u/Decent-Internet-9833

Hello! I am sorry if this question is frequently asked.

I am an adjunct that teaches sociology at a local community college. My classes are always full due to it being a required course, but full time work at this institution isn’t possible.

I also teach full time K-12 Music in my day job. I hold B.A.’s in music ed and sociology, and an MA in Fine Arts Education.

I want to teach K-12 Music until my youngest son graduates, which is in about 6 years. I’m good at it, but the pace and schedule are grueling.

I’d like to prepare in the coming years to make myself marketable for a full-time sociology position. I assume I would need to get a masters in sociology, which would be difficult to do while working in my state, so my only option is online.

What would you suggest I do? I’ve heard bad things about online sociology programs. Is it necessary to get the MA in Sociology? I’d like a clear plan for next steps.

ETA-thanks for the feedback. I was really unsure how to proceed based on how positions are advertised in my state. I may be better off just adjuncting and getting a different day job when I decide to retire from teaching. I like the adjunct job because it still builds my retirement somewhat. However, I know for health reasons I can only stay on K-12 education for a limited amount of time.

I just finished Season 5 of Dr. Death. I’m lived in the area that Dr. Schneider was practicing while he was there.

I know of a man who had spinal surgery, had a terrible outcome, and exhibited all of the same symptoms Schneider’s other victims showed. He was my college professor, and I spent a lot of time working in his office as his aide.

He passed away several years ago, but the surgery was several years before his death. Something he told me before the surgery echoes in my head.

He told me the surgery he was having involved boring open the canals for the nerves to exit the spine to decompress the nerves. He said only a rockstar surgeon could do it. Sounds like something Schneider would tell a patient.

He was sent with no pain meds after surgery, and spent the next few years in agony. He’d walk in to the classroom, toss me the notes, and have me teach the class because he couldn’t bear the pain.

Any doc can have a bad outcome, but I can’t shake the feeling. My professor has died, so I can’t ask him.

Does anyone know the timeline for when he was practicing in Billings? The articles I found didn’t have it. I could narrow the date of the surgery down to a year or two, I think.

Hello, all,

I am a music teacher in eastern Montana, but I am also certified in sociology/anthropology and teach a course in that subject at MCC.

I have been looking to see if there is data on teacher retention and jobs satisfaction in-state. I have only found information nationwide or out of state.

I am seeing signs of a collapse in education, and I want to test to see if I am off-base.

If you know of studies done on the topic that are specific to Montana teachers, or if you’d like to help gather this information.

Edited to add: Thanks for the pointers. As best I can tell right now, the stats I really think are critical are not being tracked by the state.

We don’t have a measure of how many people are planning to leave teaching in the short term, or why. (Any teacher can tell you why, but specific numbers are needed to communicate with policy makers and the public.).

We don’t have data that lines out what districts have high turnover and why, or what districts have low turnover and why.

And though some stats like shortage areas are tracked, they aren’t recent and don’t reflect the current reality.