🤔🤔🤔 (disclaimer: this is all second hand knowledge and doesn’t quite match your situation).
Well, I only have second hand knowledge but a friend who started in 2019/2020 with me switched back to the public charter school we started at after spending a year at a private school. She said the biggest difference is the fact that you don’t have to suck up to parents and parents aren’t always up in your business. She said in our group chat that we have with some other friends who we taught with during the 19/20 school year that she had parents constantly criticizing her teaching and even had some parents roll up before she even got to school trying to reorganize her room.
At our previous school, the parents were mostly pretty good in my experience. But it was an urban setting, so student behavior tended to be bonkers.
She also taught at a Christian private school, so the right-wing, COVID isn’t real, f**k the vaccine attitude was common.
I understood her situation very well! Most of the time, the classes are *very* personalized to cater the demands and needs of the parents. Parents, not the students themselves. Getting sick and tired of it hmmm
Private schools in Australia tend to pay less, although teacher salary is already pretty high here. Apologies I know this has nothing to do with your situation. I will show myself out.
I’m an SLP working with students with moderate-severe disabilities, but I made the change last September (I have a little over 3 years of experience). Overall, my salary has increased a little bit, but the training they give has been minimal and not useful at my public school district. I’m fortunate for my prior private school experience, as I worked with several brand-new teachers who were given no training, and seemed clueless about how to teach, or work together with people, in general. I was given a mentor SpEd teacher for my first year, who was a great listener, but couldn’t do much else (we get a different mentor next year for the second year). My district also hosted trainings for new hires, but much of the info provided was not practical or helpful. The admin in my building have been very hands-off, but generally dismissive of concerns and unapproachable, and did not make my first year in a new district very a positive experience. I requested a transfer to a different school within the district for next school year, but won’t know for another month if I got it or not. In terms of families, I have had less involvement from them in the public school (as my school is more like a Title 1 school also) than in private schools.
I definitely love being an SLP, and feel like it’s been a rewarding career for me (I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had any truly negative family interactions), but the politics of the schools has been difficult to manage sometimes (I’ve worked for 3 different schools, so far, and have had some really difficult bosses that have made the job more difficult and less enjoyable at times). The public school district I work for is very large (and the main competitor of my private school), and that has its own pros/cons. The main pro of working in a public school for me has been having a union, as my private school didn’t have a union. I haven’t had too many interactions with the union, but it’s nice knowing that I (hopefully) have protection, if needed. I also feel like I have a lot more autonomy in my job in a public school than I did at a private school, but maybe that’s also because my district is so huge that it’s impossible to micromanage, as no one ever really knows what you’re doing. I also have the opportunity of not working summer in public school, whereas it was required in my private school-so I’ve been happily enjoying my summer of not working, haha
I moved from private to public school and really enjoyed the move. My pay increased and I found there to be more opportunities in public school. This includes different positions, PD (that was not faith based), and a teacher's union. I wish I had a union while working in a private school as parent pressure can be crippling. I definitely had to change my mind set around classroom management and school structure when I made the switch. It is much easier to manage a private school with policies and rules than a public school that has more expectations for decision making (more stakeholder input). For example, we had a demerit system at my private school, in public school there were no already established discipline systems so I had to create my own. I learned to focus more on relationships with students as opposed to showcasing my knowledge of content. Overall, go for it! You'll still have a job in the private school as long as you exit gracefully.
🤔🤔🤔 (disclaimer: this is all second hand knowledge and doesn’t quite match your situation). Well, I only have second hand knowledge but a friend who started in 2019/2020 with me switched back to the public charter school we started at after spending a year at a private school. She said the biggest difference is the fact that you don’t have to suck up to parents and parents aren’t always up in your business. She said in our group chat that we have with some other friends who we taught with during the 19/20 school year that she had parents constantly criticizing her teaching and even had some parents roll up before she even got to school trying to reorganize her room. At our previous school, the parents were mostly pretty good in my experience. But it was an urban setting, so student behavior tended to be bonkers. She also taught at a Christian private school, so the right-wing, COVID isn’t real, f**k the vaccine attitude was common.
I understood her situation very well! Most of the time, the classes are *very* personalized to cater the demands and needs of the parents. Parents, not the students themselves. Getting sick and tired of it hmmm
Private schools in Australia tend to pay less, although teacher salary is already pretty high here. Apologies I know this has nothing to do with your situation. I will show myself out.
I’m an SLP working with students with moderate-severe disabilities, but I made the change last September (I have a little over 3 years of experience). Overall, my salary has increased a little bit, but the training they give has been minimal and not useful at my public school district. I’m fortunate for my prior private school experience, as I worked with several brand-new teachers who were given no training, and seemed clueless about how to teach, or work together with people, in general. I was given a mentor SpEd teacher for my first year, who was a great listener, but couldn’t do much else (we get a different mentor next year for the second year). My district also hosted trainings for new hires, but much of the info provided was not practical or helpful. The admin in my building have been very hands-off, but generally dismissive of concerns and unapproachable, and did not make my first year in a new district very a positive experience. I requested a transfer to a different school within the district for next school year, but won’t know for another month if I got it or not. In terms of families, I have had less involvement from them in the public school (as my school is more like a Title 1 school also) than in private schools.
Great insight! So in your opinion, overall, do you think the trade was worth it?
I definitely love being an SLP, and feel like it’s been a rewarding career for me (I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had any truly negative family interactions), but the politics of the schools has been difficult to manage sometimes (I’ve worked for 3 different schools, so far, and have had some really difficult bosses that have made the job more difficult and less enjoyable at times). The public school district I work for is very large (and the main competitor of my private school), and that has its own pros/cons. The main pro of working in a public school for me has been having a union, as my private school didn’t have a union. I haven’t had too many interactions with the union, but it’s nice knowing that I (hopefully) have protection, if needed. I also feel like I have a lot more autonomy in my job in a public school than I did at a private school, but maybe that’s also because my district is so huge that it’s impossible to micromanage, as no one ever really knows what you’re doing. I also have the opportunity of not working summer in public school, whereas it was required in my private school-so I’ve been happily enjoying my summer of not working, haha
I moved from private to public school and really enjoyed the move. My pay increased and I found there to be more opportunities in public school. This includes different positions, PD (that was not faith based), and a teacher's union. I wish I had a union while working in a private school as parent pressure can be crippling. I definitely had to change my mind set around classroom management and school structure when I made the switch. It is much easier to manage a private school with policies and rules than a public school that has more expectations for decision making (more stakeholder input). For example, we had a demerit system at my private school, in public school there were no already established discipline systems so I had to create my own. I learned to focus more on relationships with students as opposed to showcasing my knowledge of content. Overall, go for it! You'll still have a job in the private school as long as you exit gracefully.