Elementary teachers, what should I do?

Question

I will have a fourth grade class next year with only about 10 students whom I know very well, if I stay in my current teaching assignment. However, there are only about 75 students PreK-5th in our school and it will most likely be closed within the next couple of years. There are 2 positions available at another school that I can most likely easily move to but the children there are very poorly behaved and I would have a minimum of 27 students. If I move, however, I will have greater job security since I can be shuffled to any available position in the district when the small school closes. Both schools have a great staff as well which further complicates my decision. What would you do in this situation?

Answer 1

Well, you have to do what makes you happy. If the current job can only keep you happy for a little while longer....you have to start planning. Sieze the opportunity while it's available.

Answer 2

Several years ago I left a position with 20 + years of experience for a different position. I'd been moderately dissatisfied with my previous position, which is why I'd put in some apps at various schools in the area, but was very conflicted about what to do. I slept and prayed on it, but the final question I asked myself had nothing to do with job security or class size: I asked myself, "in a year, will I regret not taking this opportunity?" I decided that I'd regret not trying. I moved schools and I've never been more satisfied with a position (it's not perfect, but the pros outweigh the cons). The hardest part of leaving was leaving 'my kids.'
This is a hard decision. I'd certainly get my application on file with the other school, so that your options continue to be open no matter what you decide. When I have hard decisions, I often flip a coin--then if the coin comes up 'wrong', I know I've already decided, I just didn't know it yet.
Talk this out with your friends--you may have already decided and just don't know it, maybe a good friend can point that out to you.

Good luck with your students, no matter what you decide!

Answer 3

This sounds more like a lack of personal confidence in your own classroom management skills, than anything else.... which is perfectly natural. All of us who went from a smaller to a larger group have had the same feelings. My district opened a large elementary last year, closing a tiny elementary like the one you're at and combining those kids with about half the kids from my old school (May population was over 500). I moved to the new building, and doubled my caseload (I'm a special ed teacher). I was overwhelmed, but survived last year and boy, oh boy, am I ready for the crowd this year! It is most definitely possible to survive the change.

Given that your current school will most likely close soon anyway, you know you need to make a move as soon as you can.

It is very hard to transition from a small class size (and the great value to the students with all that individualized time you can give them) to a larger one with unfamiliar students. You will have to lean much heavier on your large-group instructional strategies... lots of sensory and learning styles variety is a good plan to ensure that you can reach more students when you can't get to them 1:1.

You already know how to teach rules and class routine. You know how to implement consequences and rewards. You know how to program parent phone numbers on speed dial for your real troublemakers ... ah, there's that smile!

Go get 'em!

Answer 4

Do you have to transfer now? Or can you wait until your school closes?

Is a better job security more important to you than the class size?

Try to ask yourself these questions to help you decide. List down the pros and cons of staying or leaving your school. This might help you see and weigh things.

We teachers should be able to manage our class well regardless of character and size of the class. TIP: Make them know and realize that you are in authority in the room right from the very first day and be consistent for the rest of the year. Set classroom rules to guide them and be consistent and fair.

I hope these help. Good luck to you!

Answer 5

Congratulations on shifting into this superb occupation! i'm also an consumer-pleasant college instructor and thoroughly agree that adult adult males deliver a diverse perspective to the field than women---only as minority instructors deliver a diverse perspective than Caucasian instructors. i imagine it must be tremendous to have extra male instructors interior the consumer-pleasant college factor, because they relate to children in yet differently than I do and the further diverse perspectives the further proper. So, of route i imagine they could do only almost as good of a job as women---and for some youthful ones, they could probably do a extra proper activity! i'm rather fortunate that on the faculty I coach at, I artwork on a grade-factor the position a million out of the three lecture room instructors is male, the ESOL instructor is male, and the ESOL assistant is male. Why are not there extra male instructors? genuine, stereotypically this can be a woman occupation besides the actuality that i'd opt to imagine that is lessening over the years. Why are not there extra? probably because between the benefits of being a instructor is that it enables a versatile agenda that mirrors a newborn's agenda (an income for me as a unmarried mom) and that could were extra of a concern for moms besides the actuality that optimistically no longer as a lot of a gender split on the prompt. it is also no longer a very profitable occupation and, a minimum of interior the previous, there is been a tremendous kind of rigidity on adult adult males to be the major breadwinner interior the kinfolk.

Answer 6

It's hard to choose between two good things. But you can follow the following principle when you are faced with this kind of a situation:

Urgency + Passion = Success ----- leads to happiness!

Where are YOU needed the most? - urgency

Where will you be able to CONTRIBUTE and excel (in terms of personal growth and talent building) the most? - passion

When you 'choose' (anything in life) in line with these two questions...you will obtain success. Let's not deny that happiness and satisfaction come not merely by being where we want to be...but also by being successful where we are!

Best wishes...!

Answer 7

Well, you're not going to have much of a choice if they close down your current school. I would go to the other one(s) and work on improving the scene there for myself, not forgetting what I learned in the previous one.

Answer 8

I've been an elementary teacher for 11 years total. I left the system twice when I was frustrated with being everything but a teacher. I took pay cuts to work for the state and even a church as a secretary (the cuts were $13k and $25K respectively!) I kept going back to education because the love of learning and the hope of teaching was in my heart. I never was tenured because that was a purely polictical process and I felt my performance should be enough, without groveling. A big mistake. Our last union president, obviously in bed with the school board and the mayor, gave all our rights away under the last contract which was ratified without even being seen by the members! Only two of my 11 yrs. now count toward "automatic" tenure after 4 years.

Although my district annually whines about the lack of qualified candidates for teaching (I was a dean's list student who earned straight A's in elementary ed and I was certified by the state board through testing before I finished my bachelors degree) they don't know how to treat the ones they do get
.
At the end of this year I was given an "Excellent" rating and a "pink slip" thanking me for my service and inviting me to find another school in the system by October on my own or I'm to be terminated with loss of all my years of service should I return at a later date! That means I'd start at the bottom of the pay scale, a beginning teacher, with 4 more years to be served before I'd reach tenure.
This year my third grade class had 27 students over the course of the year. 25 of the 27 had profound learning and behavior problems. I am not a special ed teacher so this was illegal (the limit for special education classes being 11 students WITH an aide) but if I'd filed a grievance with the union I'd have been hung out to dry and blacklisted in the system. My constantly bringing up the academic and behavior problems in hopes of being given strategies to help my students, many of whom were repeating third grade a second time, was blown off by the principal. "I don't know what to tell you." she'd say, "You can just look at a lot of your kids and see that something is wrong with them. The best you can do is refer them for evaluation." She then decided I was negative because I continued to try to advocate for teaching the students I had from where they were and not by district standards. Every student that was finally tested for special Ed scored at kindergarten or below! Some of these kids were soon to be or actually over 10 years old! I went through hell. I was kicked by a student, cursed and disrespected by students and parents alike. I was reprimanded for not "conferencing" with a DRUNK parent AFTER school one day. I am glad I was pink slipped out of that school. I would have left anyway, but that was the final insult. It has me trying to decide whether or not I even want another position. I'm not very young or naive anymore. I earned my degree at 28 years old while carrying a baby on my hip and I'M STILL PAYING student loans!

I said all that to say this: what we do is hard, unrewarded and generally unappreciated. So, DO WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU, period! Jesus said we'd have the poor with us always for a reason I've learned the hard way. Schools are run by bureaucrats that have an agenda different from yours. You want to educate, they want federal dollars and have no problem nurturing "prison seeds." My heart goes out to the children, but I'm entitled to a life. It is so late for a change in careers for me; yet I'm not even close to having enough years to retire. I began teaching at 30, fulfilling a life long dream that has turned nightmare. So if I do seek another position, when I get it I'll go through the motions like everybody else and never try to advocate for a child again. I majored in education. I would love to teach and I long for the chance, but the chances are slim to none in our systems. Self preservation is a right. I will not deprive myself of a "decent" living (ha!)for the sake of lofty principals no one else shares. I will do what the district says from now on and not give a thought to the futility of teaching whatever grade level material I'm assigned to kids who barely know the alphabet and have little or no phonemic awareness. The poor we will have with us always, but I won't sacrifice myself for them anymore. Right now I'm just trying to recover from the year and next month I'll either seek another kind of employment or another teaching job. I'm praying about it.
Good luck. If you reach one kid, count yourself a blessed success!

Answer 9

Do what ever you think you like better, KIds your Working with Or kids that can be mean

This is advise from a 14 year old So this might not be the best advise

Answer 10

Enjoy your 10 students and keep your eyes peeled for jobs elsewhere in the meantime.