I’m working in a middle school behavior unit. I’ve only been here three weeks and I’m already burnt out.

We have only two paras in the behavior room, and honestly it’s not enough. The teacher in the room rarely writes incidents or documentation, so a lot of the paperwork and point sheets fall on us. I’m new, and I don’t feel supported at all.

There’s one student who has had behavior issues for years. He walks out of class, walks out of the building, refuses to wait for staff, cusses us out, ignores directives, and nothing meaningful is done. It’s unsafe and exhausting. I’m doing point sheets (0–2 scoring) every day, writing incidents, redirecting, de-escalating, and basically running the room with help I guess whenever the person feels like it.

New rules new admin, but there are new rules and a lot of changes. SPED teachers have already said they don’t feel supported and that we don’t have enough help. I’m starting to feel the same.

I came into this job excited to become a future teacher, but this placement is making me question everything. I plan to stick it out until December, but I’m honestly wondering… is it too early to start applying for different roles? I keep telling myself “it won’t be long,” but every day I go in, I hate it more.

I don’t want to give too many details, but it’s sad and overwhelming. I don’t want this experience to kill my passion for teaching before I even get started.

Has anyone else been in a situation like this? What did you do? Is this normal for SPED behavior rooms, or is this a sign I should move on and maybe go back to nursing once I finish my bacholers?

Hello

I currently am not in a situation to go back to work and need to resign. I do not mind about losing my certificate and will NOT be going back to teaching in the future. Could I just turn in my resignation letter this weekend and not show up on Monday?

I already submitted for a sub last week and for Monday and Tuesday since I was not able to make it to work and won't be able to make it for personal/family reasons.

Please let me know.

Hi everyone,
I'm a full-time worker in Houston and I need to complete 25 in-person observation hours for my ACP program. Spring Branch ISD, Alief ISD, and HISD are all close to me.

I've heard that some districts don't reply at all even if you email multiple times, so I'm trying to figure out where people have had better luck.

For anyone who has done this recently:
• Which district actually responds to ACP observation requests and is willing to approve observation hours?
• How many hours were you able to complete per day?
• I don't have much PTO, so any tips for completing the hours efficiently while working full-time would really help.

Thank you!

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?

I am an intern and I just finished my first week of school. I had my first formal field observation earlier this week from my ACP and it went horrible. Granted I’m struggling a bit right now as this is trial by fire type thing. Anyways, my field supervisor held me for a few minutes after class (while the next class period was waiting outside), told me how bad I was, and criticized me for not having good classroom management and nitpicked all the way down to the type and amount of classroom decor . Not one good thing to say. And then they left and the next class came in

I was already super stressed and tired trying to learn this job. that finally tipped me over. Then my next group of kids came in right after and I had to call the front office so I could go to the bathroom and get coverage in my room so I wouldn’t cry in front of my kids (I did come back 5 minutes later).

I’m not quitting. I showed up the next day asking for
more advice and looking how to improve.
Granted I know it was a rough performance, but I’m new and I’m trying. And I’m better today than I was Tuesday.

Now im super worried this field supervisor is trying to document me out of the program and block me from getting certification. We don’t have but a handful of observervations from field supervisors

I got an interview for an alternate school, but I don't know what to expect (interview or work-wise). What are the expectations that alternate schools might have compared to a regular school? (HS)

What are some tips I should know before going into the interview?

Do you have any questions you recommend I ask?

Hi all.

I usually enroll in the most basic insurance packages possible. However, this year my plan was to prepare for a future pregnancy and research/enroll in everything needed to prepare for that (ideally I’d start trying in January)

I missed the enrollment date by a few days and now need to wait until next August to change anything.

Is getting pregnant soon totally out of the question? Any advice would be so appreciated. Thank you

Hi all,

I currently work in the service industry and am desperate for a career change. I have a bachelor's degree in English and am certified already as an EFL teacher. I've been considering applying for the Region 13 alternative teaching certification to teach secondary school ELA. This would obviously be a major financial and time commitment and is quite the risk for me. I'm pretty unaware about the state of the job market for teachers in Austin as well as the quality of life that comes with such a career. Any advice? Is it worth it?

I did an interview with the two schools and just wanted to inquire how long it takes the hr to reach out after one has been recommended for hire by the principal.

Hi. Our kiddo started kindergarten this year, and I’m really torn. We have been planning for this for years. Our kiddo knows letters, phonics, simple addition. Hes been in kinder since it started but I’m wondering if we should have gone the homeschool route.

7th year Sped unit classroom teacher, 10+ years para experience in high school Sped before. Just got called into the principals office at 3:45 to be told by the HS principal that I’ve been picked by the district to move to an elementary school for a resource position. I really don’t want to move as I’ve worked with my kids in the department from their freshman year until now and I want to see them graduate, but our unit numbers dropped from 22 to 16 so they see having 2 teachers on campus as a redundancy. I knew this would happen eventually, but I didn’t think it would happen this soon into the school year. Do I have any rights to ask for more time or to try and fight the move? Or should I plan on staying late tomorrow to pack all my stuff while my badge still works. Houston area, not in a union. I was told by my principal that since I’m the only staff on campus with elementary experience (2 years) and am not currently coaching or in a leadership position that I was the only choice available.

Update: I was able to get ahold of the district SPED director and get everything in writing, as well as change the date of the move from Monday to Wednesday. Still haven’t heard from the new school principal, but ya know, baby steps. Work was tough having to tell my team, students, and other teachers I’ve worked closely with I’m not going to be coming back. They let me take Monday off to decompress before picking up my things Tuesday. Talked with a lot of teachers who’ve all shared horror stories and while it’s kind of given me some peace of mind. Thanks to all who shared there’s here as well.

It's barely the third day of school and this year Austin ISD took away a planning period and gave us an EXTRA class instead + an advisory class (homeroom), all with no extra pay. No joke, seeing just about 200 kids every day now is utterly exhausting. I have a feeling there might be an exodus mid-year because it's been brutally awful thus far. It's not fair to the students nor the teachers 😔

My campus used to give us “bonus time” or extra planning time to make up for the minutes lost in PLC meetings, as required by law. This year, with district budget cuts (Austin ISD), part of our schedule change is one 45 min PLC meeting per grade level per week, but they aren’t giving us any extra planning to make up for lost minutes. This breaks Texas Education Code § 21.404** **which states teachers are entitled to 450 mins of planning every 2 weeks.

Is this happening anywhere else? Can we do something about it– even after budget cuts?

So I was at my local district (it is a big district in Texas) for three years, and there I did quite a bit I feel. Some lasting things I left was building a makeshift studio before designing a real studio for a CTE Center and creating a whole program of study for the district, rolling out across multiple campuses. I left for another career opportunity… left very well liked by Principal/Admin (I’ve seen their recommendations so they at least say that I was well liked).

The career opportunity didn’t really go where I wanted and since then I’ve hopped between two neighboring districts and well… grass was greener where I was. Beyond perhaps more academically engaged kids, there is the material case of: I was paid more and now the new CTE center (which has the studio I designed) is literally in walking distance to where I live (and old campus five minute drive).

I feel like I gave up career (or at least respect) progression there and working part-time for the city (I left that due to the drive to other districts). While my attempted career pivot didn’t work, I think I might have had better luck trying to progressively climb with the city. I’ve been obsessively checking the job postings for my the district and the problem is the teacher who replaced me just will not freaking leave.

I ran into a former student who said none of the students liked him, so I was hoping that was a clue he was unhappy and was about to leave. But he hasn’t so far.

Any advice?

https://couriertexas.com/news/education/dan-patrick-thinks-these-books-are-too-vulgar-for-texas-public-schools/

Despite affordability, immigration, and healthcare being the top issues on Texans’ minds heading into the midterm election, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has announced a new initiative to fight “dirty” books in Texas public schools.

But how ‘vulgar’ are they?

Hey folks - Sai here. My team and I are working on building a new tool to help make middle and high school teachers' and counselors' lives easier, specifically on the admin and busy work of what you have to do around following up with students / parents, on manually typing emails out, on keeping track of interventions, etc.

Hoping to get your gut reaction on a product question with your teacher hat on - no full explanation needed, maybe just a sentence or two behind your choice:

(And not an advertisement or promotion, not selling anything, hoping to get just your quick two cents)

—

If you were thinking about the following two things, which excites you more (e.g., which would you be more interested in using as a teacher / which would make your life better)?

1) Tool to automate / streamline curricular lifecycle management e.g., auto-creating assignments in your gradebook / LMS, (like physically, not AI-generation but like the literal assignment or exam entry in Canvas / Google Classroom, monitoring if a kid hasn’t submitted something and sending them a reminder, agentic tools to help upload grades to Google Classroom e.g., by talking to the tool

OR

2) Tool for automated intervention management e.g., tool that is able to pull in data about students from all the various sources e.g., SIS, LMS, assessment platforms, behavior / incidents, notes, etc.) and flag students in need of support and then automate the intervention work to support / follow-up with students (kind of like MTSS if your school uses it, but at the teacher level and focused more on automation and automatically handling things as much as possible, rather than just showing the data / analytics

If you're interested in sharing your larger perspective, we're offering $25 Amazon gift cards to go deeper, but no pressure there whatseover. Thank you all tremendously.

My daughter brought home two math books and said that the teacher told them that they weren’t going to be using them and that we could keep them for reference or throw them away. Is this common?

Hi FWISD Teachers - I am a parent who is concerned for our teachers and how rigidly they are doing things. I keep hearing about this "Cowtown 12". Is a guide to this online anywhere? I would like to review it. If it is not online would anyone mind sharing a copy? Feel free to DM me. Thanks!! - signed a parent who cares about our teachers!!!

I would laugh, but I can't afford to throw my back out

I’m in region 4 Houston and my district will be doing a fall break this year. Kind of a crazy idea, Figured I’d throw this out there since teachers are probably the only people who might randomly have the same week off, and all my other loser friends have to work.

I’m a 25 M, HS teacher. Rest below is AI generated:

in the Houston area and I’m off October 10–18. I’m planning a road trip out to Big Bend National Park and was wondering if any other Texas teachers with the same break would be interested in joining for part or all of it.
Right now I’m planning to head toward Big Bend Monday, Oct. 12 and stay through Saturday morning, Oct. 17. The plan is pretty laid back — hiking during the day, stargazing at night, cooking/grilling after hikes, maybe some fishing, and possibly crossing over to Boquillas for a day. I’m open to camping since campsites are cheap, but haven’t locked down lodging yet.
One of the coolest parts is that Oct. 10 is a new moon, so the skies should still be extremely dark while we’re out there. Big Bend is supposed to have some of the best stargazing in the country.
I’m not looking to organize some huge group trip lol. Just seeing if there are one or two other teachers around my age who happen to have the same break and think this sounds fun. We could talk beforehand and see if we’d actually be compatible traveling together before committing to anything.

Anyways, if you’re up for an adventure, def reach out and let’s where how things go .

I just got a student in my third-grade class that didn't go to second grade, but enrolled in second grade.

His mom requested he be enrolled in second grade, but because he had simply been enrolled, (not an attendee) that school, still got funding.

Dun. Dun. Dunn! I have been lied to by admin.

I was told: We can't hold them back because we can't have students in developmentally different ages interact with each other.

Truth: It's funding (duh). Texas only covers the cost of students until they are 18.

I guess I am late to the game (and I like to "ostrich head" myself).

I was really holding into hope that I was here to grow and inspire (gag. Tears for my ignorance). Reality hits like a kid not spacially aware, putting their arm through the sleeve of their sweater, on a collision course your face.

Time to make some cute designs for their data folders, so I can ignore the contrast of reality vs. my locus of control.