From Harford Students Count on Us:
HCPS continues to delay action on the FY 18 budget. Likewise, HCPS still has not committed to funding our teachers’ salaries. Over the last four years, HCPS has lost 1000+ teachers. Without intervention HCPS will surely lose another 300 teachers this year. Our teachers deserve better. Our students deserve better. Our community deserves better.
Please take the time today to sign our funding petition and to email the members of the Harford County Board of Education three simple words, “Do You Part.” Below are the emails for the Harford County Board of Education Members. Our teachers and students are counting on you.
Alfred.Williamson@hcps.org
Jansen.Robinson@hcps.org
Joseph.Hau@hcps.org
Joseph.Voskuhl@hcps.org
Laura.Runyeon@hcps.org
Nancy.Reynolds@hcps.org
Rachel.Gauthier@hcps.org
Robert.Frisch@hcps.org
Thomas.Fitzpatrick@hcps.org
Harford Students Count on Us
1000+ in 4 years? How many total teachers are there?
Look it up. All the info is readily available.
I can’t find it, if it’s so easy help us out.
The annual reports which are posted on the website usually provide the breakdown, if not all school profiles also posted on the website have the information then use your calculator.
“The website” ??? What website?
If you are a product of HCPS I can see why teachers are leaving
Resident idiot,
I guess you are too challenged to even handle that simple task. I can understand why teachers don’t want to work here in Harford County.
Harford County students will be taught by inexperienced teachers if we continue losing so many teachers. Young vibrant enthusiastic teachers need to be part of the mix but not be the majority.
But young, inexperienced teachers cost less, have fewer outside responsibilities (like kids of their own), are eager to prove their abilities, are easily intimidated by administrators, so are more willing to do all kinds of extra-curricular work without expectation of additional pay. They usually have debt, so they need the job, and likely won’t leave until they find another job. In a few years, when they can no longer bear the lack of pay increases and/or are burned out, they resign, and the county finds a new, inexperienced teacher to replace them. They never have to pay them more than a few steps, because they just freeze the steps to keep them from climbing, and they never have to pay them on the masters scale.
It’s an effective business model that suits the “most bang for the buck” philosophy that has been the Harford County mantra for many decades, and so far, it’s worked out just fine, as taxes have remained artificially low, and students continue to achieve. Now, you might say that this will catch up to us, but which part, the taxes or the achievement? Maybe achievement will decline, but which is more desirable, paying more taxes to pay experienced teachers to maintain achievement, or low taxes regardless of the repercussions? In Harford County, I think people will tolerate just about anything as long as their taxes are low, and would much prefer keeping their money over seeing some kid do well in school because of experienced teachers.
Fortunately, HC and HCPS have found a business model that allows for both.
I believe HCPS has a 90% retention rate which is consider very good based on industry standards. I guess Mr. Burbey believes all teachers should be retrained even the ones who damage the profession.
Why guess? Pick up you SMART ass phone and find out.
In many industries a 90% yearly retention rate is considered good. However, in education, 90% yearly retention rate means that every ten years you have “turned over” your entire staff. More important than yearly retention rates are 3 year, 5 year and 10 year retention rates. Likewise, it is important that teacher retention at specific schools is carefully examined. This happened under previous administration. It is not happening now.
Even more problematic is the concentration of the turn over in at-risk schools. 69.7% of teachers with 3 or less years of experience in Harford County teach in at-risk schools. Nearly 40% of the teachers at Aberdeen High School have 3 or less years of experience in Harford County. Nearly 45% of the teachers at Aberdeen Middle School have 3 or less years of experience in Harford County. Nearly 40% of the teachers at Edgewood Elementary have 3 or less years of experience in Harford County. 58% of the teachers at Edgewood High School have 3 or less years of experience in Harford County. 54% of the teachers at Edgewood Middle School have 3 or less years of experience in Harford County.
Both I and HCEA believe that all teachers should meet rigorous standards for instruction. Certainly teachers that damage the profession should not be retained. However, the current HCPS administration is failing to recruit, retain and develop high quality educators. Morale in our schools has never been lower. Teachers have lost confidence in HCPS leadership due to a pervasive culture of intimidation, lack of professionalism, lack of respect and the failure of HCPS to honor its agreements.
Our child is a Harford Tech cyber student. She could not be happier with both the teachers and learning environment. So when I read all these negative comments about HCPS, and that good teachers are leaving, etc., I must say that is not our experience at all.
https://harford.tedk12.com/hire/ViewJob.aspx?JobID=2540
They want to hire another teacher the demand is so great. APG government and provate contractors will need many, any cyber experts over the next 10 years. They are looking to the local school system to, in part, fill that need.
Certainly, not all the good teachers are leaving. However, far too many teachers are leaving. The lack of stability is driving folks away. Our teachers are far too professional to allow this to impact our students. However, the high turn-over is having an impact on the overall quality of education.
And as long as teachers keep picking up the slack, the system has no incentive to take responsible measures to take care of things as they should. HCPS absolutely knows that regardless of their actions (or lack thereof), the teachers will cover the gaps. They know it, and they count on it. Why should they pay more for what they are already getting? If your cell phone provider gave you service for free, would you still send them money every month? Most people won’t voluntarily pay for things they are already getting for free. The school system is no different. As long as teachers keep doing all those extra things with little to no compensation, they will receive little to no compensation from the system.
And don’t think teacher’s doing all the extra things is altruistic. Remember, the same administrators who want all the extras to make their school look good are the same administrators who do the observations and write the evaluations. We all know teachers who were stellar until they wouldn’t sponsor the club anymore. All of a sudden their teaching wasn’t quite as effective.
Don’t get me wrong…I think it’s admirable to have teachers like so many of ours, and I admire your tenacity in advocating for them. But the teachers have a world of incentives to do everything they can to help the kids, and the system has all the power to force them, and no incentive to reward them.
The system you describe is also driving teachers away. Many of our best teachers refuse to participate in this kind of you wash my back, I’ll wash yours non-sense. HCEA will aggressively defend teachers who have receive erroneous evaluations. Likewise, HCEA has fought to ensure that teachers have reasonable work expectations. Teachers must notify us of violations of the negotiated agreement which we will aggressively enforce.
The bottom line is that HCPS has repeatedly broken the basic social compact of fairness and equity with its teachers year in and year out. By failing to establish a stable environment which promotes consistency HCPS is not just failing our teachers but also failing our students and our community.
Correction- retained
By delaying passing a budget, new teachers cannot be hired to fill any opening positions. Harford county is one of the last counties to hire, meaning they are taking the least desired candidates to fill positions as other counties are offering jobs sooner. In some cases in our county positions have been left open all year with only long term substitutes filling them. The quality of teachers will continue to fall in our county unless teachers are paid better and the county passes a budget to allow hiring at a competitive time.
So, 1,000 people interviewed, knew the starting salary they were going to receive, and quit because they all needed more money?
So what is it? People are bullshitting enough just to get hired here in Harford County with the intention to go somewhere else that pays better, but probably omit this intention during the application process, or are people applying/getting hired/working/realizing it sucks with literally no research involved in their future working climate?
Which is it?
Could be both, right? People could really believe they are going to get step increases, then get irritated when they don’t happen, see that their friend from college is now making 6k more a year, and jump ship.
Or, HCPS is their last choice, but is where they get hired. Next year(s) they apply elsewhere, and bolt when they get a better gig.
Neither is surprising. People do this in all fields. Take the best available job at the time, keep going after the better job.
No, since HCPS pays less than other school systems, they get the bottom of the teacher pool. These teachers are either not retained after their probationary period, or they know they can teach and look to leave HCPS for other school systems that pay better as soon as they can.
a no brainer
…three simple words, “Do You Part.”
Brilliant.
Who will teach the teachers?
During the past few years new teachers HCPS have been shown the salary scale during the hiring process. This schedule clearly shows steps, which are annual salary increases with each years’ experience gained. Only after being hired and speaking with experienced HCPS teachers do they discover that these steps have NOT BEEN HONORED. How would you feel?
Additionally, new teachers will often take the first job they are hired for, as most school systems (HCPS excepted it seems) prefer to hire EXPERIENCED teachers. New teachers will then get their critical first 2-3 years experience at crappy HCPS pay, and then move to a school system that offers a financial future.
Do people say “I only plan to work here to get experience and move on as soon as possible.” during the oral Interview part of their application process?
I find it hard to believe anyone could be naive enough in this to not realize employees are not getting raises. You don’t even have to do any research, just read the local news. LOL
I’m not really sure what your point is. I’m not saying that in a condescending or sarcastic way, I’m sincerely not understanding what you mean by that.
I’m sure there are all varieties of mindsets for people who take a job with HCPS. I’m sure some are just glad to get hired, some are legitimately excited, some have it as their last choice, some knoe the deal and are using it as a stepping stone. But I would bet that regardless of their mindset going in, when they start getting shafted out of thousands of bucks every year, many of them set their sights elsewhere. Not all, because some have reasons they want to stay here in spite of the money. But I would bet none of them like feeling like they are being taken advantage of or mistreated.
Unfortunately, many of our teachers do feel taken advantage of and mistreated. Even more tragically, far too many actually are being mistreated. The failure of HCPS to honor its agreements goes beyond just the pay.
If you take a job as a last ditch effort or plan to leave Harford County as soon as possible.
If the interviewers ask a question about an applicants long term goals or how long they plan to stay here. What’s the answer?
I’m curious if HCPS is hiring people who admit they are planning to leave as soon possible.
Obviously with the turn over rate they can assume a lot.
I can only speak from my personal experience, my wife was a teacher at one of the Route 40 schools. Pay was never an issue. When people were being laid off or fired in 2008 – 2010 she had a job and appreciated it. The reason she left was not money, it was administration plain and simple. When a kid tells you to go f— yourself and all they get is a soda from the vice principal, that is the problem. We have developed an environment that spoiled children and entitled parents rule the roost. Kids need structure and discipline, it doesn’t take but a few kids with bad behavior to spoil a classroom environment. We forgot about the 80% of the kids that just want to come to class and learn, instead we have to accommodate the behavior problems, because if you don’t MSDE will come down on you. The schools need Joe Clark, instead they get data manipulators so that way their scores can look the best. Take a step back and ask yourself why does Aberdeen have the Math and Science Program and Edgewood have the IB program? Could it be to pull of the lower scores of those buildings?
I also have had family who were teachers.
They all have moved on to other professions and wished they had done it sooner.
The ineligibility rate at Aberdeen this spring was ~46%. Just under half of the student body had at least 1 E. A ton of SMA kids on spring sports teams.
I have retired from a position with HCPS in which I participated in hiring teachers. It is competitive. When asking applicants for their long term goals their answers were about long term professional goals and not about how long they planned to stay with HCPS. That part of this discussion is irrelevant.
What is relevant is HCPS starts hiring late because the budget has not been passed. Many positions are still open with just days left before the start of school. Applicants typically apply to a large number of school systems and often got offers elsewhere before we could even interview them. Moreover, they want to be hired in the better paying systems. We tell them that our schools are wonderful and the students are wonderful (both true), but that is equally true of the schools and students in other school systems.
I think it’s definitely relevant question to ask now since it’s one of the elephants in the room.
After interviewing people, it’s not hard to use your experience intuition to catch liars.
These numbers are the canary in the coal mine. Now I doubt you’ll see a mass exodus, people need paychecks, but I know some teachers and most have had it. Many are teetering on leaving.They have been riding it out , hoping for things to improve,and not just financially where the country notoriously pays less than nearby counties. County administrators are maddeningly stubborn, vindictive, and keep piling on paperwork and additional duties. The BOE typically works in adversarial fashion against the teachers, instead of trying to make things bethere and streamlining their bloated budget.
New teachers are cheap, but you are an ineffective dear in the headlights your 1st 3 yrs, often depending on a veteran for life. If your children get a new teacher, they are most definitely getting a subpar education.
If all this is true, I’m surprised enrollment isn’t declining and more people aren’t sending their kids to private school or home schooling, both viable alternatives to the public school system.
Enrollment is and has been declining for many years.
What happened to all the BRAC related enrollment increases?
The economic decline and decline in development more than offset BRAC relocations. Folks are also just having fewer kids.
They are only viable if you can afford private school tuition, or can afford to live on one paycheck so one parent can homeschool. Otherwise, they aren’t viable.
Ineffective deer in the headlights are easily coerced, manipulated, intimidated, and bullied. This is exactly the kind of educators HCPS seeks. They want obedience, not creativity. And they want it as inexpensively as it can be had. That’s what they are getting.
Two questions:
If you were contracting with a service company to perform an important service (is teach/prepare your children for a productive life an important service?), would you consider hiring a company where 90% of the employees (the ones that actually provide the service) come to work every day with the mindset that they are being screwed over, year after year? Or would you rather contract with a company whose service employees are happy with their employer and job compensation? These are two common business models. Which do we choose?
The education of our youth – preparing them to be productive citizens within our society – is it an expense (like trash removal) or an investment in our future?
Day to day it looks like the schools are fine. The quality of education is slipping. The quality of the teachers being hired isn’t what it once was. Teachers are leaving mid-year for new jobs. My son has 3 long term subs. Some colleges tell their students HCPS should only be chosen over Baltimore city.
The teachers and staff have no faith in the leaders of hcps. They know that the odds of getting the promised raise are small. To do so they will probably cut a bunch of teaching positions. IF and helping teachers will be left untouched even though they have a small impact on students. Class sizes will slowly begin to rise, and student expectations will drop.
Closing buildings isn’t going to happen. People went crazy when they did redistricting. Something has to be done. Not until people complain to glassman will there be a change. I say cut all extra curricular activities. It won’t solve your money issue, but it will upset people. It amazes me that people go crazy over keeping the pools open, and yes it was only for the sport. Not 1 person complained about losing swim lessons. They’ll dump several millions into the pools, but when they cut 5 to 10 teaching positions per school not even a peep.
They will never cut extracurricular activities. Know why? Because principals need them to make their schools look good. Now, they may cut FUNDING for extracurriculars, but just watch what happens to the first teacher who won’t sponsor a club they were previously sponsoring, because they are no longer getting paid. The admin has a method of taking care of that sort of thing. It’s called your “evaluation”, and you can be assured that the first teacher to try to pull this will be given a terrible one, put on a plan of assistance, and basically have their life made a living hell. This is called “an example”, as in “this is an example of what will happen to you if you try to do less just because you aren’t getting paid”. HIGHLY EFFECTIVE tactic. Can’t be proven, can’t be fought.
Equipment and amenities for sports need to be paid for, because the companies won’t just fork over the stuff without being paid. But teachers don’t need to be paid their services because it can be easily extracted from them.
It needs to be reported. Contact me.
As a new teacher, I know that I am inexperienced – but have tried so hard – and higher ups take advantage. I’ve been made to feel like a horrible teacher when I know that my students are learning. Evaluations can be so subjective and many times the evaluators do not have much (or any) experience in the content area they’re critiquing.
Teaching is not what I thought it’d be; morale at my school is so low because of admin. It seems like we have no say in anything and we’re essentially bullied. Expectations are not realistic at all. I’ve told my mentor (who oversees 20+ mentees) that if this is how teaching is, I don’t want to be a teacher. I love the students and co-workers but I am leaving for Baltimore County. The pay could be more, yes, but I’m not leaving because of that.
There’s something wrong when teachers dread coming to school because of school environment and I’m sure students can pick up on it. Huge egos are above us and I really have a hard time believing they truly care about what’s best for students. The classroom is being micromanaged by those outside of the classroom. Nothing is good enough – even if there is evidence of student growth and learning. Of course teachers are leaving.
HCPS admin believes in the stick, not the carrot. Not when it comes to themselves, of course; in that case they believe in the carrot. But for the labor force, the stick works exceptionally well, and is cheaper.
Get yourself out of HCPS, and take as many of your young colleagues with you as you can. HCPS is a place to get some classroom experience before going on to your real job. Don’t let anyone kid you by telling you that it’s going to get better, because it won’t. I’ve been hearing that it’s going to get better for the better part of my career, and it hasn’t. And I guarantee you that if they give you a nice raise next year, they will make sure they don’t do it again for several years. That’s the bone they throw you. HCPS likes the “stick and bone” method of motivation!
We are going to put an end to this. Contact me. rburbey@mseanea.org
Contact me. rburbey@mseanea.org.
HCPS System is too top heavy with supposed “teacher mentors” that have no idea what they are doing. I sat a at wine dinner with one of them that said the problem with kids not understanding the new math was the teachers. The kids just need to have a “plan” according to her…”like count on your fingers or draw a picture”. I asked how this plan was going to work at higher math levels instead of teaching the kids basic math fundamentals and all I got was a blank stare. My son taught elementary education for almost 10 years before giving up on the system. The primary reason he left was due to an ineffective principal and a totally useless mentor. He was even warned by his previous principal (who retired) to watch out for the new principal. The mentor managed to have just about all of the male teachers leave and a good number of the female staff with her attitude and abuse. The only teaching staff she did not go after were the ones getting their masters to be principals….she was afraid they would come back after her when the became principals or higher in the school system. She was rewarded by making her a principal also!
My daughter-in-law also taught 5th grade in this same school with my son. She received her masters in Technology just as the new principal came and left to be the librarian at a Aberdeen area school. She tells stories constantly about how the school administrative staff has no idea what is going on or is needed in the classrooms, only what they need to look good. She is also looking to either leave the HCPS system for another county or get out of teaching altogether.
You might be thinking that I’m just angry about what my kids have had to deal with. I have a good friend who was on the school board for several years….he dropped of the board for the same reasons. Any parent who has kids in HCPS should meet with their child’s teachers and see how they feel about their jobs!!
We have 2 kids in the HCPS system: one going into P-Mill Middle School next year and the other in Harford Tech. I have to tell you that despite all this negative comments I hear from other parents and read in this Dagger forum, our kids are totally happy in the schools, and are high achievers in the advanced classes. I truly wish I could understand why everyone is so unhappy. We moved from a NJ town with excellent schools. We were concerned that the HCPS system would not be able to match what we had in Jersey. We have been pleasantly surprised that the quality of the education is equal, if not better, here in HCPS.
High achievers and their parents usually have little to complain about.
Harford Tech students get the raw deal if their trade area teacher quits sometime during the school year.
Hard to imagine Harford Tech has any retention of trade teachers three days.
What kind of person in a trade applies to Harford tech job?
I’m just trying to understand who would take a job starting less than $45,000 a year where they were/probably can easily make double that in the privae sector.
Better benefits than most private sector employers provide.
All private sector employees should unionize and fight for quality benefits. HCEA wants all workers to have quality healthcare and benefits.
“All private sector employees should unionize and fight for higher unemployment and socialized redistribution of wages to the less motivated.”
There, I fixed it for you.
Good! Now try to fix things in your own life so you won’t feel the need to put your envy and jealousy on public display!
Nothing says “I want what you have” louder than saying “You don’t deserve what you have”!
You are mistaken. I am in a non-union position in private industry where my salary is based on my performance, and I’m doing well. Why would I be envious or jealous?
I don’t know why you would be envious or jealous, but you obviously are.
Strongly agree – I’m a long time public employee and my benefits are great. I am totally happy in the public sector. Recently retired as a public employee and now back as a contract consultant. The money is really good and I have no complaints at all. I’m glad you are fighting for strong teacher benefits One of my siblings was a teacher for 37 years (not in HCPS) and recently retired. Many people are angry about sibling’s excellent retirement health benefits and pension. Sibling’s response to them is: “if you spent 37 years teaching, you’d get the same benefits as me. I’m not getting anything special.”
“Better benefits.”
Not really. Their health insurance isn’t really that much better than anything else
A state pension is nice, but someone who has half a brain cell can do manage their own retirement.
I’d have to take a pay cut greater than the starting salary of the job.
I’ll gladly apply to Harford Tech to teach the trade I’m in. Repay my knowledge to up and coming students.
My starting pay requirement is $94,000/year. I’ll also have a month and a half to find a second job unrelated to HCPS to make at least $2,000 more.
Oh wait? That’s too much money? Ya’get’wut’ya’payfur.
“My starting pay requirement is $94,000/year.”
We can cross you off the list of potential candidates.