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Our principal wants to allow a volunteer to come in for our high school math classes. Our entire math department is against it. This new person, like last year's volunteer, in an engineer without any background in teaching at all.
We had this misfortune last year when a retired engineer came in to volunteer, sometimes told students how to do the problem wrong as with the answer being wrong. He would even fight or get a little defensive if we told him he was incorrect.
I've been told by the principal that this person is better than last years, but I am very skeptical. They say after two weeks and we feel as though he is doing our students a disservice, he won't be welcomed back.
However, my high school math department isn't happy about this decision and we are wondering why our principal would want this.
By the way, our principal used to be a photography teacher and has never taught high school math.
I don't think he understands that just because someone has a degree in the engineering field, does not mean that this person will be good at helping students in high school math. Don't get me wrong, some are, but this person is retired engineer/businessman has never taught a day in his life or yet tutored students.
When we had our last volunteer, I felt as though I had to "teach" the volunteer and this volunteer got a bit defensive at times.
Has anyone had this experience? Should I just wait the two weeks out and say no more after that? Thanks!
We never had volunteers per se for the classroom, if any parent or community member would come in they'd tend to hang around the office snooping or trying to gain an advantage for their kid.
I used to volunteer in a kindergarten class. That can't be done any more. Anyone who works with students in the public schools now has to be fingerprinted and vetted. I am surprised that the above district permits a person without a background check in the classroom.
I used to volunteer in a kindergarten class. That can't be done any more. Anyone who works with students in the public schools now has to be fingerprinted and vetted. I am surprised that the above district permits a person without a background check in the classroom.
They probably do have to have a background check. That is even true for substitutes nowadays. The OP did not say anything about background checks.
Oh ok, The process is quite expensive so anyone who would want to volunteer would have to be rather committed and serious about it.
Substitutes? Yeah, they are fully certified teachers.
The process for the background check was not expensive in Texas. It was only $25.00. The background checks to work in a school used by employers today include state and federal criminal checks, child abuse checks and checks of your credit, military, employment and education histories. You do have to be fingerprinted. In a self-funded program, the cost of the volunteer screening program is outsourced to the volunteers themselves by asking them to pay for their own screen when they submit their application.That is how ours was done.
The process for the background check was not expensive in Texas. It was only $25.00. The background checks to work in a school used by employers today include state and federal criminal checks, child abuse checks and checks of your credit, military, employment and education histories. You do have to be fingerprinted. In a self-funded program, the cost of the volunteer screening program is outsourced to the volunteers themselves by asking them to pay for their own screen when they submit their application.That is how ours was done.
And it's $125 here. Done by a third party. Many office/nonteaching school personnel have to have this done in order to work in a school. The district does not pay for it and the process can be lengthy especially if the digital fingerprints can't be scanned. I presume that this is one reason that there are no more community volunteers in my local districts. I understand that the newly certified teachers have to use the same third party fingerprinting service. All of the fingerprints are then sent to the state education department.
Substitutes? Yeah, they are fully certified teachers.
Substitutes here aren't fully certified, but they are required to have college degrees.
OP, I agree that having a volunteer in an interactive teaching role is a bad idea, especially someone who may have some subject-matter experience but basically no classroom management experience or education.
I would come together again as a department and suggest they get student teachers if they feel the need to have someone else in the classroom.
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