Teaching Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Jun 11, 2010
Switching grades: teacher needs vs. school needs
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Switching grades: teacher needs vs. school needs
By Angela Watson
8 little words can invoke panic in the heart of almost any teacher: “You’re moving to a different grade next year.”
Changing grade levels is a big topic of conversation in June. In some schools, nothing’s been decided yet, so the rumors are flying and everyone’s unsettled. Other principals have already dropped the bomb: I’ve heard of one school in which a kindergarten teacher is being moved to 7th grade, which means the 7th grade teacher is being moved to 4th, so that teacher’s moving to 2nd, and the 2nd grade teacher’s going down to kindergarten.
Why the huge shuffle? Because one teacher is the weakest link, and the principal’s playing a game to make sure he inflicts the least amount of damage on students.
Situations like that infuriate me. It’s one thing when a drastic move is necessitated by budgetary reasons; for example, when a position must be cut due to decreased enrollment or funding. I can also understand moving a teacher into his of her field of expertise or preference. However, causing a chain reaction of switches for no reason other than to shuffle an incompetent teacher is a tragedy.
I’m amazed at how often this happens. Sometimes the principal is trying to run the teacher off or force early retirement (and it often works). But many times it’s a matter of placing ineffective educators in non-standardized-testing grades, as if children who don’t get scored by the state one particular year are of any less value or don’t deserve a top-quality education.
Another grade-switch reasoning that bothers me: This teacher’s been in the same grade for too long. He’s getting stale and stuck in a rut. I’ll move him up two grade levels and he’ll have no choice but to change with the times!
Wrong, wrong, wrong. He DOES have a choice: to get really angry, shut down, and try even less. He has the choice to take his frustration out on the kids and everyone around him. And chances are, if he’s the kind of teacher who refused to try new things in his former position, he’s not going to be too excited about learning to work a SmartBoard now that he has a whole new curriculum to figure out.
I’m not excusing the laziness and incompetence of certain teachers. I’m ascertaining that moving ineffective teachers to another grade level doesn’t fix the problem by itself, and it can make things worse for everyone else affected.
Most teachers have an increasingly limited amount of autonomy in their jobs, and I believe that choosing the age level or subject area they’d like to devote their career to teaching is a reasonable expectation. An unhappy teacher is never going to be as effective as a happy one, so shouldn’t a principal honor a teacher’s wishes whenever possible?
Not everyone agrees with me on this, I know. Whether you do depends on your feelings about a few fundamental questions:
- What is a legitimate reason for forcing a teacher to switch grade levels?
- Are administrators obligated to make any switch that will benefit the maximum number of students? If so, how can those potential benefits truly be gauged in advance?
- Is it worth making a few teachers unhappy if it’s advantageous to the school as a whole? And when we refer to the benefit of the ‘school’, do we really mean the faculty, the students, or the test scores?
We can all agree that the purpose of school should be to meet the needs of children, but teaching is a professional career choice. I don’t think anyone should be stuck teaching something they’re not passionate about.
So what’s more important in your perspective, the good of the ‘school’ or the good of the teacher?
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Discussion
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Hi Angela,
What you posted back in 2010 sure hit home for me. It has also been helpful to read all of the responses that followed as well. I will try to condense my situation as much as possible but need to give you some background. I started out as a special ed resource teacher many years ago. I was dual certified in elementary and special ed K-12. I added reading and art endorsements over the years. I have taught various grade levels and subjects (regular and special ed) throughout my career. Most of the moves I have made were my choice or because I moved to a different state and took what I could get. I have searched for a reading specialist position for a long time (one working with kids, not training teachers) but have not been in the right place at the right time. I have also found that the district I’m in right now tends to put teachers who are perceived as weak in those positions because of classroom management problems. This has shocked me because it doesn’t seem to matter what their background in reading is. I thought that working with struggling readers would require someone who is considered a strong teacher. Sadly, I’ve gotten used to this phenomenon.
In the district I’m in now, I have taught third grade for 4 years, then moved to an interventionist position which allowed me to work with 4th and 5th graders who were at risk academically. I loved that position but the title I money was cut after one year so that position was cut as well. I was then offered a fourth grade position in another school that I have held for 4 years. Not on a very welcoming team but I’ve learned to deal with that. Recently my principal offered me a special ed position (someone is retiring). He knew that I’d been looking for reading positions during the summers and thought that the small self contained special ed classroom might be a good fit for me. He gave me time to think about it and observe. I decided against it. He seemed disappointed but understanding. I wondered if my decision caused a problem with changes he needed to make. He let me know that it had and wondered if I would be willing to go to a lower grade. We talked a little bit about second grade and pros and cons. It sounded like I could stay in my present classroom.
Later he told me he’d like for me to move to second and that I would need to change rooms. I didn’t want to fight to stay on a difficult team, but really didn’t know what I was getting into. First I thought that it might be a nice break from the benchmark and end-of-year testing, only to find out how extensive the second grade assessments are. This year was extremely stressful learning the common core curriculum and new adopted test and math programs. If I make this change I will really be starting from scratch as far as materials, curriculum, different report cards, and copious assessments. At first the smaller class size and lack of high stakes testing looked good.
I have learned that the reason for my move is because someone else had to be moved for the reasons you mentioned in your original post. Then I got thinking about how the students and I will pay the price because another teacher didn’t do her job well. I found that I still have a choice in the matter, but I feel that it will change my relationship with my principal.
I am within five years of retirement and would really like to move away from the classroom to work with struggling readers individually and in small groups (I never intended to be a regular ed classroom teacher, but once I got there my scores were good and I found that this made it difficult to change positions). I think that my present principal thought that second grade would help me get closer to focusing on reading (it will also give him the open spot for the teacher he wants to move). I want to be able to put all that I learned this year to use by staying in fourth grade. I am trying to decide whether the change to second grade will be more stressful and time consuming on top of the stress of this year or if it would be a refreshing change.
Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
I appreciate this conversation very much. In our district, there is a new “philosophy” that change is good. The principals are changing 25% or more of their staff to new grades. We’re upset to say the least. Does anyone know of any studies that have been done that would justify either staying in a grade or changing grades as being more beneficial to the students and/or the school and/or the teachers?
Ask your principal where they would like to work in 8 years, because obviously if change is good they won’t be working in your district anymore.
Excellent comment! lol
Well, if you see a teacher is running a class well, and his/her kids are receptive, does moving him/her in the middle of the year make any sense? That’s what is happening to me. I wish there were a way to stop it.
I think a legitimate reason for a principal to move a teacher would be due to student numbers. To elaborate, last year we had six sections of first grade at my school. I taught one of those sections. Due to lower enrollment, we only had five sections of K coming in for the upcoming year. There was an opening in fourth (a dream grade for me). Thankfully, my principal knew that I was interested in older elementary and moved me to fourth. I think that student numbers are a justifiable reason for moving a teacher to another grade.
I teach kindergarten and I have a principal who thinks its appropriate to rotate classrooms every two years to switch teaching partners. She feels it builds a team but it actually adds undue stress on our team and non of us are for the idea. We want to build a relationship with our room partner and never get to that point. I wish someone had information on if this is truly helpful or harmful?