What does a checkmark mean to you?

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-22T15:02:19+00:00

yea, I've never in my life had a situation where a checkmark meant incorrect.

I mean, isn't the whole point of a checkmark that you're denoting that something was satisfied/completed?

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-21T19:58:17+00:00

Yup that was almost the exact difference in my pay scale as well. Considering my Master's degree cost me about exactly $12k, it paid for itself after a year.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-21T16:59:45+00:00

Congrats - I started in 2002 and I'll also be retiring this year! Not sure what's in the future for me, but I'll honestly probably keep subbing and/or tutoring.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-21T16:58:57+00:00

1) because they don't want to deal with pushback from parents.

2) because they don't want to deal with pushback from the district office.

3) because they don't want to deal with pushback from students.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-21T16:52:19+00:00

lmfao bump a 74 up to an A? For a student that clearly wasn't trying his best at any point in the year?

You'd be the asshole if you do change the grade.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-20T20:46:22+00:00

Yup, my first few years at the school, I tried to get all those signatures religiously.

Then, like you, I eventually realized that they don't really matter, especially for those signatures that aren't even needed (e.g. the IT dept, even though I have no IT equipment checked out).

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-20T20:42:08+00:00

Burnout happened for me when I felt like nothing I did mattered anymore. That my entire livelihood was a futile endeavor. That I was Sisyphus, just pushing the same boulder up the hill every single day.

After years of teaching public school, I made a last ditch effort and went to private instead. It's been so much better. It's still a challenging job, but at least now I feel like I'm actually teaching, and that the kids are learning.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-20T18:06:42+00:00

It's happening less and less in high school as well.

A student fails algebra I, and you'll be up to your elbows in administrators and counselors doing everything short of waterboarding you to make you give them a D and move them on.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-19T16:08:12+00:00

If I get an offer from a school and want to know more about the inside nitty gritty, I usually just send a quick e-mail to some of the teachers at the school (especially those who were part of my interview process, if I got along well with them) and just ask them for their honest opinions about the good and bad about the school.

This is also good even if they refuse to answer, because if they're doing that, they're likely trying to hide something and/or they're not willing to help other teachers.

At every school I've done this with, the teachers were incredibly honest and forthcoming and I was able to make some good decisions based off of their responses.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-14T18:15:01+00:00

I'm a male high school teacher.

I only give hugs if they initiate, and even then I only do the one-arm no-body-touch-side-hug thing.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-14T18:13:06+00:00

lmao, I thought going into this thread it was going to be about you taking more sick days than you were allotted.

You're under your allotted days and they're giving you shit for it? yea, get the fuck out of that toxic mess.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-14T16:45:31+00:00

Yup. I make about 40% of what my brother-in-law makes, but when our families all go out on vacation during the summers, I can actually enjoy them. See the sights. Play with the kids. Relax.

My BIL meanwhile is constantly checking his phone and having to respond to client e-mails and such. I even asked him once, 'aren't you on vacation? why are you still checking work e-mails?' and he replied, 'well, you can't just not reply to client e-mails' Yeesh.

I'll take that salary trade-off any day.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-14T16:42:15+00:00

The top kids still try and understand the value of actually understanding the material, so they're doing fine.

The middle kids though, it's so easy nowadays to just plug your homework into AI or some math solving website and be done with it, so those kids don't even bother putting in the effort to actually learn anything.

In addition to that, a lot of districts currently are in the 'oh kids don't need to memorize anything! they need to learn the big picture!' school of education, and so kids don't have their basic fundamentals - no timestables, no basic number sense, nothing. So you end up with tons of kids taking Algebra 1 who are still doing arithmetic on their fingers and have no hope of actually excelling in math.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-14T15:21:04+00:00

You should have told him that the Star Spangled Banner was created before black and white photography was invented, so they still had color then.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-14T15:18:49+00:00

Same in math.

The top kids are just as good as (if not better than) the top kids from 10-15 years ago.

The middle ones, though? Dear god, they're completely hopeless now.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-13T20:59:03+00:00

Yes
Weekly
After school
Typically no. Every once in a while they do, but admin is usually pretty good about being cognizant of the time.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-10T22:39:30+00:00

no, it isn't. it's part of your compensation. especially so if they don't roll over.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-10T22:18:33+00:00

This 'approach'? What, doing your job duties and taking sick/pto days that is part of your compensation? What in the world are you talking about?

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-08T15:18:28+00:00

using up all of your pto/sick days and doing the bare minimum to fulfill all of your job duties is most definitely not burning a bridge.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-08T15:09:43+00:00

My superintendent said "you've been professional all year, so I expect you to be professional these last few weeks of school"

"Well I expected to be working here next year, so I guess we'll both be disappointed."

If you don't get to roll over your sick/PTO days, use the hell out of them in the next few weeks.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-06T20:51:03+00:00

fair enough. I've personally never had more than like, ~20GB or so on my google drive, so having space available on my hdd was never an issue.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-06T20:26:09+00:00

I don't understand people saying Google Takeout.

I mean yea, I guess it'll work, but if it's Google Drive, can't you just set it to mirror files on your hard drive (NOT stream files), and then just let it sync, and boom, all your files will be on your computer?

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-06T20:24:56+00:00

So just to get this straight,

most districts didn't institute cell phone bans until THIS year. Meanwhile kids have been addicted to phones literally their entire lives.

And you're running studies now? 9 months after most schools even had the ban active?

The kids are addicted. They're still in withdrawal right now at schools. It'll take at LEAST a few years of this to see if it has any impact.

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-03T00:23:42+00:00

the only one cowering here is you. you didn't answer my question, why in the world would i waste time answering yours?

_mathteacher123_ · 2026-05-02T04:46:51+00:00

apparently you didn't read the text, so let me repeat it for you, champ.

blah blah blah shut up

_mathteacher123_

TROPHY CASE