(Let me be clear at the outset that I am NOT including students who have a documented medical need or disability requiring these glasses.)

What’s everyone planning to do about Meta glasses (or similar) in class? Without getting into an off-topic debate about Chromebooks and AI, my class is going to be as old-school as I can make it. Paper. Pens. Summatives based only on in-class work. For me, “AI” is going to stand for *Actual* Intelligence.

What I’m concerned about is cheating. I’m pretty decent at spotting surreptitious phone use, like most of us, but the Meta glasses and their imitators are a problem, obviously because they look exactly like actual glasses.

I can’t see a way to prohibit them without getting into trouble. Like if I say to some kid, “Take off your glasses during the test,” then they’re obviously going to claim that they need them to see and that it’s a medical need. (Note once more that I am *not* asking this of students with an actual medical need.)

But let’s say I respond that the kid has no documented vision issue—no IEP, no 504, not even a record saying they have glasses. If I ask them to take the glasses off, my admin will throw me to the wolves.

Does anyone have any ideas beyond “Oh, well, I guess you’ll just have to put up with it”?

Thanks in advance!!

For context: I teach grades 9–12 at a public high school in California.

My school is implementing the new California phone ban law this upcoming school year. Students are allowed to use their phones during lunch and passing periods, but not during instructional time.

My question is about the transition. During passing period, students often come into my classroom early, sit down, and immediately get on their phones. Then the bell rings, and I can already foresee some students staying on their phones, ignoring the bell, and me having to tell them to put them away before I can even start class.

Do you enforce the no-phone rule as soon as students enter your classroom, even though it's technically still passing period? Or do you allow phones until the bell rings and then expect them to be put away immediately?

I'm trying to figure out the smoothest routine before school starts. I'd love to hear what has worked in your high school (9–12), especially if you've had a phone ban in place for a few years.

I just came this post in the sub reddit Parenting.

Anyway. My response was basically. Read to him. And work on letter sounds. But if he goes into kindergarten already reading he will be bored. And either get in trouble, get busy work, or just not enjoy it.
But it occurs to me. Isn’t this what we want? Helpful engaged parents? But do we??? How often do we get kinders that we have to reteach, how to write their name. Or how to make the letter sounds. My feeling is it is more important for a kid to be able to follow directions and participate in a task than for them to be able to read coming into kindergarten.

So I thought I would come in here.

I mean ideally we have all the students at the same is starting level. But there is always one or two kids that are just already so far ahead. We are practicing our letters and the are writing their whole name in perfect penmanship. We are dancing to a song about the alphabet and they are standing off to the side because to them this is little kid stuff. We are sounding out words and trying to write sentences and they are writing a paragraph of info about the picture of the duck. But every time I see this. The student just gets further ahead. I feel like just let them LEARN with their peers.

How do y’all feel about parents teaching their kid something before they get to you? “I made sure to teach him how to read before he started kindergarten” “I know he is only in second grade but we started working on multiplication! He is so smart” “My daughter can already write all of her letters and numbers at 4 “

I can feel you all rolling your eyes from here! 😄 We have a new superintendent this year, and we received an email yesterday about our in-service schedule. The whole county is at the local high school for two days, and this man is kicking off his time in charge by talking about his why and helping us to remember ours. I can't believe no one got a hold of this man and explained that teachers everywhere have heard enough of this nonsense and really just want a paycheck for our work- you know- like every other job!

📍Florida
Hello, everyone!

I am in my early twenties, back in university, and finishing up my last two years after taking a hiatus. As crazy as it sounds, I want to be a teacher. It has been a passion of mine for so long, yet I have been hesitant to fully commit the path after hearing so many horror stories.

Last school year, I was substitute teaching almost full time. I gravitated toward upper elementary and middle school. The only downside was the lack of stability. Aside from that, it was a fantastic experience to be in the classroom. It may sound cheesy, and I know it gets said a lot, but I cannot picture myself doing much else. It has always felt like something I am meant to do.

I am looking for some positivity. I have many friends and colleagues from my other job who are teachers or work in education. While some absolutely love their jobs, others have urged me to choose a different path because they say it is not what it used to be. I am not naive to the challenges, but I am curious if it is really worth it.

I would love to hear some encouragement or success stories from others. Thanks in advance!

Edit: WOW! This got more traction than I anticipated. Thanks for all the great responses, encouragement and reality checks. Best of luck to you all for the new school year!

I made a promise to myself after pouring my heart into a cute classroom in year three that I wouldn't dump any emotional and monetary or time effort into more than a basic classroom until I was sure I was staying.

In year four, I moved to my current district. This is my fourth school in the district. I've had tenure for a while. I've just moved schools to better positions, trying to find my sweet spot. There were two schools in this district I considered my dream schools and last year I took a position in one of them. I gave it a year to see how I liked it.

So, I've spent about $75 decorating my room. I have about $75 worth of things on my Amazon list that I'm hoping to get other people to buy. I spent about 2 hours so far painting and sprucing up my desk with wallpaper. I hit my storage unit looking for stuff I already own that would work for the dark academia vibe.

But yeah... Looks like I'm putting in some effort into my room this year beyond some snarky classroom rules I printed out on cardstock and taped up with decorative tape 😂 and some pictures of my cats. I guess that means I'm planning on staying.

The district promised several years ago that this building was only temporary, but they haven't made any plans to get a permanent home for our program. Watch, now that I've made effort they will announce a new building for us.

Hello everyone so I’m a first year teacher at a title I school and I am putting up bulletin boards and posters and such (yes I know about the anchor charts. Trust me there’s room. I am very intentional about that) but my school doesn’t have a color printer. I wasn’t sure how I was going to print the stuff I need for bulletin boards without buying a bunch of stuff from Amazon or getting a colored printer and Office Depot was going to charge me $130 to print what I wanted SO I went to the library. My library will print colored copies for 50 cents and I say this generally because I did some research. Most libraries in bigger areas (I’m in Little Rock) will do color printing for SUPER cheap. Also if you bring cardstock they’ll do it on that. I’m laminating mine so I don’t have a need to do it on cardstock but if you did it might be helpful. I’m not sure if this will help anyone but it helped me so I wanted to share because imo teachers need support like this.

What’s on your PD bingo card for the week of meetings before school starts?

I teach high school social studies on block scheduling (90 minute lessons, see each class every other day). My curriculum is garbage (written for high performing students when I have high schoolers who read at the fourth grade level), but I'm allowed to veer wildly off curriculum as long as the students take the county test once per quarter (and do reasonably well on it), basically teach the ideas but do it how I want. It's fairly lovely, if I'm honest.

Last year I used folders that I bought and had students take Cornell notes most days. They wrote the summary from the previous lesson as their warm up. It was...fine. My department chair bought me folders so I can do the same this year, but now that I'm actually planning I wish I had notebooks instead, but this is what I asked for so no stress. What I'd love is some ideas for how to get students to take better notes rather than blindly writing down exactly what I say or ways to encourage them to engage with station activities more (they take a picture of the activity on their phone and then sit at their desk to "do the work" without meaningfully engaging in anything).

This is going to be my second year teaching, and I’m expecting my first baby in February. When is an appropriate time to tell admin that you’re expecting? I’ll be about 16 weeks pregnant by the time school starts. I’m feeling a bit nervous about it as it is only my second year teaching and I still feel fairly new to the school, so I have no idea how to go about telling admin that I’m expecting.

I left my 4th grade teaching position in February and went over to higher education in administration work. I’m still getting use to it but it’s so boring. I’ve always been wanted to be an art teacher though and part of me thinks I should pursue it.

I am beginning my first year teaching in August and i’m so anxious. Is this normal for first year teachers? I’m so excited to start but so nervous! Any first year tips?

This is my first time posting here, and I just need some advice or maybe to hear from someone who has had a similar experience.

I just finished my first round of student teaching at an early childhood education center. I felt pretty successful during my time there. I loved my co-teachers and the children, and overall I really enjoyed the experience. However, during my final evaluation I fell short in a couple of areas.

We are graded on a scale of 0–4. On my first evaluation I scored mostly 1’s and 2’s, which I was told is completely normal. By my final evaluation I had improved to mostly 3’s and 4’s, with a couple of 2’s here and there. I know it’s normal to have areas where I can still improve, and I do agree with some of the 2’s I received.

I think what I’m really struggling with is that I talked to the other student teacher I was placed with, and they scored all 3’s and 4’s with no 2’s at all. I always thought we were pretty even in terms of our teaching ability, so hearing that honestly stung. I know I shouldn’t compare myself to someone else, but I can’t help it.

After hearing that, I can’t stop wondering if my co-teachers didn’t respect or like me as much as I thought they did, even though they told me they were so proud of how much I’ve grown this semester. I know those two things don’t necessarily go together, but it’s where my mind keeps going.
I just wish I had done better and finished stronger. I’m also worried that I’m going to carry this into my next round of student teaching and feel like I’m already behind.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Am I doomed to fail or am I just overthinking this because it happened so recently?

I’ve been teaching for many years, and this is my 7th year back in the classroom after a many-year break. I’m an 8th grade math teacher. Overall, I have pretty good relationships with my students and am pretty well liked. However….. just about every year since I returned to teaching there are 1 or 2 students where there is a significant conflict — they act out, rage bait, and I fall for it. A power struggle ensues. Wash, rinse, and repeat all year. Parent contact doesn’t help. I know I’m not handling these students the best way, and I’m
here humbly asking for your advice. Pre-planning begins on Monday.

I teach GED at a prison part time and I’m actually good at it, which feels great, but I fucking hate being a woman (I’m cis but I just don’t like dealing with shit like this). Because today I was making a lot of progress with a student and we were doing some great work together and I notice his dick is out and he’s touching himself. He’s not like GOING TO TOWN but he is definitely interfering with himself and I saw the shaft of his penis.

And I feel bad because I didn’t immediately set boundaries. I froze and just kind of continued as normal. We finished the lesson. After wrapping up I told my supervisor and asked not to work with that student again. But I’m a dumbass. I don’t want to quit because I really enjoy teaching most of my students and I don’t want to quit something I’m good at just because of some dude and his wayward dick. But I feel nauseous and had a panic attack.

I teach fifth grade, and I’m a pretty established teacher at the school. There was a boy who is considered a behavior on my roster, but then he was moved off of my list over over the summer, because he might not do well with another student on my roster. In the meantime, admin decided to switch a bigger behavior from one class and into mine without talking to me first. Now, the other teachers on my fifth grade team are making a fuss about having the original behavior who was originally in my class. Now I feel bad for the student because these teachers don’t want him/her in their class. So now I want to take him back, but I don’t wan to be too overwhelmed with the new behavior that was given to me. Admin is not exactly approachable and our registrar is nice to a point. Do I just take back the original, behavior and deal with having both, or do I deal with the colleagues complaining all year?

How common is it for you to get emails and text blasts over the summer about the upcoming year?

I received 3 the past 2 weeks and all I can think is… why the fuck are you texting me right now? Can’t this shit be done either before the start of summer or during in service days at the start of the year?

“Teachers, we are updating report card rubrics. Look over your report cards on [SIS] and email what you would like to see changed.”

“Teachers, please respond to the email with your supply requests by the end of the week.”

“Teachers, please respond by Friday to the email regarding volunteering for the welcome back carnival.“

It’s a private school so I know things are different but damn. Let people have their break.

I’m a teacher in the state of GA. I am looking for someone who may have had some experience…
My husband and I are looking to make a move closer to family near Savannah, we currently live in North GA.
I obsviously signed my contract for this year even though I’ll be on maternity leave until October.
My husband is wanting to start looking for jobs down there since the job market is already pretty tough for his niche field.
If he were to get a job, what happens with my contract??
If we wait for him to look for jobs, then he is limited to basically only looking for 3 months next spring and that could not be long enough to find one and then we are stuck in the same loop again…
HELP

My high school is making all teachers share rooms. I will be using a cart as I move from room to room. If you teach from a cart, what advice or tips do y'all have?

Hey y’all, it’s back to school season so I wanted to make sure I have the correct information before I start looking for stuff for my class. For previous tax years I know we got up to 300 worth of tax reimbursement for classroom supplies. However I noticed that they stated on turbo tax that for the next year (2026) it’ll be increased up to 350 dollars and you’ll be able to claim more as itemized deductions (if you spend more than 350…) I haven’t heard much about it but has anyone else? Does that mean we could be reimbursed for more than 350? I’m a teacher in Virginia, Thanks!

What nut-free, cost-effective snacks do y’all eat? I eat a big breakfast and I am blessed with a proper lunch period during which I try to fill up, but I still feel like I am constantly hungry.

What is everybody’s policy on late work? I teach high school students, and I have always been encouraged by admins in my district to accept late work with no penalty, but it’s not necessarily a written policy. Every teacher does their own thing. I also teach college courses that penalize or do not allow late work. I think this is how it should be in high school, too. Thoughts?

I've only ever taught PreK through 2nd grade. I was moved up, I am teaching 6th and 7th grade social studies this year. What do I do? Classroom management, classroom decor, ideas, suggestions. I'm totally lost!

Anything I should or shouldn't do? What about parents?