Omaha Public Schools

[choke]

Per Erin Duffy / World-Herald staff writer:

OPS board expected to vote tonight on resolution aimed at reassuring immigrant families

The Omaha Public Schools board will consider a resolution tonight aimed at reassuring immigrant families that OPS will not wade into federal immigration enforcement.

The resolution, which the board is expected to vote on, states that OPS will not turn over information on a student or family’s immigration status to federal authorities, unless compelled by a court order or law or with permission from that family.

http://www.omaha.com/news/education/ops ... 6383e.html

[GRANDPASMUCKER]

When the Mayor and the Public Schools are openly conspiring to subvert the government its illegal.

[Uffda]

When the Mayor and the Public Schools are openly conspiring to subvert the government its illegal.

Actually according to the article, the resolution just states the OPS is following the law.

[bigredmed]

When the Mayor and the Public Schools are openly conspiring to subvert the government its illegal.

Actually according to the article, the resolution just states the OPS is following the law.

Have to agree with the no votes on this one. Smacks of political posturing. Look for this vote to be used in the next Democrat primary when some school board member wants to run for higher office.

[Dundeemaha]

What is going on with the OPS board?

Remaining OPS superintendent finalists Gausman, Mumin withdraw from consideration

All 3 finalists withdrew from consideration? I admittedly have not paid much attention but this looks really bad.

[choke]

What is going on with the OPS board?

Remaining OPS superintendent finalists Gausman, Mumin withdraw from consideration

All 3 finalists withdrew from consideration? I admittedly have not paid much attention but this looks really bad.

Who is going to want the job now and/or is OPS going to have to settle for a second-rate candidate?

[bigredmed]

What is going on with the OPS board?

Remaining OPS superintendent finalists Gausman, Mumin withdraw from consideration

All 3 finalists withdrew from consideration? I admittedly have not paid much attention but this looks really bad.

Who is going to want the job now and/or is OPS going to have to settle for a second-rate candidate?

Second rate? Several of these were second rate. We will be lucky to get third tier candidates.

[iamjacobm]

This should be fascinating.

[GrandpaaSmucker]

No big deal....they will just raise the taxes and make the tax payers be the ones to suffer. Its the same deal the cops and the firemen get where they invest their money in risky investments and if they lose their shirts they just cry big tears and make us pay for their stupidity.

Add this to the list of reasons why schools as we now know them may go away someday. Home schooling on computers is the future where you don't have to pay teachers or worry about your kid getting shot or taught by some perv of nut case.

[Omaha Cowboy]

I just read the W-H piece.. Wow. Mind boggling and mind numbing stupidity, overreaction and now it appears, a lack of accountability..

Just crazy ...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[bigredmed1]

It is past time for a wholesale clean out in the TAC building.

[Uffda]

I just read the W-H piece.. Wow. Mind boggling and mind numbing stupidity, overreaction and now it appears, a lack of accountability..

Just crazy ...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

Yeah it seems like it was pretty crazy.... they needed someone to give them good advice. Good thing the state now has control of the investing

[Coyote]

Report: 37 teachers to leave Central High School after the school year ends



Report: 37 teachers to leave Central High School after the school year ends

[Uffda]

Report: 37 teachers to leave Central High School after the school year ends


Report: 37 teachers to leave Central High School after the school year ends

A friend at an OPS middle school told me his school is losing more teachers than Central is.

[djc311]

Report: 37 teachers to leave Central High School after the school year ends


Report: 37 teachers to leave Central High School after the school year ends

A friend at an OPS middle school told me his school is losing more teachers than Central is.

Extremely sad and disappointing - I've always thought teachers work way too hard for what they earn. I also don't agree with the argument that some non-teachers make when they say "Teachers choose to teach to help kids, not for the income". Well, today you need the income in order to survive and having expectations of being able to live a moderate to upper middle-income lifestyle as a good teacher shouldn't be unheard of (and not just because the teacher's spouse/partner/significant other is a doctor, etc).

I went to Central and so did my older brother (graduating in '93 and '85 respectively). Thought it was an amazing public school and it's always had the reputation of being a top facility in the OPS family. My main gripe would have been the lack of A/C, which is quite petty, I know (although virtually all schools have air conditioning today!). There was a time when the news was covering the extreme teacher shortage some years ago and I had toyed with the idea of getting a teacher's certificate because OPS was hurting for teachers. However, given the state of things and of course the unpredictability of Covid, I'm glad I didn't pursue it. Mostly due to the lack of work/life balance. If you're a teacher you basically won't have much of a life.

Last I knew, most teachers start under $50k - I don't feel that's right given the expectations they need to live up to.

[mistergutierrez]

It´s too many things that little by little push you out of teaching:

- Administrators. Some of them support teachers, but some of them only care about stats. If, for instance, a student call a teacher "Son of a |expletive|" or similar, depending of the administrator, that student might not have any consequence at all because otherwise they are not meeting suspension goals. The teacher will be told then not to take harassment personally. How would you feel in a job where your "customers" can harass you at will?

- Workload. Teachers are being asked more than ever to cover absences during plan periods. Plan period lost to coverage is paid 28.50 per hour. However, everything that they are supposed to do during plan (grading, communicating with parents, planning) must be done then at home. Notice that plan periods were already insufficient before pandemic, most teachers already usually work at home for some hours daily, but this year the amount of work you need to do at home jeopardize your balance work-family.

- Frustration. Teachers are asked to deliver engaging lessons to students. However, they are not given enough planning day and they compete against smartphones and other distractions and, if they do not success, they are blamed for it. For instance, a student keeps sleeping in class, you email the parents, you email your administrator, you talk to the student and you discover that the student is going to sleep everyday at 3am playing video games. You don´t cause the problem that undermines that student´s education, but your are blamed if you don´t solve it because "that student is sleeping because your lesson is not engaging enough".

- Building atmosphere. OPS has not the ability of serve all the population that requires alternate education, students that can not handle a learning environment. Go to any HS and you will see groups of students roaming the hallways without direction, like in a zombie movie, students that are in the school exhibit obnoxious behaviors but do not go to class. The students that when you ask them to go to class tell you to "|expletive| off, what are you gonna do?" The very same students that smoke pot in the restrooms, sometimes they even stay in the restrooms during the whole period!!! But the district won´t suspend these students because "being at home will cause them lose of instructional time".

- Dark future. For next year, teachers have been told, that classes will be bigger. The rationale: with bigger classes, it will be more teachers available to cover absences. I know a teacher, more than 10 years in OPS teaching now higher grades; she was asked to teach freshmen classes in her content area because both freshmen teachers left and they don´t find replacements, and she was asked to teach one group in person and another one remote simultaneously, 60 freshmen per period!!! What did she do? She resign. It seems that OPS plan to solve the lack of teachers is to burnout those that stay.

Most teachers choose that profession because is their vocation and they are willing to make sacrifices but, nowadays, if you want to do your job properly you need to sacrifice almost completely you personal life. The ones that stay are those with higher courses of the ones that they have been defeated and they don´t give a fudge.

This is not an OPS problem, but nationwide. For so long we have been using Public Schools as basically a daycare for teenagers. We really need to re-think the whole education system, because it is not normal that with students who spend more time in the classroom than the OCDE average, with teachers that teach more hours than the OCDE average, we have results below such average.

Done venting.

[Uffda]

Most teachers choose that profession because is their vocation and they are willing to make sacrifices but, nowadays, if you want to do your job properly you need to sacrifice almost completely you personal life. The ones that stay are those with higher courses of the ones that they have been defeated and they don´t give a fudge.

This is not an OPS problem, but nationwide. For so long we have been using Public Schools as basically a daycare for teenagers. We really need to re-think the whole education system, because it is not normal that with students who spend more time in the classroom than the OCDE average, with teachers that teach more hours than the OCDE average, we have results below such average.

Done venting.

Good Vent and I will say that this isn’t just happening at the high school level and as you said not just an OPS problem.
I spent 39 yrs in the classroom and am glad I retire 3 years ago this month. Things I hear from my former colleagues -middle school - leads me to believe I couldn’t have handle the changes they have had to do - I probably would have told someone off.

Just saw this article and the friend I mentioned above is quoted in the article

Nearly 700 teachers are projected to leave OPS by July 1

https://omaha.com/news/local/education/ ... TwhbnWE5Zs

[Brad]

Nearly 700 teachers are projected to leave OPS by July 1

700?!?! Holy |expletive|!

[Coyote]

Nearly 700 teachers are projected to leave OPS by July 1




Omaha World-Herald

Omaha Public Schools is projecting nearly 700 teachers to leave the district. The departures follow a national staff shortage in public schools around the U.S.

[djc311]

Nearly 700 teachers are projected to leave OPS by July 1




Omaha World-Herald

Omaha Public Schools is projecting nearly 700 teachers to leave the district. The departures follow a national staff shortage in public schools around the U.S.

What I find interesting about this is at first OPS had no response (or didn't respond). Then, when another local news channel covered the story on 70 teachers leaving Central at year's end, OPS' response was given the size of the school (student enrollment), 70 teachers leaving is inline with other area public schools' turnover.

I would think they'll have a hard time spinning the 80% overall increase over last year's departures across the district. I live in Millard and from my understanding, most of the area school districts pay about the same (Millard, OPS, Gretna, Elkhorn, etc). I know my daughter's teacher has definitely seen an increase in workload since the remote school and post-covid timeframe. So I'm not sure what is happening in OPS specifically to push their teachers out the door even more than the other districts.

As I mentioned in another post, teachers have never been paid enough (at the K-12 level). If they can't get something figured out soon then I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more remote learning with much larger classrooms being formed. Exactly opposite of the best potential outcome of hiring more teachers at better pay.

You want teachers to stick around? Start them out at $75k-$100k/yr.

[Coyote]

Omaha Public Schools addressing teacher shortages

[Uffda]

You want teachers to stick around? Start them out at $75k-$100k/yr.

I would have taken that!

I started teaching in 1979 - my yearly salary was $11600 and my monthly take home was somewhere around $832. I remember getting that first paycheck and thinking back to my previous summer job paychecks from the meat packing plant that averaged around $400/week.

39 teaching years later, I was making just over $60,000 with a Masters.

I know lots of teachers who have moved districts or left teaching because of the stress of the last few years and the ‘ramping up’ of the talking against teachers and education. Also the OPS situation is rare in the public Ed world, I live in FL now and they are critical short of teachers in many school districts.

I can say, I am very glad I retired 3 yrs ago.

[skinzfan23]

My wife is a teacher in CB and as much as I would love her to earn $75-100k I don't think that is realistic without a major tax increase. She has been teaching for a little over 10 years and has her master's and is making around $65k. No doubt are teachers worth a lot, but to start them in that pay range would be insane.

[djc311]

My wife is a teacher in CB and as much as I would love her to earn $75-100k I don't think that is realistic without a major tax increase. She has been teaching for a little over 10 years and has her master's and is making around $65k. No doubt are teachers worth a lot, but to start them in that pay range would be insane.

I agree, it could be extremely difficult to pay teachers those wages to start. However if a teacher has been doing to the job for 10 years and has a Master's (or a doctorate) making under $70k I don't feel that's fair. And I'm not even taking into account the new security guard roles they play... or the extreme scrutiny they're under to not say or do certain things (it's kind of ridiculous how much tap dancing teachers have to do with not saying certain pronouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.).

Anyway, that's getting off topic a bit - now some will probably get testy with me here but if you're a fireman or a cop working for the city and you pick up overtime, or security work outside your shift you can make a TON of money. I've had many friends making close to $100k (or more) from their primary job alone. 20 years in and you can retire with an awesome pension. I totally agree a police office that could be shot at on a daily basis is a completely different job and responsibility than teaching. So is fighting fires, being in the military and a lot of other careers.

The main point is a teacher should want to go to work because they love their job AND appreciate their pay for the work they're expected to do. When I was in high school in the early 90's you didn't have teachers jumping ship like they do now because their expectations were different and most of them probably enjoyed the work. I don't think it's unreasonable for teachers to be able to make $75k/yr after they're in the field for 10 years or so. It's unfortunate that they cannot.

[djc311]

Again, mentioning the risks that can come with being an educator (and unfortunately this story is connected directly to Central): https://www.wowt.com/2022/05/12/omaha-c ... vestigate/

The good news is it appears this was a false alarm.

[Uffda]

My wife is a teacher in CB and as much as I would love her to earn $75-100k I don't think that is realistic without a major tax increase. She has been teaching for a little over 10 years and has her master's and is making around $65k. No doubt are teachers worth a lot, but to start them in that pay range would be insane.

I think someone asked where are the teachers going and here is a good example. I know at least 2 teachers from my last school have taken jobs in CB since I left and received a salary increase. Also some took jobs in some of the suburbs school districts and had pay increases.

[skinzfan23]

Yeah my wife would love to move to Bellevue district to be closer to home but CB pays better.

[mistergutierrez]

Below is the OPS pay scale. As you can see, if you have a Masters and 10 years of experience, you salary is 55K.

Since teaching is vocational, I think that teachers have been in the past more or less OK with the fact of being underpaid compared to people with similar qualifications, because they were doing what they love. In my opinion, the problem causing most of them leaving is not (mostly) money, is that they are unable fulfill their vocation. Teachers leave because they are unable to teach. I´ll explain myself:

As I said earlier there is not enough time to plan, grade, communicate with parents, teachers put a lot of hours at home, and that jeopardize personal life. They are willing to sacrifice, but there is a limit, specially once that you start a family. You must choose family or students, and a lot of them are choosing family.

Another elephant in the room is the discipline. When a student curses at you, and you have the very same student back the next day because the building is over its suspension targets you feel like a piece of |expletive|. The alternative programs at OPS have not the ability to serve all the students that are unable to handle a regular classroom, and these students are kept in the school, preventing the teacher from doing their job and the learning of other students. OPS could tighten up its behavioral expectations but the problem is to do that without harming our (inflated) graduation rates.

[ChadJK]

Well, teacher pay is a little more decent when you consider it's not for 12 months of work. So, be sure to adjust for your district's calendar. That said, teachers have been lamenting low pay for DECADES. So, every current teacher CHOSE to go into their career field knowing they would be underpaid. They went into it eyes wide open, so my salary sympathy is limited.

There's a lot of underpaid jobs out there. For example, would you scrub pots and pans in a restaurant for $15/hour? Seriously. If I asked you to come over to my house and wash dishes non-stop for a solid hour and in return I'll give you a whopping $15 you'd tell me to píss off. Point being, LOTS of jobs are underpaid. At the end of the day they pay the market price. When there's nobody to teach the kids and the only way to get anyone to teach the kids is to pay them $150K/year then teachers will make $150K/year. We're not there... yet.

Honestly, it's a job I would never want. (Though, to be fair, the list of jobs I would never want is quite long.) I have no desire to deal with parents and the modern classroom is anarchy compared to say 50 years ago. I don't need some brat kid smarting off on me just to be in a position where I can't do much about it and if I do I'm sitting in the administration office apologizing to the parents. No thanks.

[mistergutierrez]

Hence the lack of teachers, and now we have a supply-demand problem. So, either we improve teacher conditions, and I'm not talking only about money, or we must just accept worse quality of education for our children.

One example: NW lost all his World Languages teachers but one, so the school plan to drop its AP and honors classes to focus in lower classes. So, the hardest-working students are the most affected.

Well, teacher pay is a little more decent when you consider it's not for 12 months of work. So, be sure to adjust for your district's calendar. That said, teachers have been lamenting low pay for DECADES. So, every current teacher CHOSE to go into their career field knowing they would be underpaid. They went into it eyes wide open, so my salary sympathy is limited.

There's a lot of underpaid jobs out there. For example, would you scrub pots and pans in a restaurant for $15/hour? Seriously. If I asked you to come over to my house and wash dishes non-stop for a solid hour and in return I'll give you a whopping $15 you'd tell me to píss off. Point being, LOTS of jobs are underpaid. At the end of the day they pay the market price. When there's nobody to teach the kids and the only way to get anyone to teach the kids is to pay them $150K/year then teachers will make $150K/year. We're not there... yet.

Honestly, it's a job I would never want. (Though, to be fair, the list of jobs I would never want is quite long.) I have no desire to deal with parents and the modern classroom is anarchy compared to say 50 years ago. I don't need some brat kid smarting off on me just to be in a position where I can't do much about it and if I do I'm sitting in the administration office apologizing to the parents. No thanks.

[Greg S]

This is similar to what's happening in pretty much every occupation. I currently work in the government sector in recruitment. But I did work for an agency as recruiter for about 4 years and worked with several teachers that were leaving public education. A few things when they transitioned to private sector. They did get more money by leaving education. Some issues they confronted though. They for the most part had top of the line benefits (both retirement and health). Many were also were surprised how different it was working outside of a union environment.

Greg

[ChadJK]

I had a friend that graduated UNL in 2008. She taught for 5 years and decided she was tired of being broke and went into the private sector (hotel management, I think). After about 3 years in the private sector she went back to teaching and has been teaching ever since.

[bigredmed1]

My niece has a teaching degree and did her year of student teaching. She is petite and had physical threats made against her. She wrapped up her degree, went to work for Amazon as an executive assistant and now works for one of the chiefs of AWS and not only makes better money, but works for a company that tolerates no threats against females.

Schools used to just end you if you threatened to rape a teacher. Now, the diversity police prevent that and teachers live in fear. Time for that to change.

[Greg S]

I had a friend that graduated UNL in 2008. She taught for 5 years and decided she was tired of being broke and went into the private sector (hotel management, I think). After about 3 years in the private sector she went back to teaching and has been teaching ever since.

That's not uncommon. Some adapt and some return to education.

[Coyote]

More than 1,250 teachers leaving Omaha districts



Omaha World-Herald

Many Omaha school districts are losing 30-70% more educators than last year — at least 1,250 are leaving their districts. Teachers say it's because of working conditions that aren't improving.

[ChadJK]

I doubt it's pay. As previously noted, the fact that teachers don't make much is hardly a secret and has been an issue for decades. So, I would imagine most of them knowingly entered the career field fully aware of what their pay and benefits package would be. That just leaves how they're treated by the administration, parents, and the students.

It hasn't been that many years since I can remember a friend of mine lamenting they couldn't find a job teaching. Other than inner city schools, poor rural schools, and special needs teachers nobody was hiring.

I'd love to see an analysis on where these 1,250 school teachers are going. Are they leaving the career field entirely? Geographically moving to a new district to work? Additionally, I wonder how many Elementary and Secondary Education majors UNL, UNO, and UNK produce every year?

[GetUrban]

All districts in the metro are reporting greater exodus of teachers leaving the profession, not just OPS. It's a sign of the times and poor parenting as much as anything else, with parents sending their poorly-disciplined, ill-prepared and disrespectful kids to school expecting the teachers to turn them into good citizens and expecting the teachers to take the brunt of responsibility for their kids failures or shortcomings.

[bigredmed1]

All districts in the metro are reporting greater exodus of teachers leaving the profession, not just OPS. It's a sign of the times and poor parenting as much as anything else, with parents sending their poorly-disciplined, ill-prepared and disrespectful kids to school expecting the teachers to turn them into good citizens and expecting the teachers to take the brunt of responsibility for their kids failures or shortcomings.

And the teachers catch heck if they discipline the kids and the goal of education is to teach, but we won't let them because their program is racist or sexist or some other ist.

As a pediatrician, I am constantly aware of the misbehaving kids and their passively permissive parents. To be fair to my own profession, a number of us are increasingly aware of Teddy Bear Poisoning in hospitals and clinics and we are striving to get this under control so that kids can function in the adult world.

[Omaha Cowboy]

All districts in the metro are reporting greater exodus of teachers leaving the profession, not just OPS. It's a sign of the times and poor parenting as much as anything else, with parents sending their poorly-disciplined, ill-prepared and disrespectful kids to school expecting the teachers to turn them into good citizens and expecting the teachers to take the brunt of responsibility for their kids failures or shortcomings.

If we had a like button here with no limit, I’d give this 1000 likes..

I agree 1000%…

Ciao..LiO…Peace

[Garrett]

So my roommate is a teacher here in NYC, and I have several friends that now teach in Omaha. It’s not the kids that’s stressing them out. It’s almost never the kids. It’s not some new “woke” institutions that some of ya’ll love to trot out from your favorite opinion rags either. The most common complaints I hear when we talk is dealing with conflicting and changing guidelines over the past few years, and trying to get kids caught up on onerous and various state standards and testing when so many kids are already behind. Furthermore, parents have become a nightmare because certain right wing assholes have made it their business to invade every school board meeting and scream PARENTAL RIGHTS over |expletive| that they’ve completely made up with moronic talking heads, such as teachers are grooming kids, while also expecting said teachers to be armed and ready to be in a shootout at any moment, because America. Teachers are underpaid and over stressed because of the |expletive| insane culture of America, not because of the kids.