I met up with a relative of mine recently who has a toddler. We were discussing the near future and the topic of school came up. To each their own, of course, but she’d told me about her plans to put her child into a Catholic school because “they don’t teach their students about being gay or transgender.” But I’m struggling to understand why she thinks that public schools do teach that? Or why it’s such a common sentiment? I was baffled.

Obviously, distrust between educators and parents has been growing for quite some time. Certainly today’s political climate doesn’t help, but how do parents truly believe that elementary school teachers are telling their students about sexuality/gender identity? I have students who can’t write their name, nevermind who have any concept of identity.

Hello,

5th grade teacher here

I have two students with a diagnosed Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and it means there are things that student does that I'm supposed to ignore or redirect kindly, and I feel that it sets a precedent in my class that it's ok to undermine me and ignore my directions.

Other children have expressed that it's unfair in their eyes when they get reprimanded or get an office call while this other kid gets gentle affirmative redirection that doesn't work.

Please help

One of my freshmen- the kind who complains every time you ask him to do anything remotely academic- told me school is “basically slavery.”

This is a kid who acts personally oppressed when you ask him to close a gaming tab or stop doom-scrolling long enough to open his assignment. I asked him to start the classwork, and he hit me with:

“Man, this is basically slavery.”

So I said: “No, slavery doesn’t come with field trips, free Wi-Fi, Chromebooks, iPads, or teachers holding your hand through everything. People pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn what you’re getting for free- and you’re mad because it’s cutting into your screen time?”

He went quiet.

Then he tried the classic fallback: “Yeah but, when am I ever going to use math?”

And I told him: “Maybe never. But school isn’t about memorizing formulas- it’s about proving you can learn something hard and boring and stick with it. Most employers don’t care if you know the quadratic formula. They care if you can handle doing stuff that isn’t fun without falling apart. Failing math in a system this forgiving doesn’t mean math isn’t useful. It means you can’t even pass with help- and that’s the real problem.”

Silence. Just blinking. Like I short-circuited the part of his brain where the excuses live.

No more complaints for the rest of class. He either gave up or there might’ve been an aha moment.

Either way? He was the quietest he’s ever been. I might frame the moment.

Edit for clarity and boundaries:

I’m open to discussion, critique, and even disagreement- but I’m not here to entertain personal attacks, ableist comments, or hyperbolic comparisons that derail the point (mods have been awesome about it thank you).

If you're here to genuinely talk about what’s broken in education, I'm listening. If you're here to posture, provoke, or mock—especially by targeting my identity- you’re not owed my time or energy.

Let’s keep this grounded and respectful.

I teach highschool French and I have three students in my class from Haiti. I found out yesterday that their protected status is being revoked and they have two weeks to leave the US.

These kids are seniors, they all have jobs and are just out here to survive. Now they are forced to go back to Haiti where they said it's not safe for them. I wanted to see them graduate, now they'll never be able to walk across the stage. I've been crying for hours yesterday but there's nothing I can do about it.

And it hurts me more that the majority of my schools teachers voted for this (super red state). It's disgusting.

What am I supposed to tell the class one they notice our students are missing? We aren't allowed to talk politics really, but I can't lie to them. I'm 22, it's my first year teaching, I never thought I'd have to encounter a situation like this. America needs to do better for our children.

Edit: Thank you all for the support, I think my students need it more than I do but I appreciate it none the less.

Some comments mentioned the idea of setting up a fund. I LOVE the idea, but I'll be honest I have no idea how to put something like that in action. If anyone knows how to create something like that please reach out. Thank you again.

I was helping a student with Geometry classwork, looked up at the board and I had accidentally projected the solved problems. Oh well, I printed and handed out the solutions and said “everyone should get a 100 on this one.” I just finished grading two of the students only finished a fraction of the problems (not the biggest problem), but about half were done wrong. I had undiagnosed ADHD in high school, and I still don’t understand what’s going on with them.

I have had a terrible year. Many reasons for it but one of them was that I had a sped inclusion para ( I teach gen ed and have students who are mainstreamed kinders who are nonverbal and still in diapers with very severe needs) who was drama (was often on her phone or socializing with other paras and not wanting to be focused on the kids she was assigned to, and would just flat out not do what I asked her to do, would interfere with students she wasn’t assigned to, she would let her students make huge messes like get paint everywhere and not clean it up, wouldn’t properly supervise her students leaving me to be the one on the look out for elopement and aggressive behavior and be the one to stop it, wouldn’t use any of the support tools like visuals and token boards and first/then boards to help her kids understand routines and expectations and when I tried to address this she would complain to admin who she was personal friends with and say I was being rude or targeting her,-a lot stuff).

She was not supposed to be the para for my room and was just pulled to do it because they needed to hire someone because the school “wasn’t previously aware how intense the students needs were”. For 7 months this went on. I ended up just letting her do whatever she wanted just to limit the drama and attitude and complaints to the principal even if it didn’t serve students and made my job very hard.

Well finally I got my new para and she is great! No more of this nonsense -she is just on it and doing the job. My students have improved more in 2 weeks than I would have believed possible. I feel like a mountain of stress has been lifted off my shoulders. I wanted to tell her how much I appreciate her and that she is doing great and she tells me, “when I was shadowing a few weeks ago I noticed the strange dynamic of the para not working with her students much and kind of letting them run wild so I’m glad your happy that I don’t do that because I just couldnt do that since it doesn’t seem right. Also I know im not that chatty so please don’t think I’m unfriendly I just like to be mainly focused on my job and I know that the last girl was very social. There seemed to be a strange dynamic in here and I was worried”. I told her the strange dynamic was real but very much not what I wanted and that I was thrilled to have her and her professionalism.

In 3 days of shadowing she clocked all the issues (that admin couldn’t see in 7 months 🤦🏽‍♀️) and immediately planned to fix them. I am back to feeling so much happier in general and more at ease going to work again. I love this woman. I had spent months feeling trapped between an ineffective and catty para and an admin who is her friend who refused to see her friend doing anything wrong and running myself ragged dealing with not having real support for my very severe and nonverbal but mainstreamed kids and finally I feel like I’m out of the trap. Yes the school still has issues that suck but it’s all so much easier to deal with the other things when I have support in my room and less drama and not feeling like my students aren’t being properly served.

On April 3, 2025, U.S. Representative Jared Huffman and Senator Chris Van Hollen reintroduced the IDEA Full Funding Act, aiming to ensure that all children with disabilities receive a free, high-quality public education. Originally, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) committed the federal government to cover 40% of the average per-pupil expenditure for special education. However, current funding falls below 13%. This legislation proposes mandatory increases in IDEA spending to fulfill the original 40% commitment.

https://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Curious how many of you have some passive income that earns about $500 or more a month. I've been trying to find something but it seems like everyone says buying real estate is the best solution but I refuse to have any part of being a landlord nor can I buy property for the foreseeable future. Is this just a pipe dream?

I’m an African American woman stepping into a new role at a nonprofit where I’ll be doing a lot of public-facing work—virtual meetings, networking events, breakfasts—with potential donors from both corporate and academic spaces.

I love switching up my hairstyles—braids, twists, natural looks—and it’s always been a way I express myself confidently. But I was recently asked to “tone down” the beads in my braids, and it got me thinking: In a role where I’m representing the organization, is frequently changing my hair—or wearing culturally expressive styles—likely to be seen as unprofessional?

I want to bring my full, authentic self to this work, but I also want to be strategic in how I’m perceived. Has anyone else had to navigate this balance in a donor-facing or public nonprofit role? How would you handle it?

The only sink in my HIGH SCHOOL classroom, which has existed peacefully for the last three years, was broken on Friday. I couldn’t believe it, but someone RIPPED OFF THE HANDLE to the faucet. Ripped it off and broke it. I can’t tell if it was vandalism or sheer stupidity.

Luckily it is a cold water only line, so I can attach the cold water hose to the hot water side, but it’s still unbelievable to me.

If it was vandalism- like, why go for the most useful thing in my freaking classroom?

If it was something else- how in the F**K does a high schooler forget how a faucet works?!?!??! It only goes two directions??????????????

I just don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t believe a broken sink handle is what did it for me. I can’t be around other peoples’ kids who can’t be bothered to put a paint brush back in a water cup or to not break a faucet handle.

I couldn’t even look at the kids for the rest of the day. I couldn’t be bothered to care what they did.

It’s not like our class is boring, either. We have done wire sculpture, ceramics, scale models, cardboard sculptures, this semester alone, for ART ONE. And for what? They don’t care.

Hey! Second year teacher here :), in art class I was teaching the technic called etching, and some students started to say ohhh we are gonna learn how to edge, edging, and of course they just continue laughing for all the class about that, I wasn't sure how to handle the situation, I just looked at them like "really -.-", even one student ask me if I had edge sometime like making this word game.... I'm really easy going with that class so there's some kind of trust with them and even it wasn't so bad, I got the question of how to deal with this type of porn/sexual references... Do you have similar situation? How you deal with that?

I'm pretty nervous. The site used was Soap2Day to watch Severance but all the ads and pop ups that I rapidly clicked out of show up on my history. It wasn't on my work device, and it wasn't at work, but I'm still freaked out that the district might see and penalize me. Can they see? If so, what usually happens proceeding forward?

For some context behind this question, the school board in my hometown just made the ridiculous decision to close all the middle schools. They also fired several of the high school principals who were beloved and had great test scores, and coincidentally had spoken out against the middle school closure and preceding district-level financial mismanagement.

I’m absolutely livid. All of the parents in the local Facebook groups are beside themselves.

I’m also from California, where we’ve seen a steady decline in school funding over the past 30 years. I remember my high school had an empty building that was supposed to be where the career advisor met with students. When I was a student there 2004-2008, I asked the counselor how I could meet with the career advisor, and they just laughed and said we haven’t had that position in 10 years. And I went to the “good” high school.

So anyway, recently I was looking up who will be leading my alma mater high school now that the beloved principal is being axed. And I noticed that the administrative team is larger than it was when I went there 15 years ago. So here are the stats:

2007-2008: HS had 1200 students across 4 grades; 1 Principal, 1 Vice Principal

2024-2025: HS has 1600 students across 4 grades; 1 Principal, 1 Vice Principal; 2 Assistant Principals

And honestly, I’m a bit shocked. I don’t know what the purpose of those two extra administrators is. I know the teachers have been crying out for raises for years. It sounds like they’ve had those two APs for a few years now. I guess they’ll come in handy when the school has to add 7th and 8th graders in fall 2025.

I suspect the administrators are meant to deal with the additional administrative burden from the district and the state? Is this correct? Has this trend taken place at other schools?

I’m about to graduate college and got a job offer but it’s 50 minutes away. I’ve talked to over 10 teachers at the school I’m student teaching at who say to take it. I would be living with family and not paying for rent or utilities during this time. I would be making 40k starting. And I’ve been accepted to grad school and am taking a class in the summer to start helping me gain credit hours. Do you think the 50 minute commute is worth it???

I made a huge leap from teaching charter school pre-k to self-paced 10th grade alt-school mid-year. It has been intensely interesting. The hardest part is of course keeping them awake and on task; especially since these are the kids who eventually get kicked from their home school for truancy and come to us.

When I started kids would barely talk to me (or each other), and most of them were sleeping or scrolling. I'm still working on our coursework progress, but my classroom culture has improved so much. These kids are a hoot. Lazier than I could have possibly imagined, but they're making friends and actually sharing thoughts within conversations.

I started doing fun Friday as a way to try and get a tiny bit of enthusiasm and make this place less monotonous. After lunch we play some sort of friendly competition activity and the winner/s get a voucher for one hour of phone/free time. I was terrified no one would play since I am committed to keeping it optional. The first week only 6 participated. Since then there are usually around 15 who play and 5-7 who sit out.

This Friday EVERY SINGLE KID played in our cup pong team tournament!! When I type it out it probably sounds trivial, but it meant a lot to me. They all had at least a tiny bit of fun, and we got to let loose a bit and enjoy being together.

Next year, I will be working on a team with people who are much younger than I am (20-year gap). I am nervous about possible differences in teaching philosophy and just fitting in. Can you give me some things to consider so I can gain some optimism?

If you remember my last post, this is my update.

Well. Not the update I wanted to give, but I should’ve expected to see this behavior from grown catty 20something teachers.. and admin.

I was ignored by admin. Made eye contact and they straight up didn’t acknowledge me. I even smiled at them, said good morning. Nothing. Then I had the counselor sit in class with me to observe the behaviors. And probably to monitor what I was saying (it’s probably more this than anything else). Other teachers in the same grade level made faces at me, and didn’t speak to me either.

I briefly apologized as to clarify with my students, and that same student was incredibly smug and nonchalant in the back. Standing up and talking to the counselor and roaming, STILL.

I played bingo with my class (to bond with them), bought some little prizes. I had a student complain that he wasn’t going to win. He was one away on his card and someone else won. He obviously made comments in front of the counselor to see if he could get a reaction out of me. And those of you that will probably say… “kids don’t know any better.” This one does. This one 110% does. These kids are not used to losing, I guess. They all want to be winners. And that’s fine, but put in the work in order to get there. (Also bingo is very much luck/chance based? Sigh.)

At the end of the day I cried in the car and cried on the couch at home.

I (47f) teach middle school math. (This is my 24th year teaching and I have always had good relationships with my students.) I am hanging on by a thread. The incessant rudeness and flat out disrespect has me ready to give up. Just this week, a student screamed at me because I couldn’t hear them respond to attendance during an emergency drill. Another became enraged at me because I asked them to stop jumping on another student’s back. It’s one thing to bust my tail trying to make math interesting and get through all the standards while being questioned by students on the validity of my plans and assignments, not to mention being talked over and ignored while teaching. It’s another to have a child scream at me in front of peers… and get a nominal consequence. I feel like teachers are there only to take abuse. I’ve empathized with those who have walked away for their mental health, but this week I see that I need to walk away. I just don’t know where to go.

I've got one period of mostly eighth graders (I teach 6/7/8, mixed with each other) that just do. not. care. about anything. They are over middle school and they have been for a while now.

I've tried the "participating will earn you rocks in a jar" thing. I tried "being hostile when I ask you a question and you yell at me will remove rocks from the jar" thing. (Filling the jar was supposed to earn free time.) I've tried giving them praise, giving them independent work time, encouraging them, being positive, etc etc. (And, for the record, my work is fun. We did an independent project where they had to research the rides they'd ride at an amusement park and plot them on the park map.)

I've tried having them work in self-selected groups. I've tried having them work independently. I've tried having them work in assigned groups.

Out of 22 kids, I have maybe 7 who show up and participate. Maybe 4 who show up and don't participate. And the rest are pretty blah.

I don't want to completely give up on them, because if I do, I'll never get them back. But also I'm exhausted at giving my 200% only to get nothing back. What's a better response than throwing my hands in the air and saying, "Fine, you don't want to do anything? Then we won't do anything." lol.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/some-counties-left-out-voucher-program/amp/

“I have one little private school that started up this year. I think it has eight students. It’s a K-3 school and it has eight students, and I think next year they’re hoping to get to about 30 students,” Rep. Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill), who voted against the measure, said. “It’s not good for my district. That’s the only private school we have.”

I have a demo lesson this week for a high school ELA lesson. I’m going completely blank. What should I do my lesson on that would be engaging and rigorous. I’m so nervous I can’t even think.

Why don’t kids know basic classroom rules and behavior. Especially older kids. Please stop talking should not become an argument with a student that responds with “I didn’t nothing what’d I do. I’m not talking” blah blah blah

We had testing 2 weeks ago and we have the expectation of our class being quiet during testing and avoiding lockers and being quiet in hallways. We have to be quiet if we are done and others are not. We have to walk even older classes to the restroom breaks to ensure all this etc. But they literally cannot shut up for this.

My question is this: if we are not enforcing their behavior daily aka admin backup how can they expect these rowdy kids to all of a sudden start listening to us when we ask them to do all this. During testing for example.

If we were able to enforce basic classroom behavior consistently this might go a lot better and the teachers not get in trouble for letting them break these basic rules that we don’t get backup for day to day.

Why am I having to teach such basic school behavior anyway. They should’ve learned it already anyway. I know kids definitely seem bolder in recent years but I’m so over it.

Is this just my school or is anyone else dealing with this.

[Sorry for bad English, I'm not a native speaker]

Title says it. I'm still studying, but I get be a substitute teacher sometimes. I thought it's gonna be easy, because students tend to listen more to young teachers. Which is kind of true. I think I know how to talk to them, but not how to teach them. Students always say history is useless and that they don't need to know what happend. Like "whatever it just happend, we don't care" ("My" students are at the age of 12-15). I wish they could see history the way I do. It's fascinating and no matter what I tell them, they aren't interested. I've tried telling them that we need to know history for better future and to kinda feel empathy to history figures. Like "what could lead them to do this?" and "what would you do, if you were in their situation?". And I always ask them, what they think could happen next. I want them to understand it. I want them to see connections between history events. But I'm afraid they don't want to be interested. I really don't want to call them lazy, I really don't, and I think it's the teachers fault for not making class interested, but I think I've tried almost everything. What else could I do? What do you do? And if you're around the age of 12-16 or more, what does your teacher do, to make history interesting and what would you want them to do?

Now in the US, but most of my teaching was in Africa, Asia and Europe before. Teachers received multiple surveys per year asking us to rate our admins on such nonsensical, vague and meaningless statements.

It feels like we are getting a glimpse into the 9-5 world of school boards, county leaders, superintendents, etc. "THIS is what they do all day???" Asking a math teacher who is busy teaching math to rate some assistant principal on how often she engages with community stakeholders to ensure goal-setting and learning targets....really? It seems the leadership is so detached from the reality of teaching that the solution must come from outside. This is a runaway train.

What are some of the dumbest questions like this you've been asked to fill out?

I often create worksheets and activities using Canva and my grade level teachers keep encouraging me to put them onto TPT. Is it worth it? Could I make any money from this other than a few dollars a month? I genuinely love creating and designing especially in terms of education so I think I would enjoy it… but, again, is it worth it?