teacher

para educator

building supervisor

office secretary

administrative secretary

Baltimore County Public Schools

Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) is a progressive school system with a diversified school population and culture for learning and advancement for all staff and student success. Staff is friendly and very supportive.   BCPS is on the cutting edge regarding educational resources and application of technology for the school system and daily instruction.  Furthermore, BCPS offers numerous professional development and leadership training opportunities within the school system and with partnerships with local colleges for advanced learning and promotion

A typical day at work involves a quick review of tasks for the day with a timeline for completion.  The review includes a plan to prioritize, to complete unfinished tasks from the previous day and to prioritize tasks for the current day.  A brief discussion with the secretary aligns appointments, follow up and important calls, and reports that are due which are related with the tasks.  
In addition, key personnel from various offices are contacted to collaborate and/or to manage tasks supportive of the priorities and goals of the office which reflect the school system’s goals.  Empowering various office supervisors encourages their involvement and enhances their leadership roles and accountability for completing tasks.   Meetings are convened and/or electronic messages are sent to review the focus/tasks, to get progress reports, to listen to concerns from the group, to provide clarification, or to have one-on-one calls/conferences.  Opportunities are provided for co-workers to make suggestions, to provide their insights for completion or evaluation of quality products.   The end of the day would include writing Executive Summary reports for meetings and tasks completed and an administrative evaluation to check completion of tasks intended for that day.  
The hardest part of the job is scheduling co-workers for a common time to meet for updates, suggestions and progress reports.  Use of technology has alleviated this problem to a great extent.  The most enjoyable parts of the job were learning from others, serving as a mentor, observing professional growth and promotion of co-workers, working with school-based staff, principals and teachers, and observing students in the learning process.

- Pros -
• Decent insurance benefits.
• Potential to be fun and motivating depending on administration.
• Working with kids is less stressful than having to deal with adults (but behavior has gotten considerably worse compared to even 2-3 years ago)

- Cons -
Unstable job security. You can be "excessed" due to funding removal from the school you work at. You have no control over the age range or grades you work with. - School administration can be awful. It's a coin toss on what kind of admin you will have. Sometimes you'll get admin that genuinely loves kids and knows how to maintain mutual respect with their staff.
Sometimes you'll get admin that work by the "my way or the highway" mindset where you can't advocate for yourself and you're not allowed to voice your opinion or any pushback.
Admins can go under the radar with unprofessionalism and get away with mistreatment. I've seen admin solely assign elderly teachers and assistants in special needs classrooms with extreme behavioral difficulties, rather than assigning younger employees that can better handle the physical responsibilities of working with aggressive special needs students. EOTY reviews or observations can be manipulated due to bias, and those discussions are in-person so there will be no evidence of wrongdoing. Not my own personal experience, but a coworker received a negative observation feedback (which is then permanently part of their "record" as a teacher) and the admin admitted the poor review was entirely due to my coworker voicing their opinion on which PD meeting would be most important or beneficial. Unprofessional admin can completely ruin how you feel about your job and can make or break your motivation. - BCPS made it very clear how little they care for their employees based on their new sick leave plan where they can threaten to fire you if you reach a certain amount of your allotted personal illness days. The new rules state if you reach 12 out of 15 days (with meetings and reprimands for different amounts beforehand), BCPS can require the employee to undergo a physical from a BCPS-assigned doctor. BCPS also states that there is a risk for being fired at that amount. There's more to it, but threatening someone's job when they haven't even used all of their sick days shows exactly what BCPS prioritizes. If you have a longstanding health condition that requires time off, you're 100% going to be shamed and reprimanded for it. BCPS also showed how little they care about their employees during 2020. They cave to parent demands and will throw teachers and other staff under the bus for it.
Advice to leadershi

Depending upon the age group of students some days can be more challenging than others, for instance with the high school students they for the most part can complete their given assignments with little or no direct supervision, on the other hand the middle school students may need more direct and more detailed instruction to complete their given assignments and of course the elementary student need more help, more detail instructions and in-depth teaching.  Unlike the middle and high school students I am constantly moving and interacting with the students.  I have to walk the elementary students to the bathroom, specials and lunch.  If I have a long term assignment I engage in more administrative work such as, grading paper, keeping attendance, and following a lesson plan oppose to just giving the student busy work when the primary teacher is not there.  At the end of the day I am responsible for making sure the elementary students get on the correct bus and picked by their parents or guardian.    

When I am on my break I eat with the other teachers and meet new sub teachers in my travels.  I learn about the needs of the students and different alternatives to teaching.  If it's a long term or I visit a particular school often I develop friendships with the staff, students and their parents.  I like sub teaching at the high school or middle school especially since the school day starts at 7 or 7:30am and end at 2 or 2:30pm.  I enjoy the younger students as well but their day starts around 8:30 or 9am and end around 3:30 or 4pm.  I am an early riser so I like the earlier shift.

The hardest part of the assignment maybe communicating effectively with unruly children or children who have learning development challenges.  I enjoy the atmosphere of learning.  Each school has it own unique motto and goals, also each school has it's own unique color and I like looking and admiring each school uniqueness.

Working in Baltimore County Public Schools, the experiences were diversified...there were good experiences as well as bad ones.  I loved teaching health education to secondary students, that is my passion. To manage over 300 students a week was pure joy and fun. I think the hardest part of my job was not being able to get through to certain students. Although it was a few of them, still I felt a sense of loss. The most enjoyable part of my job is to see students getting excited about health education, and expressing their experiences in wellness.The system itself has a long way to go in lending supportive measures to their employees. The administration can be deceitful, unsupportive, prejudice, and petty in such corporate- learning environment. Although I worked extensively for the school system, there is much to be said about the system work ethnics and merits. Co-workers, on the other hand, most are wonderful human beings. Our fight (co-workers and other staff members) to improve the hectic environment of increased student population, continuous meetings with no meaning, increased paperwork, and major behavioural problems in the school system (bullying) are seen as being frivolous to administration. There is nothing frivolous about being overworked with little or no support from administration in these trying times. Most school principals either like you or they will find a way to dismiss you; even by giving false evaluations on observations. Many of them need this sense of control, no matter what obstacles are set before them. Many majority teachers are dismissed without probable cause. The Baltimore County System in aiding their teachers is woeful.  I learned that you can either be part of the situation or be part of a solution. I refuse to work in an atmosphere that's not team-spirited. It is less stressful, working in an environment, with a team who's focus is on producing a safe and learning environment for students and for staff.
In life, you sometimes have to stand alone or you will fall for anything.

There's good teachers and administrators in the county.  Advantages of being a substitute teacher are helping people, making a positive difference in other people's lives, having a flexible schedule, and having a great work life balance.  

I don't like how substitute teachers in Baltimore County have no due process rights for minor kinds of performance issues such as breaking school rules, classroom management issues, following lesson plans issues, etc.  In Baltimore County, administrators have the power to ban subs from subbing at their school for minor performance issues without the sub being able to appeal the decision, and that's not right.   If a sub gets banned from subbing at a school for a minor kind of infraction, and the sub feels the ban wasn't warranted, the sub should be allowed to appeal the administrator's decision.  

Subs deserve due process rights for classroom management complaints and breaking school rules complaints because substitute teaching is one of those kinds of jobs where no matter how good of a sub you are, you're going to have days sometimes where you innocently break school rules and make classroom management mistakes, and no matter how good a sub's classroom management skills are, it's extremely easy for a sub to get misjudged classroom management wise and blamed for poor classroom management for things that aren't the sub's fault.  There's all kinds of potential situations that can happen subbing where a sub gets blamed for poor classroom management for things that aren't their fault.  



I worked as custodian, acting chief, and security guard all in one for 10 years total. As of today, I have managed, trained, cleaned, fixed furniture, reported damage or stolen property, and kept the building clean and safe. I learned that being a manger is very challenging because their is so many people that have needs and wants, it's up to the manager to make sure everything is done correctly. Also, it was up to make sure everyone was scheduled correctly and work their shifts and knows their job duties. As a manager, I had to make sure we had enough supplies, make sure the work was completed, complete a check list, fix furniture, check time clock and send in work orders, call for work repairs and check to see if the principal and I were on the same page. My co-workers enjoyed me being a manger because I was very organized, precise, on time and ready to work. The hardest part about being a manger was making sure that I could handle confrontation when something happened between me and the co-workers. The most enjoyable part was leaving early and knowing that I did my very best to help each person with what they needed and making sure that every task was completed so that I could begin the next day on a good note. I loved working with everyone and showing the kids how a good role models suppose to look like.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The managers and other teachers are bullies.  The schools cover up drug use and serious risks to children.  There are people in management positions outside of their area of expertise.  Kids come to school High and nothing is done about it.  The administrators love to look the other way to hold up their numbers so they can get more funding.  That will all end with what is happening in Washington.   A lot of people including the Administration will be left in the cold. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Petty Observers who are too subjective.  Administrators and cohorts listen to students who have no regard for the truth and are the worse students are given a free pass so that they can stay in school to keep the attendance numbers up and justify getting more funding.  Students using phones.  There should be someone at the front line collecting phones. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The culture is toxic.  The Administrators have a fixed and mechanistic view of how things should work and will not allow for other views even if it helps the students. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Total chaos and berating, students lingering on the stairs, students impaired, students making inappropriate videos outside of the school and inside of the bathrooms.

Typical Day:
teach class guidance lessons grades PrK - 5
provide individual couneling to students
run counseling groups for grief, study skills, self esteem,
anger management and social skills
participate in TEAM meetings to discuss student concerns, needs,
testing and special ed. interventions as needed
teach character education, bully prevention,
consult with teacher and parents about student needs
observe students in classroom, type result and report
train staff in child abuse reporting and homeless student information

Learned
to work independently and be self motivated
to plan and implement a school-wide counsling program
work with many personalites and develope human relations skills
be flexible but get tasks done

Management
organize and keep a schedule
keep records on students and group progress
plan lessons for classrooms and groups
plan a weekly and long term goals
keep materials and room organized and child centered

Hardest part
working with kids in crisis
working with kids involved in abuse

Most enjoyable
counsleing groups
rewards of seeing results in children that have received counseling

I was a personal assistant to a special needs student through his daily activities at the local elementary school in the community where I lived with my family. Previously I worked as a volunteer and then staff member in the cafeteria, but as a college graduate, I felt the importance of understanding the local educational system and structure to be paramount. I was eager to learn the education field.I was given the opportunity by the Vice principal for one year.  I was assigned to one student for the entire school year and then was put on call the following year.  
I was asked to complete tasks by the special ed instructor and her assistant as well.  Making copies during classroom time of the syllabus, general assignments and other school related media. I also handed out copies, escorted the class from their primary special ed classroom to their lunch, gym and other  outdoor  activities. 
and her assistant, it was not always possible.

In accounting I have to enter A/P and A/R  daily.  When others have entered their income and expenses for their department, I have to verify that the numbers add up right to do the financial reports.  When they do not balance then I have to research why.  Some times managers in other departments have added income to  client cases after  turning in their cases.  

I have to reconcile bank deposits and inventory changes in assets and their  dollar value.  when their is a discrepancy, I have to call departments and look at other reports.  some times departments have given assets like expensive furniture in the thousands of dollars to another department without notifying us.  Then the item has to be scanned for that department and subtracted from the original department.  Some times the large assets might have  gone to salvage  and the report is not due from the salvage company until the next day. I have to research the salvage company or wait for the salvage report to arrive.

I have to do the general  ledger and journal entries.  I help in  preparing financial reports and monthly closings.

The most enjoyable part of the job is the people I work with and  completing my tasks within deadlines. 

The hardest part of the job is typing words because it is not as fast as the secretary.  Data entry is fast.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Teacher 6 salaries reported	$58,667 per year
Para educator 3 salaries reported	$21.33 per hour
Building supervisor 103 salaries reported	$21.43 per hour
Office secretary 75 salaries reported	$24.09 per hour
Administrative secretary 60 salaries reported	$26.61 per hour

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