Teacher transfers? Yawn.

Every year, thousands of teachers in Florida transfer from one school to another. And if a recent St. Petersburg Times review is any indication, a solid majority of them are following a well-worn path to schools with fewer poor students.

You'd think that might merit some coverage, right? But no. A search of Florida newspapers by Times researcher Caryn Baird found barely a dozen stories about teacher transfers in the past decade. That's about one a year. For the whole state.

None of them took a detailed look at the trends. But some of them at least raised concerns about the impact on students.

"The schools with the most need are always in a flux of training the inexperienced teacher," a school board member told the Florida Times-Union for this story in 2002. "The sharing of teacher attrition should be shared at all schools. Right now, the same schools are bearing all the burden and it must stop."

Hmm. When's the last time you heard that around the Tampa Bay area?

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Comments

[Justthinking]

I discussed manners with my students when school first started. I asked them why they thought manners had almost disappeared in school and why so many students were disrespectful compared to several years ago. In three classes someone said it was because there wasn't a paddle anymore. I asked them why they needed the threat of physical punishment in order to have manners. Each one said that there was no need to have manners if nothing was going to happen to them! Also, the idea that "good" kids will influence "disruptive" kids is a fairytale!!!

[Justthinking]

I discussed manners with my students when school first started. I asked them why they thought manners had almost disappeared in school and why so many students were disrespectful compared to several years ago. In three classes someone said it was because there wasn't a paddle anymore. I asked them why they needed the threat of physical punishment in order to have manners. Each one said that there was no need to have manners if nothing was going to happen to them! Also, the idea that "good" kids will influence "disruptive" kids is a fairytale!!!

[Frans van Haaren]

Two interesting observations in this discussion.
Mencken Jr asserts that 'If you force teachers to stay at schools with lots of poor students they'll leave the profession and do something else.' Does Mencken Jr mean to imply 'poor' as in 'not having a lot of money' or 'poor' as in 'not being a good student'. In either case, Mencken may want to entertain the notion that when students do not learn it is not because of the students, but because of the teaching. I know that this is a novel idea, but it might be worth considering.
John Perry suggests that Matus investigates what the real problems are before suggesting a remedy. I fully agree. It is fairly obvious that most teachers in this district (and many other districts for that matter) are very ill-equipped to effectively deal with classroom disruptions. I just happen to be interested in these issues and have asked the school board attorney for some data. Limited information was made available (student privacy issues) but I did learn that in 2005-2006 in one ESE school, secured seclusion (usually removal of student from a classroom to a, locked, time-out room) was used a total of 378 times for an average of 25 min per event. In that same school (with fewer than 200 students) behavior specialists received 8,487 calls to a classroom where a student was interrupting the learning of other students (that's 40 calls per student per year). Seems to me that mayhem prevails in this Pinellas County school. I would not be surprised if teachers and administrators alike would be the first to blame the students and their families for this abominable state of affairs (it's the easiest thing to do). It might, however, be much more productive in the long run to look elsewhere for an answer. Let it be known that Pinellas County schools serve approximately 15,000 students in special education. Let it also be known that it employs a grand total of 3 individuals who have been specifically trained to analyze why students misbehave in the classroom and to write intervention plans to help teachers effectively deal with these problem behaviors. That's 1 expert for 5,000 students and 200 teachers. Need I say more?

[John Perry]

Matus, give it a rest. Teachers have hard-won contract language giving them the right to seek transfers, and for good reason. As Mencken Jr points out, it is a teacher retention issue. Already, it is a struggle to keep teachers in the profession. If they have no choice about which school they work at, no ability to seek a less-stressful workplace, they'll leave in even greater numbers.

What's your point, really? Obviously, teacher transfers are a symptom. Instead of trying to paint a picture where teachers are the problem, why don't you investigate what the real problems are?

Not long ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with diabetes. His doctor did additional tests and found that he had pancreatic cancer, which is what caused the diabetes. If you were his doctor, you'd prescribe an aggressive treatment for diabetes and not look any further while the cancer continued to eat him up. Our children deserve a better approach. How about it, Matus?

[truth]

misbahaving kids aren't new. the lack of corporal punishment is. Let's start paddling those jokers again!! SMACK! SMACK!

You see the problem is, there is no recourse for misbehaving kids.... you can send them home, yeah, but when they take the test and fail the school is blamed. It's a win-win for the bad parents. When can we begin to blame parents?

[Mencken Jr]

Good luck trying to enforce that. If you force teachers to stay at schools with lots of poor students they'll leave the profession and do something else.

If you really wanted to make it easier for good, experienced teachers to stay in poor schools you'd pony up more money for ESE teachers and disciplinary aides to come into the classrooms and sit on the ones with behavior problems. Then the teachers could actually.. you know, *teach* instead of spending all their time playing wack-a-mole with disruptive students.

[truth]

I agree. Teacher attrition should be shared at all schools! I'd like to know what Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas policies are on this. Good luck on digging that up.