaid) summer PD when I had a 4 month old baby at home. And at the same school I went to the counselor because I was mentally struggling because of all of the things I had to do with two teaching positions and two assistant coach positions and she didn't even look at me and said suck it up we all wear a lot of hats here. I'm so glad I found a different teaching position closer to home.
Imagine going to meet your online friend you met through a fan page, then running into the person your fan page is about on your way. Must have been a great day for that student.
I’m not a teacher but here’s my question about the evaluations… wouldn’t the evaluator know that kids say the darnest things- and give the teacher some slack? If I was an evaluator and a student had said something ridiculous I wouldn’t make that fall back on the teacher! But maybe that’s just me.
I wish. During my last evaluation (and I am not being offered a contract for next year because of this evaluation) one of my students completed their exit ticket and then jumped up and yelled "I'm done, who needs help!" The exit ticket is not a group or partner activity and the students are very aware of this. So much more happened during this evaluation but I am blamed for this student's behavior.
It honestly does depend on the person doing the evaluation. My former principal was HORRIBLE and would use anything she could against you. It didn’t matter if it was in my control or not. If it was negative she would hold onto it and use it against me as much as possible. It’s also insane that a teachers WHOLE YEAR is judge on ONE LESSON a lot of the time. Last year I had high marks for the entire year but my principal had someone she wanted to hire so she decided to do “an extra” observation on me for the year. She came in on a Monday morning after spring break and proceeded to give me the lowest marks she possibly could. She then used that evaluation to attempt to put me into “intensive assistance” for this school year which basically means they pile on so much work to “improve” your teaching methods that most teachers end up quitting. Thankfully I had kept all of my documentation and was able to fight it though.
Principal comes in "Hey kid what are you learning", student turns to look at them "Well, if you hadn't come in late you would now. Start paying attention". Man if I could go back to school knowing everything I know, this is something I would totally pull XD I was too timid in school though for that stuff
People don't give headstart and preschool teachers enough credit. My kid used to throw the worst kicking and biting fits. The teachers would just hold her and get her to calm down. My son's rocker teacher got him fully potty trained. They knew his dad was arrested for domestic so they took special time time to understand he was verbally delayed and just didn't care if he was potty trained. Thank you so much head start teachers!
Preach it about those posted objectives! I lost points for not having an " I Can" statement post when I did have a visual one posted. It was a picture of an eye ball and a Andy Warhol soup can on the board where I post step by step examples so my kids who speak little English ( but speak 40 different languages) can see what to do. There is the academic objective I post but my real objective was building up some challenging kids by showing them they could create work they were proud to display.
I’m a 24 y/o lobbyist who lives in DC, why do I love this podcast so much?! Lol I don’t even listen to podcasts this is the first one that I can’t get enough of
This podcast makes me fill better after a bed day. My cat had 5 kittens 1 week ago and one of them passed away this morning. And all the others are sick and close to dying and this made me laugh.
@@Alyssa2009ooo reach out to a local rescue and ask them if they can help you. Where I live animal charities have deals with vets and you can get a cat spayed for half the price
@@irinairy9 woah! REALLY?? Thats awesome! But i Also forgot to mention we have 14 cats in total living at my home. We have 4 siz week olds and 2 three weeks old. The rest are adult and only 2 of Them are fixed.
@@Alyssa2009ooo I understand it's hard...I had 20 stray cats loving close to my building and I just did it gradually, one or two per month, started with the females. It took me a while but now all of them are steriziled and no more suffering, no more unwanted kittens. Do what you can- even if it's just one at a time...it makes a difference
27:30 that sounds like the principal I had throughout my primary school he retired just as I left but he knew ever kid's name he knew what they where like he would also join in on games at lunch and he wasn't young ether but he was so kind and amazing to every one in the school. This school had 160 kids when I was in yr seven as there where three primary schools in that area
When you were talking about the room without windows it reminded me of my high school. Our social studies and communication classes were all mazes, divided up by these walls that just had little bitty doors to get through. If you were in the back rooms you literally had to walk through three classrooms to get in and out. So, if you had to go to the bathroom or got called out you had to walk through classes in session, and sometimes the way they were set up you were walking in front of a teachers whiteboard while they were teaching. This was a school that was 7-12 grade with 400 kids in each grade level.
Former preschool teacher here, and can definitely vouch for the evaluations we get and how tedious they are! Also, I ended up quitting bc of admin and their toxicity. But, I wanna point out that I am aware that it doesn’t describe all admin. I actually have a friend at my church who works in admin in a city school, and she is as sweet as can be. I actually made the mistake once when I had a rough day with admin, and I decided to vent to her about it, and I said without thinking “admin is just the worst!” When I saw the look on her face, I realized the mistake Id made. I immediately started apologizing and tried back-pedaling, and I told her that I wished there were more people like her in admin.
At my evaluation during my student teaching, I was mistaken for the teacher. Who was sitting in the back grading papers. She gave “her/me” a glowing review for apparently sitting quietly in the back of the class. She was very confused when we told her I was the student teacher. I think my review probably got worse because she looked upset at her mistake. Shows they are happy with just a warm body in the classroom. 🙄
I had an AP poke her head in with "guests" during a brain break 😂 She had shocked face 😮 and then immediately said "brain break?" trying to regain composure 😂😂😂
the story bout the girl with the waterbottle... I know being me I would have the same fear even if it was just water. And either I would try to hide it or panic and probably cry/try to hide my panic and crying. I couldnt help but feel... happy when I heard your reactions. Thanka for being understanding
So on spot about evaluation/observation!! I just threw out my observation paperwork file over the last 18 years. Amazing that I was exceeds expections when I was new to the school and my evaluators were experienced administrators but got low marks from new administrators with no experience in my field. All a numbers game about building's test scores and merit pay because if they rate you low they can deny bonuses and basic raises. I remember a year when we were deemed not making annual progress because our Special Ed kids scored too high. State thought they were miscoded or we cheated but truth was we had some super teachers working over time with some refugee kids. So no one got that little bonus at our school that year because one teacher went above and beyond to help some needy kids. No good deed goes unpunished. Those who market all the evaluation software need to have things to make us look bad and then "improve" when we learn to document our growth with their petty system. Then administrators can brag how they improved scores.
I'm not a teacher but I work in retail and I hate that they have to find something "wrong" or could use improvement. My manager said that I needed to work on my team work skills, but no one in my department works the same hours as me and if I am working with someone I get yelled at for it. There have been multiple times that I got in trouble for working with my coworkers and then I don't talk to anyone or work with anyone.
Just hearing Tell talk about his evaluations as prek I’ve been a daycare teacher since I was 18 (I just turned 26) off and on. The rule and guidelines are so bizarre for early childhood education.
5:25 that sounds normal to ask fir high schoolers. They're curious and it turned out to be true. In grateful for college so those things can actually be discussed
I think it's funny when I hear stories of people freaking out about visits from the superintendent. My district can't ever keep subs so our entire district office has subed in at least 1 building. The superintendent is one of the kids favorite subs.
Going into my senior year of high school, they replaced a good bit of the floors, mostly changing from carpet to tile. But then they changed the band room from carpet to tile (which is awful for a band room, for sound reasons, and those floors would get damaged so quickly for so many reasons) and my band director had to have them change it again.
My school would also have us evaluate our teachers and everyone hated it. I remember one time when we gave a lower score than perfect one of the teachers got so mad at us and started yelling at us why we were wrong and started pointing out how these teachers deserved a perfect score. They pulled us out one by one and forced us to change our score then continued lecturing us why we were wrong or why we thought what we did was okay and why we did it. In the end we it came time to evaluate them again we just all gave perfect scores cause we didn't want to get yelled at again.
I resigned as a para this spring, and we got year-end evaluations at my former school. I got a poor evaluation the week after I tendered my resignation. Quite the coincidence. 😒
Good Morning. I am not a social media person what so ever. However, being an 80's baby I do know how to work UA-cam! I absolutely adore your podcasts. Being a 4 year teacher, I am learning stuff everyday and with that learning comes stress. Listening to you all speak about subjects that cause this stress that I bare helps me recenter and realize that "I am not alone! I am not abnormal for feeling these stressful emotions!" And for that THANK YOU SO MUCH! I actually have a story about my previous administration tha tI would like to share, however, I did not feel comfortable writing it down on here...is there a place I can email? haha Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. You ALL ARE APPRECIATED!
Listening to the light story made me immediately think of the scene from Airplane where they get every light they can on the runway. Do that, but dump them in my classroom and set them all up and ask them if that's what they meant
When I was a sophomore in high school my principal and vice principal were so chill (at least with the students) like that was one of my most memorable schools I went to BECAUSE of the administration. They joked and laughed with the students and I was a foster kid at the time so they ofc got my stack of records and stuff, and even tho they knew my “track record” they’d come and sit at my table at lunch when they noticed something different and like even to this day I still stop in and see them. I do have family members who attend that school so I do kinda have a reason to but they impacted my school experience so heavily bc in middle school my life changed drastically and I struggled with authority and stuff and I gained a disciplinary track record but they affected me so positively that I still to this day have a new respect for admin
Former teacher, turned administrator and I made it a point to be in classrooms, ALL THE TIME, throughout the year. My teachers always knew when I would be doing formal observations BUT, they also knew that I was very familiar with how they taught, who they taught and their strengths and weaknesses. I didn't wait observation time to give feedback and they knew that, if there was something needing improvement, I was available to help. Students were so used to my visits that they didn't even look up. I’m African-American. My supervisor wasn’t. Some students actually reported a stranger in the building to my office staff😂
I am so sad I just found this. Although I am very happy that I get to binge watch your guys videos. I miss being in the classroom so much. I was a special education assistant for 10 years. I had to quit in order to transport my Deaf child to a non public school because our home district couldn’t safely transport him. So I’ve been home with my kids for almost 10 years (the last 2 have tried my patience more than I thought imaginable). I am ready to go back to work, but also I can’t stand my local district so we will see what happens.
True story of an observation/evaluation I had: I teach high school where we have semesters. The first two days of the spring semester were remote last year because of snow (we no longer have snow days). I taught both those days, but we're not allowed to force children to turn on their cameras. None of them turned their cameras on. The next day, we were in person, but it was a 2 hour delay, so my 1st block class was only 30 minutes instead of 90 minutes. I tried to teach as much as I could, so they wouldn't be behind the other chemistry class I was teaching that semester (this was a chemistry class). Thursday arrives, and here comes the principal in for one of those unannounced observations in my first block class. It's the 4th day of the semester. I have seen these children for about 30 minutes. We had started on the lesson we couldn't finish the day before, so he caught the tail end of that lesson and then I switched to a new lesson. Same unit, but these two lessons don't connect very well. He left after a while. During my planning, he comes in and fusses at me for not calling the students by their names and for calling the same students over and over again (this class had a grand total of 11 students because I'm in a magnet school and that sometimes happens; so I don't know how this is an issue when you have a small pool of students). He said my lesson seemed disjointed, so I explained what had happened. Whole time, I'm seething because if he had come for any other class, they would have had me for a full class and the lesson would have been less disjointed/rushed. I was also dinged for staying in the same area of the room. Okay, my room is in the hallway with a partition. There isn't much space to move. Besides that, all of us were still required to wear masks and to not be within so many feet of the students. These things irritate me so much. They try to nitpick you to death. It's so annoying! It's not constructive. I cannot be expected to know names/faces for students I've seen for about half an hour. I'm following the COVID guidelines the county set forth. I'm in a hallway. I have never had an actual room with walls since starting to teach there. We had snow and a delay. Can we not at least respect the fact that I didn't just tell the kids to read the lesson the night before? Can we not respect the fact that I tried to teach them one and a half lessons in one day so they wouldn't be behind and wouldn't have to deal with the material on their own? No...we have to fuss at me for not knowing names after 30 minutes and following protocol. This is why I have developed tachycardia and was put on medication. My doctor says I'm too stressed and naturally too anxious. You think?
I had THE BEST principal in my elementary school! He would do the same thing by walking around, talking to kids, teachers, assistants, volunteers, janitors all making sure they are having a good day. He started and ran the chess club (my husband and I didn’t know we were at the same school at the same time but didn’t find each other until near the end of Highschool/college. He even knew not only his kids name (is was NOT a small school) but he knew siblings and talked to siblings who were even in the school yet. Love you Mr Shakula!! My husband and I agreed when we found out the connection that was hands down the best principle! He even stood up for me to my third grade teacher who was a b***h when admin would nominate two students to be safety patrol. My teacher said that her class was so awful they didn’t deserve it. I wanted to be one so badly. He saw me crying when I was waiting for my mom to pick me up, asked what was wrong. I couldn’t be a safety patrol cause the classroom was to misbehaved. (I never had to move my behavior card for warnings and such). He had me follow him and I waited out the door. Next thing I know he comes out with a grin, “she changed her mind. And *insert my friend but I can’t remember off the top of my head* are not on patrol.” The teach would get so irritated when we had to leave 10 min before class let out to go get out gear. I swore I heard her teeth grind. I was so giddy and even won awards in the patrol unit. 3-5 I did it. All because mr shakula stopped to ask why I was upset. I don’t know if they still do safety patrol like other the long sticks and metal stop sign with a adult crossing guard still (it was mid 90s) when I was one. Point is he made school fun! I had to move to a different middle school afterwards where I was only one not going where everyone else in my class I knew since kindergarten and the whole school was a complete joke!!!
I literally one year had an admin go to sleep in the middle of my evaluation 😂 lol when I approach them about it, they said and I quote “I come to your class to take a break because you actually teach the entire time, I have to save my energy for the ones I’m trying to catch doing wrong”. lol like yay me but wait can you tell me the ones that are not doing well 😂😂😂
Last few weeks of school we always have prospective students coming in for tours. This is always the week I teach blackjack (the probability lesson is great). There I am, dealing blackjack. Half the times the parents remark that they wish they were in my class.
I had one admin that was hated by all, but she hung onto her job because she was nearing retirement. One time, she was planning on changing the drama classroom into a physical training room. (This was for middle school, mind you). A colleague and I prepared a speech for the meeting with parents and the city council; of course, she would also be there. Right before the scheduled time for the meeting, the admin sees us in the hallway, accosts us and berates us for being there; that this was no business for the parents and city administrators. (note : The city uses that room quite often for other purposes after school hours.) She called us manipulative and devious... We were shaken! Our union representative happened to be near by and he put on his hero cape and confronted the evil villain. He also told us to write everything down and hand him the complaints. She left on her planned vacation that week, and never came back. For the school board, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I just to add this...I once had my first observation of the year right after our first ever fire drill. I was the art teacher. The kindergarten ers came straight to my room from being outside fir their first ever fire drill! And my admin followed them into my classroom!
My school just got a new performing arts building (my high school is an open campus school so we have separate buildings) and the choir room doesn’t have windows!! We have 60 to 70 choir kids in this room with no windows and it’s like 100 degrees in this room. To make it worse we are a choir that dose extensive choreography to go with our songs. We are in a room with no windows with 60 kids singing and dancing and sweating like crazy in a 100 degree room. It’s terrible.
Evaluations would ALWAYS stress me out beyond all belief, I worked in Early Childhood Education my specialty is 2-3 but I also loved 3-5 age group as well. We would have a monthly; yes MONTHLY, observation done by our trainer. Those were almost always pretty positive depending on the trainer. However when it came to the yearly evaluation done by our Director or Assistant Direct those could always turn out to be some bull. One year I received two evaluations because I had a promotion at work, the first one was done by my AD I scored 24/25. She knew me very well had seen how I work and the effort I put into doing my job as best as I can in any situation, it was a good meeting with her. The second one however made me so mad because it was Director that did it and I got scored around 15/25. She marked something negative in every single category simply because she had to have something to talk about. But this woman had never once watched me in the classroom setting at all. Only took rumors as face value and judged you from there. Now as far as my performance revues are concerned I went from a model teacher to someone who had no idea how to do my job in the slightest. When my AD realized what the Director had done; to not only me but every single teacher she didn't like, she was just in shock.
My old principal (high school) was incredible. He knew each of the students by name, was someone you could talk to, and an all around awesome guy. He left to go to a different school, and we got a fine principal. Nothing bad about her, but she is no principal Delgado
Posting this again it would be amazing to see a response. So You guys should talk about student fights and what to do. One of our favorite long term subs was fired due to not breaking up a fight fast enough according to the school. Keep in mind he is 75 and is recovering from cancer.
I'm a high school senior and my Pre-calc teacher is in some kind of masters program right now, not entirely sure what it is but he's trying to get a better degree and credential. He needs to have special evaluations every now and then. A couple of months ago our Principal came in to watch him teach the class and ended up picking up one of my papers to look at to see how students were doing on the assignments I guess? Not sure what the point of it was but it was so terrifying. He just came and took my worksheet and left. I was done with that one but I still didn't want someone walking away with it. I was also a little glad he grabbed my paper instead of one of my classmates because I'm super on top of all my work in that class and I know a majority of the other people are not and I really like this teacher and want him to get whatever thing he's working towards so it was nice to at least know the principal was looking at a good work sample. Still scary. 0/10
I worked on a military base daycare and we got observed all the time! All sorts of people. I always had so much anxiety! Raise your hand if you have been personally victimized by someone observing your classroom! 🙋♀️
@@pizzapartytime1826 my husband is in the military so I'm a military spouse. When you work for the daycare on a military base you are considered a DOD worker which is the department of defense. So I was a worker for the Army. But you don't have to be a spouse to work on base, they will get you base access once you get hired. (Which is also a long process, spouse or not, lots of background checks) Each branch is mostly the same but they all have different rules and regulations from what I've heard, the Army was the strictest for their daycares.
@@pizzapartytime1826 I don't want to say yes and I don't want to say no. I honestly kind of hated the job. I went from a small private preschool to a daycare system which was a huge adjustment for me. I felt like I was always in "trouble" for something but I also was never backed up either (had a parent once threaten me and my director blamed me 🤷🏼♀️) With that being said the job taught me a lot, I'm expecting my first child and I plan on using some of the things I learned with my own child! I have heard the Navy program is a lot better. Military kids in general can be harder, they don't always have a "stable" home. They move a lot and most of the kids at the preschool had both parents in the military. So both had working parents, sometimes on rare occasions both parents were deployed. Lots of stress on the families. I saw/reported a few abuse cases which was heart breaking and not something I had really experienced before.
In elementary we had rotating subs. The gym teacher in the morning, principle mid day and the art teacher ended the day. When it got bad they'd have us all move into one of the other classes (we had 4classes per grade). They'd split our class in three and we had to move our desks and be packed like sardines. Even the buses would be doubled up bc it was so bad. Getting home at 5:30pm when we left at 3:30pm.
My highschool teachers would the day before basically go over the points they can earn for the evaluations and basically give us a script to follow 😂and bribe us “if I get a 4.6 or above I’ll buy you donuts”
Worst teacher evaluation I EVER had was when I was a first year lead teacher at the Goddard School and I got written up for arranging my classroom, talking to parents, doing circle time and making my lesson plans!! Yet, I had to explain to my boss WHAT a unit block was, WHAT a light table was and WHY it was okay to not hover over a 2 year playing in the sensory table full of flour because they can sweep it up when they are done playing in it! Also, my boss decided it was necessary to do this observation for over an hour EVERY week!!
Things kids have said during observations. As a student teacher in second grade, a boy whose well-known father was standing trial for financial wrongdoing saw the gray-haired man in a suit, carrying a briefcase walk in and set up his paperwork on the reading table in the back of the room. Ever helpful, the student raised his hand, “Yes, Dahni?” “Ms. L, your lawyer’s here.” Another scolded me, “Girl, you go give your Grandma a hug when she come in the room!” Said a boy, “Ms. L., is he your boyfriend? I hope not ‘cause he’s too old for you.” A child we used to refer to as Poindexter was very observant, very bright, and very lazy. He had no social boundaries, so when he noticed the same man observing his music lesson, and later, in the back of the third grade classroom, he asked me who he was. I told his name was Dr. G., and he was there to see how the school was doing. He questioned the title, “Dr.” and wanted to know if he gave the teachers vaccinations! So I explained he was not a medical doctor, rather, a person who checked on the health of teachers and schools. The next day was my turn and Dr. G. came came in during a math lesson. Poindexter blurted out, “Hey, you’re the doctor of education!”
I once got a needs improvement because I didn't have the standard for the day written on the common board. The day the administrator came in I was reading a script for the kids to instruct them on how to log into the system for the state standardized test to prepare for upcoming testing. I also got a needs improvement because I didn't teach the entire standard in one lesson (I taught in a title 1 school and the kids required a lot of scaffolding). The school had a failing grade 3 years in a row and our administration was removed mid-year and replaced with a new one to "turn-around" the school.
Was this filmed before Bri quit? I hope she stays with the podcast even tho she had to leave teaching. Truth, I respect her so much for that choice and I had to do the same (due to horrible leadership) and felt so validated when she shared her story.
Yeah I think it was because a lot of these are prefilmed weeks in advanced. I'm assuming she will stay and probably go back to working with bored teachers. Might be easier too because she won't have to "filter" stories she tells!
Yes I think that's the case
Did she tell the story of what happened? I hadn’t heard of it.
@@metalstrawberries it's on her personal UA-cam channel, honestteachervibes
@@metalstrawberries Check her channel. It's there.
I had a principal several years ago, who told me at the beginning of my summative evaluation at the end of the year, that I was a much better teacher than he was getting ready to put on my evaluation, but because our school was low-performing, it wouldn't look right on paper to have teachers that had good evaluations and a school that was low performing. He refused to give me anything above proficient. I sat there dumb-founded, not really believing I was hearing what he was really saying. I was a people-pleaser, though, and I just smiled and told him I understood. They had done this to other teachers at or school, as well. Why do we tolerate such disrespect? I am a different teacher today and have learned to stand up for myself. I wish I had then.
Why wouldn’t it look right?
@@MrBUGS713 Because if a school is performing poorly the assumption is the teachers aren't teaching.
This happened to me many times. You can’t fight the system. However you can try for your own self respect
I am currently in the process of locking horns with my principal over a bad observation. It is clear that the majority of it is scored based on interpretation and not objective analysis. I can tell you it’s not fun speaking up, as it is clear this principal is not going to budge. I have realized for a long time he does not like me and is using any means to make me look bad. It’s the worst feeling knowing you are not wanted despite all the work you do.
@@joed2444🥹🙏🙏
I change nothing about my lesson when admin comes in and one day that made for a really funny (for me) class.
My VP comes in for an unannounced walk through while my Spanish II students where taking a speaking test. They test in pairs and their partners record their answers, it's a small enough class that I can still hear everyone talk so they stay honest in their grading.
Well the topic was Human Rights, and more specifically children's rights. The kids were shooting me death glares because I asked them "Are there any of the rights on the board you feel you don't have at school?" while their principal (who is also one of my student's mother) was sitting right there!
I could help laughing at the horror on their faces when I told them to be honest. I did remind them that she doesn't know Spanish so as long as they answer in Spanish she never needs to know lol
😂 perfect
That's amazing XD
That's amazing
If principal was Spanish speaking😏
@@kasm_nME 😂😂
As a student in college trying to become a teacher, I find your podcast very informative and very useful!
I’m in the same boat! :> helps me so much. It’s like classroom observation but hearing the truth
Hey quit while yur ahead
@@lightyagami6362 Why would you discourage someone like that? It's not like she's going it alone. She (?) will be joining the 3.2 million schoolteachers already on America's payroll. Not to mention the millions who are already comfortably retired. Teaching provides someone with an uninterrupted stream of income from cradle to grave, plus the luxury of being able to go out on strike at anytime for any reason with zero ramifications. Does your job do that?
@@zephead843 No look teaching is a Nobel profession but I do strongly think that people need and society need to give teachers more respect otherwise you'll see more and more of them quitting. I understand their quitting, I would too if I was a teacher. My bad if offended you. Actual i stand by my words but ill make it clearer, if your studying to be a teacher i would highly advise you to think carefully on it and really consider the many difficulties that teachers face. That's all and if you decide on it I would say good luck and god bless you.
@@zephead843 i get ur point, but dont be gay
Ey! Thanks for the shout out to the custodians! We try so hard to get everything done the best we can. Sometimes we don't get the right supplies though. I have been slowly working on a BRIGHT PINK 2' wide stain in the carpet of one of the classes for about a month now. The supplies we're given just don't do much, so all I can do is scrub at it and add more cleaner every couple days and lift it a tiny bit at a time. I'm hoping that once school let's out, I'll have access to better carpet cleaner
One of the teachers at a school in Louisville (that I had my practicum at) got docked beside their room didn’t have a window…..then for her next observation she posted a picture of a window on her wall 😂
@@catworld8119 Yeah, pretty much
You can't make this stuff up!
Love that!!!
Well she beat the system
Shout out to all the custodians/Janitors whatever you call them for their work that they do.
I'm a junior in high school and for my first two periods, I have the same teacher. We normally don't start class until second period and since I sit towards the back of the room with some friends, we have the job of listening out for admin. The doors don't have any windows so if we hear keys, we have to yell out pineapple to tell our teacher they're coming. Then we all put our phones up and he jumps up to make it seem like we were working the entire time.🤣🤣
Hahaha
Bri’s face when Rebecca said that Native Americans would dress up their mummified ancestors was a whole mood
I'm a high-school student and all of the students have a favorite principle because of how amazing she is. She makes going to school worth it. You can tell that she really cares.
My mom teaches special ed and usually has 30 to 40 kids she teaches. she got stuck in the only room in the whole district without windows and spent so much money trying to make it work. I’ve never seen my mom so sad in her life I felt so much better when they gave her a room with some windows.
I was hired as a floater at a daycare & one day I started getting put in the school age room every day, then found out it was bc that teacher did no call no shows and basically just quit. They never told me I was assuming the role of the main teacher for that room. I just kept getting put there. I was never told what was expected of me, I was never trained for the position as a teacher. Therefore, I had no idea of the state standards or even that we were supposed to have a different theme every week. I wasn’t making lesson plans, I didn’t have a schedule. I had no idea!! First job working with kids, I was like 18 (I’m 20 now), and I was trained as a floater, which has like zero responsibility compared to being a main teacher. Then, we got evaluated. I literally failed so bad. And quit soon after. It was so totally not cool and that whole experience gave me so much anxiety. Especially because I had a kid who was difficult to work with. We ended up being good buds bc I spent a LOT of time with him. Our director is my aunts best friend, and one morning I got into a terrible argument with my partner and I could not handle a bunch of kids until I calmed down. I called and said I had a family emergency and I would be in before noon. My director called my aunt and asked what the emergency was. Like wtf. No boundaries and I still see her to this day at functions and whatnot & she acts like she has no idea who I am. She would gossip the worst out of any other employee.
I emphasize with this so much. My first (and only) teaching job I was simultaneously studying to be an early childhood teacher and usually if you're studying the expectations are different so you can focus on your studies and come up with lesson plans or such related to study... not this early childhood centre. It was full time expectation plus studying full time. My tutor came in to assess me and she was surprised at how much responsibility I had as a first year student and then when I started I started tell her about all the behind the scenes responsibilities and this and that. Her face just went completely 😳 and was like "...that's a lot for a first year student. You're doing more than what some full time teachers are doing"
Was like. Huh that explains the burn out 😆 Was such a trash job and the head teacher kept wondering why we were cycling through so many teachers 🤦♂️ and why so many had complaints about the leadership but by the time they left were just so done that didn't take it higher.
i’m a student and i love watching these podcasts to get an idea of what teachers go through and how to be a better student.. anyone else?
Yup
me too bestie
Me too
Exactly
I can't believe you guys did this topic for today! I am losing my mind over evals recently. I teach PreK in North Carolina and in the past 3 weeks I've had everybody and their mommas come into my classroom telling me what to do and not to do. First it was my admin who are really amazing. I got a great report there. They were blown away. Then a week later my state mentor comes in and tells me I do not have enough materials related to the study we are doing and that I should add some before my state evaluator comes in the following week. Then my state evaluator comes in and I get a great report again. Then my coach from the county comes in the next day and tells me I am missing materials in my music and movement center. I am still waiting on state licensing and ecers (star rating) before the end of the year. Can't wait for the conflicting opinions of even more outside parties. 😮💨🙃 JUST LET ME TEACH! #tiredprekteacher
This is exactly my point. Our jobs are so vast and all encompassing that it is literally impossible for anyone to take in the whole of what we do except for our students who have the oportunity to be in our rooms day in and day out, and even then that oportunity is sometimes squandered due to poor attendance or behavior. I have a friend who teaches head start so I already know the reality is that it is on the teacher to insure there are materials, but SHOULDN'T that be up to the district or school. Shouldn't those evaluators have said "You don't have enough materials in music and movement, let me bring you a ..." and then show up with it like the genie in Aladdin the next day???
So I struggled at the beginning of this school year to get my Clear Learning Target (objective/essential question) on my board. Both times my principal evaluated me that I didn't have it on the board he said, "You didn't have your CLT but I asked the kids and they all knew what was going on." All I could think was no kidding and I quit stressing over my CLT.
My high school had no windows except in the art room and its hallway. I asked one of my teachers about it, and apparently all the staff there were part of a study to see how lack of sunlight affected people long-term. Very bizarre.
The fact that we're in a teacher shortage and admin is actively attempting to catch teachers doing something wrong is straight up bullshit. Of course teachers need some sort of evaluation, but a little more understanding from the people who aren't teachers would go an extremely long way.
Our elementary teachers just almost went on strike because the school board tried to extend the school day into the morning without listening or consulting teachers. I met up with a friend who is a high school art teacher and he was like, "I don't know if I can keep doing this. This is my 3rd strike in 7 years." We have to listen and love our teachers. They are the people teaching the future of our country and world. They have far more stress than we can understand. I have no doubt that the elite at the tippy top want to see our teachers scramble, especially those who love the current status quo. The more time teachers spend looking for lamps in the classroom and worrying about the random pop in from admin or spends time navigating new laws that are not necessary (looking at you "don't say gay" and anti-CRT bills everywhere), the less time they're spending teaching. The more difficult it is, the more likely the good teachers give up because they aren't babysitters and they aren't there to appease parents. They're there to teach kids. The elite want us to stay dumb and avoid questioning the status quo because we don't understand civics or economics or basic biology, so just let the rich elite make the rules for us. Dumbing down the populace has been part of the plan ever since they started making education mandatory. It's been slowly eroding for decades. Think about it. The less people know how government and economics works, the less likely they'll be to rise up and change things. Given the quick way info can now be spread also speeds up the erosion process. Which is why we see more and more school boards and admin and lawmakers doing their best to make the lives of teachers unbearable. They will never say it out loud, but based on how things are going, I can't see how this isn't the case.
Hang in there, beautiful teachers of the world. You're needed and are appreciated far more than you realize.
we're in a teacher shortage because the admins had their cake and ate it too! when they were teachers THEIR ADMINS HAD THIER BACKS AND DID STUFF TO HELP. now, the teachers turned administrators think they can throw the teachers under any bus that comes along!
24:19 AMEN! I became friends with a phenomenal teacher who is now a principal at another school. She was my favorite person to be around and now I can't even stand to be in the same room. Being a principal changed her, and not for the better.
Me being a high school student when admin comes in I attempt to give a whole run down of the lesson to protect my teacher. Even in high school level we are so protective of the staff.
I remember in hs I was the kid who always listened and got my work done, so when someone came in for a teacher evaluation they sat next to me and asked me what’s going on so I told them everything we’ve done the last week up to that day (making it sound like a lot but tbh we didn’t do much lol). I remember she smiled, wrote it down, and my teacher looked at me and sighed in relief 😂
I love your podcasts. They make my day so much better.
True+same
Same ❤
When I was in my first years of teaching, I had an evaluator tell me not to put on a "dog and pony show" for my observation. (Everything was adversarial with him.) I realized I had just been put in a lose-lose situation. If I did well, he would accuse me of faking it for the observation. If I didn't do well, then I didn't do well. There is no way I could get a satisfactory observation. That guy changed schools the next year, had several controversial lawsuits against him in the news (including physical threats against students), was rumored to have an alcohol problem (and it was also rumored the district forced him into counseling, although the district would not confirm or deny that when the lawsuits happened), and ended up fairly quickly becoming a superintendent at yet another school district. It never fails to amaze me how quickly people can fail upwards in education, but it seems districts will do anything to get rid of someone who is a hot mess--even give them recommendations for other districts. (He was WAY too hard on me at the beginning of the year. It was truly bizarre. But I pushed through because he had me believing I was terrible. I improved some, and he gave me faint praise at the end of the year and "invited me back"--code for "I am not firing you" even though he couldn't have done that anyway. There was no cause whatsoever for firing me. I was doing more than anyone in the department! The job is hard enough, but when you are hired for your expertise and skills, and those expertise and skills not only are not recognized, but CAN'T be recognized by some people in charge of evaluating you because they know absolutely nothing about it and have never actually done it (he was a former shop teacher)...it really makes you want to quit. I changed districts a couple years after he left, and am much older now, so I don't have to deal with this kind of harassment anymore. But it still makes me sick thinking about it.)
Your comment about how they deal with ineffective higher-ups is too true. At a system I worked in, bad principals and APs were always just shuffled to the better schools in the county where they could do the least amount of damage. An incident which had me rolling on the ground laughing was one principal who was investigated for testing fraud and subsequently removed from the school setting. She was sent to work for the board…as the county-wide testing coordinator. 😂🤦🏻♀️😂
I'm living this nightmare right now. I just received a bad evaluation (I was deemed basic). I'm a SPED teacher and the principal and her two minions, the asst principal and the Dean of Instruction, have no background in SPED. They're incompetent, they micromanage and harass me. I was given a list of demands that contained areas of improvement that I needed to "work on," or I would be in danger of not being retained. They also had the nerve during the evaluation meeting to tell me that my kids aren't making enough reading growth, which is bringing down our school's overall performance. I was infuriated, disheartene, and left that meeting in tears. I'm not part of their clich, and I think they're pushing me out. Oh, but they "believe in me" hope I turn things around. I've already contacted HR and was told by them to stick it out and wait until March to apply for positions. I just want to extricate myself from this building and teach in a place that values me. Where I teach now, I just feel like I'm drowning.
@@dostagirl9551 Wow. I don't have a story that bad, but I do know there was a history teacher at my old school who was apparently looking at pxxn on his school computer. Was he fired? No. He had been there 35 years, yada yada yada. So they put him on the school board. (Well, I think he was elected to the school board, but still. You'd think that he would at least be disqualified...or no one would vote for him. Whatever.)
I literally breakdown my focus standards for my kids now. Like we decode them together. And talk about how they relate to the lesson.
Admin "you need more lights. You should get some lamps". Me "Excuse me sir, did I just hear you say you're buying me more light? That's what I heard you just say."
I'm a student, but our (new) principal was doing an evaluation in my band class. It was after we'd done festival (think of it as a musical standardized test) and were sight reading a song (as in, we'd never seen it before, it's a skill we were trying to work on in the interim of festival to marching music).
The key of the peice was one we NEVER play in (concert D#, I think, to G#, it's a Sousa march) and it sounded SOOO BAD. And he walked in after the 1st time we ever played it and he looked so confused and flabbergasted by our terrible noises 😂 It was the worst day he could've picked, and if he had come in *the day before* he would've heard our festival songs that we'd been playing for almost 2 months
Evals are just so subject by nature. What one person would mark as expert, another might mark as adequate. Many times there is no rubric or the rubric is so veige that they are difficult to fight if they are unfairly unfavorable.
THATS TRUE. i did the same VISUAL THINKING STRATEGIES LESSON with two aps. one ap was wonderful and understood the reality of education today and she gave me EFFECTIVE IN MOST AREAS. the other ap INEFFECTIVE IN EVERYTHING EXCEPT FOR THE PROFESSIONALISM. when i was up for 3020a i mentioned this and ineffective ap was RAKED OVER THE COALS FOR HIS fifteen pages of single spaced 'reasons you should die' evaluation!
I’m not a teacher but have occasionally thought of going into education and love watching your podcast.
I remember back in 1st grade there was someone who came in with the jingly keys, and was SUPER loud. Looked at my teacher, Ms. Kaleta and teacher assistant, Mrs. Biggs, and mouthed, "Don't mind me." and sat down behind me. After about five minutes, she bent over and tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. She quietly asked me, "Do you think Ms. Kaleta is a good teacher?" I nodded confusedly (Because she was awesome and at the time, I was confused on how this person didn't know that), and turned back around. The next day, before class started, Ms. Kaleta walked up to me and asked, "What about me do you not think are good teaching qualities?" So, I then stared at her for like, 2 minutes before saying, "Whaaaattt???" She looked me dead in the eye and said, "Yesterday I had a teacher evaluation, and the person said that you thought I'm not a good teacher." I explained to her that I never said that, and I forgot what happened next, but apparently this person thought I was annoying and was trying to get me in trouble. Ms. Kaleta would never do that though. Not a super hilarious story, but an interesting one at that.
I was told by a superintendent that he was disappointed that I didn't do (unpaid) summer PD when I had a 4 month old baby at home. And at the same school I went to the counselor because I was mentally struggling because of all of the things I had to do with two teaching positions and two assistant coach positions and she didn't even look at me and said suck it up we all wear a lot of hats here. I'm so glad I found a different teaching position closer to home.
Imagine going to meet your online friend you met through a fan page, then running into the person your fan page is about on your way. Must have been a great day for that student.
I’m not a teacher but here’s my question about the evaluations… wouldn’t the evaluator know that kids say the darnest things- and give the teacher some slack? If I was an evaluator and a student had said something ridiculous I wouldn’t make that fall back on the teacher! But maybe that’s just me.
I wish. During my last evaluation (and I am not being offered a contract for next year because of this evaluation) one of my students completed their exit ticket and then jumped up and yelled "I'm done, who needs help!" The exit ticket is not a group or partner activity and the students are very aware of this. So much more happened during this evaluation but I am blamed for this student's behavior.
Depends on the admin. Like Woolley said-varies a LOT based on your relationship with admin.
That is horrible!! And sounds very scary 😧 I am so sorry that happens :(
It honestly does depend on the person doing the evaluation. My former principal was HORRIBLE and would use anything she could against you. It didn’t matter if it was in my control or not. If it was negative she would hold onto it and use it against me as much as possible. It’s also insane that a teachers WHOLE YEAR is judge on ONE LESSON a lot of the time. Last year I had high marks for the entire year but my principal had someone she wanted to hire so she decided to do “an extra” observation on me for the year. She came in on a Monday morning after spring break and proceeded to give me the lowest marks she possibly could. She then used that evaluation to attempt to put me into “intensive assistance” for this school year which basically means they pile on so much work to “improve” your teaching methods that most teachers end up quitting. Thankfully I had kept all of my documentation and was able to fight it though.
I swear that admins forget kids will be kids. It's like they expect them to be perfect
Love the title, the No good very bad day book as like one of my favorites
As a museum Curator, the candle light comment made me cackle... candle light is a form of measure light. I love this pod cast. Thank you guys so much
Principal comes in "Hey kid what are you learning", student turns to look at them "Well, if you hadn't come in late you would now. Start paying attention". Man if I could go back to school knowing everything I know, this is something I would totally pull XD I was too timid in school though for that stuff
I love watching the episodes with just the four of y’all; the energy is just impeccable
People don't give headstart and preschool teachers enough credit. My kid used to throw the worst kicking and biting fits. The teachers would just hold her and get her to calm down. My son's rocker teacher got him fully potty trained. They knew his dad was arrested for domestic so they took special time time to understand he was verbally delayed and just didn't care if he was potty trained. Thank you so much head start teachers!
14:17 is the best moment ever in the podcast
😂😂😂
In 34 yrs of teaching my students(7 & 8 grade) always rose to the occasion and behaved!!! God bless 'em.
Preach it about those posted objectives!
I lost points for not having an " I Can" statement post when I did have a visual one posted. It was a picture of an eye ball and a Andy Warhol soup can on the board where I post step by step examples so my kids who speak little English ( but speak 40 different languages) can see what to do. There is the academic objective I post but my real objective was building up some challenging kids by showing them they could create work they were proud to display.
14:30 Absolutely howling 🤣
I’m a 24 y/o lobbyist who lives in DC, why do I love this podcast so much?! Lol I don’t even listen to podcasts this is the first one that I can’t get enough of
✨NEW EPISODE✨ yesss I love these ( tho I can’t watch till after I watch a lecture, they’re so nice to listen to:))
"With your orthopedic shoes on" 🤣
This killed me
This podcast makes me fill better after a bed day. My cat had 5 kittens 1 week ago and one of them passed away this morning. And all the others are sick and close to dying and this made me laugh.
Spay your cat- that will prevent future suffering for you and for her
@@irinairy9 true but we dont have enough money 😥
@@Alyssa2009ooo reach out to a local rescue and ask them if they can help you. Where I live animal charities have deals with vets and you can get a cat spayed for half the price
@@irinairy9 woah! REALLY?? Thats awesome! But i Also forgot to mention we have 14 cats in total living at my home. We have 4 siz week olds and 2 three weeks old. The rest are adult and only 2 of Them are fixed.
@@Alyssa2009ooo I understand it's hard...I had 20 stray cats loving close to my building and I just did it gradually, one or two per month, started with the females. It took me a while but now all of them are steriziled and no more suffering, no more unwanted kittens. Do what you can- even if it's just one at a time...it makes a difference
27:30 that sounds like the principal I had throughout my primary school he retired just as I left but he knew ever kid's name he knew what they where like he would also join in on games at lunch and he wasn't young ether but he was so kind and amazing to every one in the school. This school had 160 kids when I was in yr seven as there where three primary schools in that area
Love this podcast! You guys should throw your individual socials in the description box!
When you were talking about the room without windows it reminded me of my high school. Our social studies and communication classes were all mazes, divided up by these walls that just had little bitty doors to get through. If you were in the back rooms you literally had to walk through three classrooms to get in and out. So, if you had to go to the bathroom or got called out you had to walk through classes in session, and sometimes the way they were set up you were walking in front of a teachers whiteboard while they were teaching. This was a school that was 7-12 grade with 400 kids in each grade level.
Former preschool teacher here, and can definitely vouch for the evaluations we get and how tedious they are!
Also, I ended up quitting bc of admin and their toxicity. But, I wanna point out that I am aware that it doesn’t describe all admin. I actually have a friend at my church who works in admin in a city school, and she is as sweet as can be. I actually made the mistake once when I had a rough day with admin, and I decided to vent to her about it, and I said without thinking “admin is just the worst!” When I saw the look on her face, I realized the mistake Id made. I immediately started apologizing and tried back-pedaling, and I told her that I wished there were more people like her in admin.
At my evaluation during my student teaching, I was mistaken for the teacher. Who was sitting in the back grading papers. She gave “her/me” a glowing review for apparently sitting quietly in the back of the class. She was very confused when we told her I was the student teacher. I think my review probably got worse because she looked upset at her mistake. Shows they are happy with just a warm body in the classroom. 🙄
How does a principal not know what the teacher looks like that they are evaluating?
I had an AP poke her head in with "guests" during a brain break 😂 She had shocked face 😮 and then immediately said "brain break?" trying to regain composure 😂😂😂
I literally love this podcast so much
This podcast literally makes my day. I love it so much.
the story bout the girl with the waterbottle... I know being me I would have the same fear even if it was just water. And either I would try to hide it or panic and probably cry/try to hide my panic and crying. I couldnt help but feel... happy when I heard your reactions. Thanka for being understanding
So on spot about evaluation/observation!! I just threw out my observation paperwork file over the last 18 years. Amazing that I was exceeds expections when I was new to the school and my evaluators were experienced administrators but got low marks from new administrators with no experience in my field. All a numbers game about building's test scores and merit pay because if they rate you low they can deny bonuses and basic raises. I remember a year when we were deemed not making annual progress because our Special Ed kids scored too high. State thought they were miscoded or we cheated but truth was we had some super teachers working over time with some refugee kids. So no one got that little bonus at our school that year because one teacher went above and beyond to help some needy kids. No good deed goes unpunished.
Those who market all the evaluation software need to have things to make us look bad and then "improve" when we learn to document our growth with their petty system. Then administrators can brag how they improved scores.
I'm not a teacher but I work in retail and I hate that they have to find something "wrong" or could use improvement. My manager said that I needed to work on my team work skills, but no one in my department works the same hours as me and if I am working with someone I get yelled at for it. There have been multiple times that I got in trouble for working with my coworkers and then I don't talk to anyone or work with anyone.
"Admin wouldn't stay for more than ten minutes"? Dang, my admin makes it an hour and just loves to find the negative things about my classroom.
“WhAt In tHe TaSsLe ShOeS?!”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Just hearing Tell talk about his evaluations as prek I’ve been a daycare teacher since I was 18 (I just turned 26) off and on. The rule and guidelines are so bizarre for early childhood education.
5:25 that sounds normal to ask fir high schoolers. They're curious and it turned out to be true. In grateful for college so those things can actually be discussed
I think it's funny when I hear stories of people freaking out about visits from the superintendent. My district can't ever keep subs so our entire district office has subed in at least 1 building. The superintendent is one of the kids favorite subs.
Going into my senior year of high school, they replaced a good bit of the floors, mostly changing from carpet to tile. But then they changed the band room from carpet to tile (which is awful for a band room, for sound reasons, and those floors would get damaged so quickly for so many reasons) and my band director had to have them change it again.
My school would also have us evaluate our teachers and everyone hated it. I remember one time when we gave a lower score than perfect one of the teachers got so mad at us and started yelling at us why we were wrong and started pointing out how these teachers deserved a perfect score. They pulled us out one by one and forced us to change our score then continued lecturing us why we were wrong or why we thought what we did was okay and why we did it. In the end we it came time to evaluate them again we just all gave perfect scores cause we didn't want to get yelled at again.
I resigned as a para this spring, and we got year-end evaluations at my former school. I got a poor evaluation the week after I tendered my resignation. Quite the coincidence. 😒
Good Morning. I am not a social media person what so ever. However, being an 80's baby I do know how to work UA-cam! I absolutely adore your podcasts. Being a 4 year teacher, I am learning stuff everyday and with that learning comes stress. Listening to you all speak about subjects that cause this stress that I bare helps me recenter and realize that "I am not alone! I am not abnormal for feeling these stressful emotions!" And for that THANK YOU SO MUCH! I actually have a story about my previous administration tha tI would like to share, however, I did not feel comfortable writing it down on here...is there a place I can email? haha
Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. You ALL ARE APPRECIATED!
As much as teachers are under appreciated, janitors and custodians get no thanks. Like it is hard work are three really deserve more
"What in the British are coming" 😂😂😂
this is amazing watching this as a student
Listening to the light story made me immediately think of the scene from Airplane where they get every light they can on the runway. Do that, but dump them in my classroom and set them all up and ask them if that's what they meant
When I was a sophomore in high school my principal and vice principal were so chill (at least with the students) like that was one of my most memorable schools I went to BECAUSE of the administration. They joked and laughed with the students and I was a foster kid at the time so they ofc got my stack of records and stuff, and even tho they knew my “track record” they’d come and sit at my table at lunch when they noticed something different and like even to this day I still stop in and see them. I do have family members who attend that school so I do kinda have a reason to but they impacted my school experience so heavily bc in middle school my life changed drastically and I struggled with authority and stuff and I gained a disciplinary track record but they affected me so positively that I still to this day have a new respect for admin
Former teacher, turned administrator and I made it a point to be in classrooms, ALL THE TIME, throughout the year. My teachers always knew when I would be doing formal observations BUT, they also knew that I was very familiar with how they taught, who they taught and their strengths and weaknesses. I didn't wait observation time to give feedback and they knew that, if there was something needing improvement, I was available to help. Students were so used to my visits that they didn't even look up. I’m African-American. My supervisor wasn’t. Some students actually reported a stranger in the building to my office staff😂
I am so sad I just found this. Although I am very happy that I get to binge watch your guys videos. I miss being in the classroom so much. I was a special education assistant for 10 years. I had to quit in order to transport my Deaf child to a non public school because our home district couldn’t safely transport him. So I’ve been home with my kids for almost 10 years (the last 2 have tried my patience more than I thought imaginable). I am ready to go back to work, but also I can’t stand my local district so we will see what happens.
True story of an observation/evaluation I had: I teach high school where we have semesters. The first two days of the spring semester were remote last year because of snow (we no longer have snow days). I taught both those days, but we're not allowed to force children to turn on their cameras. None of them turned their cameras on. The next day, we were in person, but it was a 2 hour delay, so my 1st block class was only 30 minutes instead of 90 minutes. I tried to teach as much as I could, so they wouldn't be behind the other chemistry class I was teaching that semester (this was a chemistry class).
Thursday arrives, and here comes the principal in for one of those unannounced observations in my first block class. It's the 4th day of the semester. I have seen these children for about 30 minutes. We had started on the lesson we couldn't finish the day before, so he caught the tail end of that lesson and then I switched to a new lesson. Same unit, but these two lessons don't connect very well. He left after a while. During my planning, he comes in and fusses at me for not calling the students by their names and for calling the same students over and over again (this class had a grand total of 11 students because I'm in a magnet school and that sometimes happens; so I don't know how this is an issue when you have a small pool of students). He said my lesson seemed disjointed, so I explained what had happened. Whole time, I'm seething because if he had come for any other class, they would have had me for a full class and the lesson would have been less disjointed/rushed. I was also dinged for staying in the same area of the room. Okay, my room is in the hallway with a partition. There isn't much space to move. Besides that, all of us were still required to wear masks and to not be within so many feet of the students. These things irritate me so much. They try to nitpick you to death. It's so annoying! It's not constructive. I cannot be expected to know names/faces for students I've seen for about half an hour. I'm following the COVID guidelines the county set forth. I'm in a hallway. I have never had an actual room with walls since starting to teach there. We had snow and a delay. Can we not at least respect the fact that I didn't just tell the kids to read the lesson the night before? Can we not respect the fact that I tried to teach them one and a half lessons in one day so they wouldn't be behind and wouldn't have to deal with the material on their own? No...we have to fuss at me for not knowing names after 30 minutes and following protocol. This is why I have developed tachycardia and was put on medication. My doctor says I'm too stressed and naturally too anxious. You think?
I had THE BEST principal in my elementary school! He would do the same thing by walking around, talking to kids, teachers, assistants, volunteers, janitors all making sure they are having a good day. He started and ran the chess club (my husband and I didn’t know we were at the same school at the same time but didn’t find each other until near the end of Highschool/college. He even knew not only his kids name (is was NOT a small school) but he knew siblings and talked to siblings who were even in the school yet. Love you Mr Shakula!! My husband and I agreed when we found out the connection that was hands down the best principle! He even stood up for me to my third grade teacher who was a b***h when admin would nominate two students to be safety patrol. My teacher said that her class was so awful they didn’t deserve it. I wanted to be one so badly. He saw me crying when I was waiting for my mom to pick me up, asked what was wrong. I couldn’t be a safety patrol cause the classroom was to misbehaved. (I never had to move my behavior card for warnings and such). He had me follow him and I waited out the door. Next thing I know he comes out with a grin, “she changed her mind. And *insert my friend but I can’t remember off the top of my head* are not on patrol.”
The teach would get so irritated when we had to leave 10 min before class let out to go get out gear. I swore I heard her teeth grind. I was so giddy and even won awards in the patrol unit. 3-5 I did it. All because mr shakula stopped to ask why I was upset.
I don’t know if they still do safety patrol like other the long sticks and metal stop sign with a adult crossing guard still (it was mid 90s) when I was one.
Point is he made school fun! I had to move to a different middle school afterwards where I was only one not going where everyone else in my class I knew since kindergarten and the whole school was a complete joke!!!
I literally one year had an admin go to sleep in the middle of my evaluation 😂 lol when I approach them about it, they said and I quote “I come to your class to take a break because you actually teach the entire time, I have to save my energy for the ones I’m trying to catch doing wrong”. lol like yay me but wait can you tell me the ones that are not doing well 😂😂😂
I had this admin at my school and he cared so much about the other students. The kids have uno at lunch and he sit their and play with them
I'm not going to lie but every time she says at my old school it reminds me of febbie from magic school bus. It just makes me 😊 smile.
Ouch - intimidating to have multiple strangers in back of room.
Last few weeks of school we always have prospective students coming in for tours. This is always the week I teach blackjack (the probability lesson is great). There I am, dealing blackjack. Half the times the parents remark that they wish they were in my class.
I had one admin that was hated by all, but she hung onto her job because she was nearing retirement. One time, she was planning on changing the drama classroom into a physical training room. (This was for middle school, mind you). A colleague and I prepared a speech for the meeting with parents and the city council; of course, she would also be there. Right before the scheduled time for the meeting, the admin sees us in the hallway, accosts us and berates us for being there; that this was no business for the parents and city administrators. (note : The city uses that room quite often for other purposes after school hours.) She called us manipulative and devious... We were shaken! Our union representative happened to be near by and he put on his hero cape and confronted the evil villain. He also told us to write everything down and hand him the complaints. She left on her planned vacation that week, and never came back. For the school board, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I just to add this...I once had my first observation of the year right after our first ever fire drill. I was the art teacher. The kindergarten ers came straight to my room from being outside fir their first ever fire drill! And my admin followed them into my classroom!
My school just got a new performing arts building (my high school is an open campus school so we have separate buildings) and the choir room doesn’t have windows!! We have 60 to 70 choir kids in this room with no windows and it’s like 100 degrees in this room. To make it worse we are a choir that dose extensive choreography to go with our songs. We are in a room with no windows with 60 kids singing and dancing and sweating like crazy in a 100 degree room. It’s terrible.
Just remember how you all treat the custodians
“i thought they was in their little tombs or whatever” i love you bri 😭😭
Evaluations would ALWAYS stress me out beyond all belief, I worked in Early Childhood Education my specialty is 2-3 but I also loved 3-5 age group as well. We would have a monthly; yes MONTHLY, observation done by our trainer. Those were almost always pretty positive depending on the trainer. However when it came to the yearly evaluation done by our Director or Assistant Direct those could always turn out to be some bull. One year I received two evaluations because I had a promotion at work, the first one was done by my AD I scored 24/25. She knew me very well had seen how I work and the effort I put into doing my job as best as I can in any situation, it was a good meeting with her. The second one however made me so mad because it was Director that did it and I got scored around 15/25. She marked something negative in every single category simply because she had to have something to talk about. But this woman had never once watched me in the classroom setting at all. Only took rumors as face value and judged you from there. Now as far as my performance revues are concerned I went from a model teacher to someone who had no idea how to do my job in the slightest. When my AD realized what the Director had done; to not only me but every single teacher she didn't like, she was just in shock.
My old principal (high school) was incredible. He knew each of the students by name, was someone you could talk to, and an all around awesome guy. He left to go to a different school, and we got a fine principal. Nothing bad about her, but she is no principal Delgado
The walkie talkie shit is REAL 🫥
I'm sure those teacher evaluators have interesting stories, too
I taught Headstart for years- thanks for reminding me that I survived Federal Review!
Posting this again it would be amazing to see a response. So You guys should talk about student fights and what to do. One of our favorite long term subs was fired due to not breaking up a fight fast enough according to the school. Keep in mind he is 75 and is recovering from cancer.
"he doesn't even go here!" lmaooo
Awww I love that the kids are protective of their teachers. 🤗
I'm a high school senior and my Pre-calc teacher is in some kind of masters program right now, not entirely sure what it is but he's trying to get a better degree and credential. He needs to have special evaluations every now and then. A couple of months ago our Principal came in to watch him teach the class and ended up picking up one of my papers to look at to see how students were doing on the assignments I guess? Not sure what the point of it was but it was so terrifying. He just came and took my worksheet and left. I was done with that one but I still didn't want someone walking away with it. I was also a little glad he grabbed my paper instead of one of my classmates because I'm super on top of all my work in that class and I know a majority of the other people are not and I really like this teacher and want him to get whatever thing he's working towards so it was nice to at least know the principal was looking at a good work sample. Still scary. 0/10
I worked on a military base daycare and we got observed all the time! All sorts of people. I always had so much anxiety!
Raise your hand if you have been personally victimized by someone observing your classroom! 🙋♀️
Are you in the military or are you employed by the day care?
@@pizzapartytime1826 my husband is in the military so I'm a military spouse.
When you work for the daycare on a military base you are considered a DOD worker which is the department of defense. So I was a worker for the Army. But you don't have to be a spouse to work on base, they will get you base access once you get hired. (Which is also a long process, spouse or not, lots of background checks)
Each branch is mostly the same but they all have different rules and regulations from what I've heard, the Army was the strictest for their daycares.
@@LifeOfCandice thanks! Would you recommend?
@@pizzapartytime1826 I don't want to say yes and I don't want to say no. I honestly kind of hated the job. I went from a small private preschool to a daycare system which was a huge adjustment for me. I felt like I was always in "trouble" for something but I also was never backed up either (had a parent once threaten me and my director blamed me 🤷🏼♀️)
With that being said the job taught me a lot, I'm expecting my first child and I plan on using some of the things I learned with my own child!
I have heard the Navy program is a lot better.
Military kids in general can be harder, they don't always have a "stable" home. They move a lot and most of the kids at the preschool had both parents in the military. So both had working parents, sometimes on rare occasions both parents were deployed. Lots of stress on the families. I saw/reported a few abuse cases which was heart breaking and not something I had really experienced before.
@@LifeOfCandice first off congrats. And thanks for the info.
In elementary we had rotating subs. The gym teacher in the morning, principle mid day and the art teacher ended the day. When it got bad they'd have us all move into one of the other classes (we had 4classes per grade). They'd split our class in three and we had to move our desks and be packed like sardines. Even the buses would be doubled up bc it was so bad. Getting home at 5:30pm when we left at 3:30pm.
My highschool teachers would the day before basically go over the points they can earn for the evaluations and basically give us a script to follow 😂and bribe us “if I get a 4.6 or above I’ll buy you donuts”
What in the British are comin- Bri.
I’m dead I can’t🤣🤣
Worst teacher evaluation I EVER had was when I was a first year lead teacher at the Goddard School and I got written up for arranging my classroom, talking to parents, doing circle time and making my lesson plans!! Yet, I had to explain to my boss WHAT a unit block was, WHAT a light table was and WHY it was okay to not hover over a 2 year playing in the sensory table full of flour because they can sweep it up when they are done playing in it! Also, my boss decided it was necessary to do this observation for over an hour EVERY week!!
I had a principal who was so incompetent when I read my observation report it was actually another teacher's lesson.
Things kids have said during observations. As a student teacher in second grade, a boy whose well-known father was standing trial for financial wrongdoing saw the gray-haired man in a suit, carrying a briefcase walk in and set up his paperwork on the reading table in the back of the room. Ever helpful, the student raised his hand, “Yes, Dahni?” “Ms. L, your lawyer’s here.”
Another scolded me, “Girl, you go give your Grandma a hug when she come in the room!”
Said a boy, “Ms. L., is he your boyfriend? I hope not ‘cause he’s too old for you.”
A child we used to refer to as Poindexter was very observant, very bright, and very lazy. He had no social boundaries, so when he noticed the same man observing his music lesson, and later, in the back of the third grade classroom, he asked me who he was. I told his name was Dr. G., and he was there to see how the school was doing. He questioned the title, “Dr.” and wanted to know if he gave the teachers vaccinations! So I explained he was not a medical doctor, rather, a person who checked on the health of teachers and schools. The next day was my turn and Dr. G. came came in during a math lesson. Poindexter blurted out, “Hey, you’re the doctor of education!”
I once got a needs improvement because I didn't have the standard for the day written on the common board. The day the administrator came in I was reading a script for the kids to instruct them on how to log into the system for the state standardized test to prepare for upcoming testing. I also got a needs improvement because I didn't teach the entire standard in one lesson (I taught in a title 1 school and the kids required a lot of scaffolding). The school had a failing grade 3 years in a row and our administration was removed mid-year and replaced with a new one to "turn-around" the school.