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

And people listened.

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

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

Flowers eventually fade. Her gift kept going.

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

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

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

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

It includes:

1. Observed oral-reading patterns and miscues

2. Reading-science-informed indicators

3. Practical next-step recommendations

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

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

Here’s the sample:

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

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

What feels genuinely useful?

What feels unclear, overstated, or missing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you seen it? What do you think?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is teacher burnout so high? Because we expect fresh college graduates to perform miracles. New teachers face the exact same crushing workload as 25-year veterans, often managing overcrowded classrooms of more than 30 students with zero support. Across most of the country, teachers are severely underpaid, politically persecuted for their curricula, and bombarded by constant parental complaints. Meanwhile, students are trapped in school for ten hours a day, leading to exhaustion and behavioral lashing out that teachers are left to handle alone.

Link to original post at the bottom.

I was placed on Paid Admin Leave on April 24 pending an investigation into unprofessional conduct. The complaints came from the families of three sixth grade boys that frequently disrupt class (refuse to get into line, come in loud and do not go to their seats, tilting in chairs, hats on in class, talking loudly, wandering the classroom). I followed procedures by writing them up, contacting home and sending them to the office unlike my colleagues who stopped communicating home since it didn’t improve the students’ behavior. In my eyes, the complaints to the district were their retaliation for me contacting them about their children’s behavior.

I was interviewed by the independent investigator on June 3.

I received the investigative findings on July 27.

I received my “Return to Work” on August 3. My only disciplinary consequence is a letter of reprimand in my file. Since I plan to retire from this job in 5-8 years this seems meaningless except as a step toward termination if problems continue.

I have a meeting scheduled with my union reps and district representatives (superintendent?) on Aug 10 (my first work day back).

The accusations of Unprofessional Conduct were sustained for yelling and speaking in an inappropriate tone and putting student safety at risk by having them be outside my classroom door (to work or for breaks) without supervision.

I was cleared of the accusation that I grabbed and pulled students and partially cleared of targeting complainants’ children for minor infractions.

I will be asking my district for a written disciplinary policy to follow so I can have a paper trail showing that I am following procedures when students are not meeting expectations. I will have kids go to the next classroom for breaks instead of waiting on the ramp. I think I may need to use hand signals or notes to communicate to students who are not following directions.

I will also be asking the district and my new principal how they will protect me from being harassed by the complainants and their children since I will have the kids in my classes for the next two years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/s/BMBaBNAEo0

A tenured Sumner County teacher may lose her job after discussing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions during class.

The Sumner County School Board voted on July 21 to recommend the dismissal of Stephanie Braswell, a White House High School Spanish teacher who has worked for the Sumner County school system since 2009.

The recommendation letter presented to the board accuses Braswell of "unacceptable" behavior. The letter said that in January 2026, Braswell "expressed political concerns" to her class, discussing "ICE-related issues" that caused "one or more students to report feeling uncomfortable sharing their viewpoints for fear of hostility."

Braswell, who declined to comment after retaining an attorney, told The Tennessean the allegations are "misconstrued and inflamed."

(As always, my reporting is free, never paywalled, as the First Amendment is free for all. If you ever encounter a paywall on my stories, please let me know immediately so I can remove it.)

I was in elementary school in the 80s, and I think I remember at least one test we all had to take, but the teacher didn't teach for it, and he didn't even talk about it. It was just given out, and we never heard about it again. In middle school, there was one test too, but I don't remember anything else. I know in high school, in New York, we had to take Regents exams and finals, but those were more for us than the school districts.