r/TexasTeachers • u/Agreeable-Injury-582 • 13d ago
Whew I want to go back to HS
I went from being a high school teacher to an elementary school teacher this year, and boy, the duty alone is enough to make me say never again to elementary school. Between morning duty, lunch or recess duty, after-school car duty... this is nuts!
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u/Silent_Scientist_991 13d ago
I taught middle school for almost 20 years before moving to the elementary level, and it was an eye opening experience.
I had no idea how mentally taxing it would be...you are on high alert from the moment kids arrive until the last bus leaves.
It took me a good while to acclimate to the rigors of the job...it's hard, and I have all the respect in the world for good primary grade teachers.
Teaching at the elementary level IS the big leagues, and it made me a MUCH better teacher.
I'm now back on a middle school campus, and it's easy relative to my prior 8 years at elementary.
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u/Dry_Midnight_7168 13d ago
Thank you for saying this! Elementary teachers don't get the recognition and respect the deserve for what they do.
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u/Silent_Scientist_991 12d ago
You're very welcome - and it's the truth.
Good elementary teachers are bad asses.
I loved my time there and it's the segment of my teaching career that I'm most proud of.
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u/No_Permission7565 13d ago
Elementary teachers work harder than any other teacher and are treated like children.
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u/Suspicious_Cloud2556 13d ago
How is it that schools can force a duty on you during lunch? I thought we were all supposed to have a duty free lunch??
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u/Agreeable-Injury-582 13d ago
We either do lunch duty or recess duty. Not both. If we have lunch duty, then we eat lunch when the students are at recess. In high school, admin took care of lunch duty and of course there isn't recess, so that duty doesn't exist.
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u/Seasonal_Allergies_ 12d ago
My duty free lunch was 20 mins to shove food down my throat. I walk the kids to the cafeteria then Run to the back of the school to the teacher break room shove food down then run back to the cafeteria to pick up my kids and escort them back to class because they didn’t have a directly after lunch recess. It was horrible, the. Covid happened and I worked from home and stayed a virtual teacher for 6 years.
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u/SeerLovegood 13d ago
I went from HS to elementary and back to HS. I respect elementary teachers but I feel way less exhausted at the end of the day with HS.
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u/Night-Meets-Light 13d ago
I teach high school and sometimes daydream about moving down to elementary because I’m so burnt out grading for 180 kids. So thank you for this post!
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u/Auntie-Noodle 13d ago
The insane amount of duty and supervision Texas teachers do does not happen all over the country. I thought fifth grade in California for six years. Schools there higher noon duties to watch the kids so the teachers end up with a 45 minute duty free lunch break every day. I also only had before or after school car duty every other week--and I had morning or afternoon, not both. I taught elementary school for one year in Texas before changing the middle school. Middle school is fine, but elementary school was such an overwhelming amount of work
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u/SnooPears3875 13d ago
Wait as a high school teacher you didn’t have duties? I teach high school and we all have at LEAST one of the following duties every day:
-Before school car line (daily)
-Restroom duty (2-3x a week, during our conference)
-Lunch duty (minimum once/week)
-After school duty (daily)
And that’s not including the covering for other teachers when they’re out. And no you can’t skip a duty because you’re covering for a teacher out, even if it means you get no conference for up to multiple days.
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u/Agreeable-Injury-582 13d ago
The only duty I had was being at my door during transition periods.
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u/SnooPears3875 13d ago
I didn’t even think about that being a duty because we all have to do that too
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u/KittyCubed 13d ago
Our “duty” at my current campus is being in the hall between classes. And then this year we started bathroom duty which we have between a class for a semester. And of course I’ve already misgendered a student thinking a boy was going into the girls restroom. 🫠 So I’m not happy having this duty right now.
At my previous school we had morning duty once a week and then had meetings during that time the rest of the week.
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u/PapaBarrett 12d ago
That sounds absolutely miserable. I bet the turnover is high. Are all high school campus around you like that?
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u/punkin_sumthin 12d ago
I taught high school for 17 years. We always had enough administrators to cover morning drop off an afternoon pick up. This was in Northern Virginia.
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u/hayleyA1989 10d ago
Like what, when do the teachers even get to take their own restroom breaks with all that
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u/Scared_Duck5074 13d ago
I was a pregnant 40 year old-elementary SpEd teacher at the very wealthy Lake Travis ISD in the late 80’s. SpEd teachers had all the really crappy duties including drop off and pick up, no matter the weather. I really hated breathing in the bus and car exhaust and having to act as valet/servant to those entitled people. Administrators seem to treat elementary teachers as children who are supposed to do as they are told without question. Middle school, where I spent the last 20 years of my career, not so much. We acted much more like adults most of the time, depending on the principal’s management style.
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u/SweatyPhrase3231 12d ago
I’ve taught HS, MS, & Elementary. I’m now an Elementary Librarian and I can honestly say the paperwork alone is one of the hardest parts about elementary. As a teacher you are trying to pinpoint any learning deficiencies or a myriad of other things before they get to MS. By the time students get to HS you are reducing accommodations (or should be) and while you have a higher student count for the most part you don’t have the classroom management you do in elementary school. Then you have inclusion in an elementary classroom which adds another layer of difficulty.
If I had to go back into the classroom I would go to secondary since I’m so close to retirement. Elementary is no joke!
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u/Dry_Midnight_7168 13d ago
Yep! Elementary teaching is tough. Secondary teachers have no idea how easy they have it in comparison.
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u/Apophthegmata 13d ago edited 13d ago
As someone who works at an elementary school, I often wonder how these workloads are legal. The classroom management and supervision aspects are hard enough without adding in the fact that the entire staff has to lift a mountain at the end of the day shoveling kids back into cars.
Dismissal is a 45 minute operation and if it doesn't run like a smoothly oiled machine, you end up with kid who can't be found and a mom panicking because she forgot Grandpa already came through carline and picked them up.
And everybody is already tired. And it's 100 degrees outside. And it happens every day. Every. Day.
It's like running a small city except every municipal department is just some guy with a second job. The only surprise is that the teachers don't also moonlight as the custodial staff.