r/NYCTeachers

Principals and Assistant principals by and large do nothing but repeat buzzwords from higher up bureaucrats than they are. Most of them haven’t taught for more than 5 years so they either realized they hated it or were terrible. My Superintendent, “Dr” Hoa Tu is a shill for Google and harps incessantly about data but last worked in a classroom full time in 1998. She’s been a bureaucrat ever since.

Enough is enough. Principals act like lords over a fiefdom and their subordinate weirdos in AP slots cow to their every command. None of them are qualified to critique or quantify the REAL work I do every day.

I bust my ass to try to do fun activities and labs for the kids. I’m one of the few teachers in the grade who even does some of these activities.
They remain apathetic and hate me.

I got a 98% pass rate regents scores on bio last year even with an ICT group, I do professional activities beyond my building, stay late. Etc. and still Nothing is enough. I even have won national awards and fellowships over the years.

For years I’ve helped run a competitive club that represents the school and put a lot of personal hours into helping kids. And my work was overlooked and ignored.

I don’t get a single good job, keep it up; wow you worked so hard. Nothing.

I don’t understand. People get praise for doing much less. I feel like my work is not acknowledged or appreciated by anyone. Not by students or by admin.

These last few months I’ve felt like quitting or transferring schools to somewhere I’d be actually appreciated.

I made a post a few weeks ago about not letting this job get to me but...

WHAT WAS THIS WEEK? It felt like June. My body is aching and the mental load is piling up.

I find myself responding to classdojo messages AFTER WORK HOURS. Like 7pm.

I'm hoping its the typical October feel. I know in Oct I usually feel it, but I'm never able to recall the feeling.

Please tell me in not the only one.

I'll be back to having boundaries after Nov.

Let me rant 🤪

Hi!! I’m a 2nd year NYC DoE teacher and I have a question about applying for health insurance. Last year I was 25 and still eligible to stay under my dad’s health insurance. Now that I’m 26 I’ve aged out and need to apply for my own insurance through the union. I was wondering if there would be any issues because I remember being told that we HAD to apply for health insurance within 30 days. And I never did that…..(sorry).

Hey guys I just wanted to start a positive Reddit thread we always see people saying negative things 80% of time I would love to give people a space where they can say the admin and district is great!

Full disclosure: I am a parent looking to understand what’s going on budget-wise at my kid’s public elementary school.

I’ve spoken to the principal, but I’m having a hard time parsing her politician’s speak. Googling seems to indicate that school’s budgets would not be cut for the 2026-27 year (but that central office expenses would).

Our school has the largest class sizes seen in many years. We did not receive the “small class size law” funding. But we also removed an entire classroom across most grades (from 4 classes down to 3). This, of course, means about 8 kids had to be redistributed to the remaining 3 rooms, making all classes move from ~24 to 32 kids. Some teachers (namely, those with no co-teacher and no aide) have expressed frustration with this. Rightfully so.

The principal states this has happened due to a massive budget cut. She says we lost $500K, and that “all but 1 or 2 schools in the district” did, too.

This seems like big news! Yet I can’t find any actual articles about such massive cuts, and friends whose kids go to other schools say they have received no info about such a cut (and they have no reason to think their school is dealing with such).

I don’t think we’ve had a noticeable decrease in enrollment. We also have at least 3 empty classrooms. Enrollment and physical space have not been mentioned as possible issues by the principal.

Are many schools, in fact, dealing with a massive cut this year? Why some and not others? Who/where is the best place to lobby for my kid’s school?

It’s my first year teaching at a high-performing high school where students are quite involved and driven, and I teach five classes (4 sophomore AP World classes and 1 freshman early world history class). The culture in my classroom varies between classes - I’m doing well with my freshmen and one of my sophomore class, okay with another sophomore classes, borderline poorly with another, and quite poorly with my final sophomore class.

After a particularly rough week this week (lesson plans are all over the place and I’m exuding anxiety even though I’m smiling), the environment in my last sophomore class has broken down. Students are snickering about how bad of a teacher I am and one of my students continuously makes bratty comments toward me.

I don’t take this personally, but it needs to change - both the behavior and what I’m bringing to class. I’ve identified where my lesson plans are going wrong (they’re mostly too complicated and poorly explained) and am committed to being extra prepared for this section. I lack structure in my classroom. I also know I need to speak one on one with the student making the comments because I’ve let it go on far too long. Even with the next steps to take for myself, overall morale regarding my perceived competence in that class is quite low and I would like to fix it.

Any advice or steps to take to bounce back and create a positive classroom environment? Any feedback helps! I know I’m a first year, so this is par for the course, but in this one class, no one wants to be there and I would at least like to remove tension from the classroom.

Okay this one is a doosy ! But I need someone advice.

Background: I’m an Out of State transfer who got nominated as an Earth and space teacher before my Certification for transfer was approved. I told my admin DURING MY INTERVIEW that I needed some help navigating the state process, as I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t heard back. (I applied through the comparable certificate in another state pathway in April). They said no problem, we’ll get you good before the first day of school by doing an expedited review.

Fast forward to August: I went in or talked to the admin almost every day 2 weeks before the end of school to meet with the office person to resubmit paperwork, etc. Office person was aaaalways complaining that the HR person was bad and didn’t know what they were doing. Ask if I’m getting onboarded as a sub until certification goes through (like they said over the summer) or what. They say everything’s going to be fine.

Then, Sept 8 comes along, I report. Set up my classroom. Ask why I don’t have an email yet. Teach on Sept 10. During my prep, I am like wait, what the fuck. I don’t have payroll set up, another teacher joked about “Haha this sounds like when I was a sub all year and didn’t know!” So I sent a strongly worded email saying I need to know how I’m getting paid. I CC my chapter lead What happens???

7th period on the first day of school, they pull me in to tell me technically bc my state cert hasn’t cleared yet I shouldn’t be in front of kids alone. That they were preparing to back pay me for the days through procession pay but I shouldn’t tell my union rep.

Well suprise! I’m not even hired bc my state cert so I’m not even a member! (Ofc I told them anyway lol)

My principal told me not to report, and submitted my expedited review ON SEPTEMBER 10 AFTER THE MEETING. I heard back the next week, came back pending/incomplete.

Basically, UFT and calling the state cert office (bless them both) helped me figure out I’d never get approved through that pathway. (Fuck the DOE man, I literally called them up to 300 times and never had anyone pick up). Now I have to go through the Transcript Reviewal one, so I had to pay for and take my EAS and the a Content Specialty test, all of the scores now at this point don’t come out until November. If I had known before, they would have come out before the first day of school!!

I paid for the sub trainings and now! Tomorrow! October 2! will be reporting as a sub. I haven’t had a paycheck, have been mass applying to other jobs and damn charter schools even. This has put me and my family in such a bind. And now, beside hating them, not getting paid, I also won’t get the pay increase until November (theoretically??) for 6 years of teaching and my Masters + 30.

How do I ensure they hire me as a mid year hire when my scores come back and I get state certified ?? Can I get paid for the days I reported?? CAN I SUE THEM FOR EMOTIONAL DAMAGES 😭

Please help i am dying this is why teachers quit!!!!!