Comments on: Coming Soon to Memphis: Teacher Town USA?

By: Meghank

Meghank — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 01:08:38 +0000

Don’t our kids benefit when they get teachers with roots in the area who are therefore more likely to stay in their school for many years? Plus, out of state recruiting costs money we don’t have.

By: bluffcityed

bluffcityed — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:39:24 +0000

What’s wrong with out of state recruiting? Don’t our kids benefit when they get teachers with a diverse set of backgrounds and a variety of experiences?

By: MeghanK

MeghanK — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:01:08 +0000

You’re hesitant to render a judgement AGAINST this out of state recruiting, but you are quick to render one SUPPORTING it. Interesting.

By: bluffcityed

bluffcityed — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:01:49 +0000

Personally I’d need to know more about who’s being laid off any why. For example I know several teachers in their first 1-3 years that have been surplussed at least once in the last couple years, so I’m hesitant to say they’re trying to undermine veteran teachers without more data. One thing I hope they do focus on is the bureaucracy. Getting things done at the central office can take a long time (in my experience) and I wonder if her being laid off wasn’t somehow related to that?

Agreed it hurts kids when long term quality teachers get laid off, but again, I’d want to know more of the facts before rendering a judgement. If you have anything about who’s being laid off such as years teaching, scores, subjects taught, etc., please send them my way as I’d love to write something up going more in depth about this!

By: MeghanK

MeghanK — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:30:14 +0000

They lay off something like 100-200 teachers every year. In addition, there are many home-grown aspiring teachers in this city. But we need to recruit others to move here?

I attended the teacher town hall meeting in September 2013 with Superintendent Hopson where a teacher complained about being surplussed (laid off). She said she had been recruited here in the spring from Chicago. She and her husband (also a teacher) were told teachers were badly needed here, and when they got here, they were both surplussed.

I can’t imagine why they would be doing this except to undermine the power of veteran teachers. Can you? It hurts the kids as well.