1/2 day Wed for 2025-25 school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

I ask this kindly but what has changed in the over time? I don't recall near as many teacher work days when I was in elementary and the only early dismissals was the last day of school.

Not a teacher but I was briefly a monitor at an elementary school. The training required just for that job was annoying, and the load on teachers between state law and district policy is intense. Plus I believe they have a lot more useless meetings. Lots of webinars to watch that are merely FCPS or Virginia covering their rear ends so they can say "it's not our fault this person messed up, don't sue us, we made them watch training/go to a meeting!"

If we could get rid of that I imagine the planning could get done in planning time.

[Anonymous]

I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

This is the best idea. There's no reason that predictable and unencumbered planning time should be so difficult to achieve. Elementary days are already really long and 30 mins a day isn't a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

I ask this kindly but what has changed in the over time? I don't recall near as many teacher work days when I was in elementary and the only early dismissals was the last day of school.

Quite a bit has changed since the 80s/90s. Back then they just gave teachers textbooks and left them alone for the majority of the school year. Now there are so much micromanaging, and initiatives, and data collection with meetings - teaching is about 1/2 the actual workload.

+1
This is the problem. Teachers are now being asked to do the work of what should be at least two people vs just teach how they used to be able to when we were all in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

This is the best idea. There's no reason that predictable and unencumbered planning time should be so difficult to achieve. Elementary days are already really long and 30 mins a day isn't a big deal.

+1
Yes! Great idea!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

I ask this kindly but what has changed in the over time? I don't recall near as many teacher work days when I was in elementary and the only early dismissals was the last day of school.

Quite a bit has changed since the 80s/90s. Back then they just gave teachers textbooks and left them alone for the majority of the school year. Now there are so much micromanaging, and initiatives, and data collection with meetings - teaching is about 1/2 the actual workload.

+1
This is the problem. Teachers are now being asked to do the work of what should be at least two people vs just teach how they used to be able to when we were all in school.

When I started teaching two decades ago, I could get most of my work done during my 40-hour week.

Now I assume that none of my work can get done during those 40 hours. My planning occurs every evening. My grading occurs on Saturdays and Sundays. I work 7 days a week just to keep up now.

If I could reclaim some planning time at work, I could get my Saturdays back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

This is the best idea. There's no reason that predictable and unencumbered planning time should be so difficult to achieve. Elementary days are already really long and 30 mins a day isn't a big deal.

+1
Yes! Great idea!

You really think ending the ES day 30 minutes early every day -- or 2 1/2 hours of planning time a week -- won't be filled with more meetings?

[Anonymous]

Old, long retired teacher here.

We used to be given the materials and allowed to run with them. We called on our colleagues if we were having issues or needed some inspiration and ideas.

There was occasional training. But, nothing that required extra work. Report cards/parent conferences were pretty much up to us to complete.

I will say that we had way too many meanings prior to opening. Time that we hoped to use setting up our
classrooms. Other than that, we had the occasional faculty meeting, and, rarely some kind of training from above.

It worked pretty well. And, I taught Title I kids for several years.

I do remember being on a committee where we had to write "behavioral objectives" for social studies (No one paid attention to them. They were busywork. But, this was not a constant.

And, a principal who required detailed plans on our desk every day. (This was actually a positive thing for a new teacher. It was more to be sure that we were prepared than control of what we were teaching.)

It worked. The kids learned and, while, of course there was stress, it came from the work--not the paperwork.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

What can seriously get planned in 30 minutes every day? It takes 30 minutes to make copies for my classes in one day. 1/2 days are pointless. These kids are lower than low. They need consistent academic time more than we need planning time. And you know darn well we won’t plan. The students that need to be there on those 1/2 days usually do not even come to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

This is the best idea. There's no reason that predictable and unencumbered planning time should be so difficult to achieve. Elementary days are already really long and 30 mins a day isn't a big deal.

+1
Yes! Great idea!

You really think ending the ES day 30 minutes early every day -- or 2 1/2 hours of planning time a week -- won't be filled with more meetings?

Not if you don't schedule them. I'm sorry, but I'm in a meeting heavy environment and I block off 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon of focus time to work on deliverables because otherwise, I'm in constant meetings with people constantly bothering me and asking me questions. If I don't block off the time and tell people not to bother me, then I won't get things done. This is what you need to do. Like you tell your students, learn how to manage your time better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

What can seriously get planned in 30 minutes every day? It takes 30 minutes to make copies for my classes in one day. 1/2 days are pointless. These kids are lower than low. They need consistent academic time more than we need planning time. And you know darn well we won’t plan. The students that need to be there on those 1/2 days usually do not even come to school.

I don't understand what is going on here - do teachers want the half days or are they useless? I'm hearing both things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

But don’t all the disruptions during the school year count as planning time? There are many 4 day weeks only as is.

Do you mean the teacher workdays? All the holidays aren’t planning days. I think teachers would tell you that even with those days (often filled with meetings) that planning is still occurring outside of work hours.

So why are you complaining when I recommend cutting the school day by 30 minutes? That would give you 30 minutes a day within your contract hours to do work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

This is the best idea. There's no reason that predictable and unencumbered planning time should be so difficult to achieve. Elementary days are already really long and 30 mins a day isn't a big deal.

+1
Yes! Great idea!

You really think ending the ES day 30 minutes early every day -- or 2 1/2 hours of planning time a week -- won't be filled with more meetings?

Not if you don't schedule them. I'm sorry, but I'm in a meeting heavy environment and I block off 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon of focus time to work on deliverables because otherwise, I'm in constant meetings with people constantly bothering me and asking me questions. If I don't block off the time and tell people not to bother me, then I won't get things done. This is what you need to do. Like you tell your students, learn how to manage your time better.

You have the authority to do that. Teachers don’t.

We are told when to show up for parking lot duty. We are told when to do cafeteria duty. We are told when to do team meetings. Our schedules are given to us. There’s no “blocking out time” available to a teacher. We are either directly responsible for 28-30 students, in a meeting about those students, or assigned a duty to support the operations of the school.

We get our work done outside of school hours, which is the only unscheduled time we have.

If it helps: imagine if someone dictated 7 hours of your work day and you had to rely on the remaining 1 hour to get all of your work done. And that 1 hour is all you get to prep for the next 6 hours of presentations and to read the 70-100 pages those presentations produce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why we can't end school an 30 minutes early every day to fit in that planning time.

This is the best idea. There's no reason that predictable and unencumbered planning time should be so difficult to achieve. Elementary days are already really long and 30 mins a day isn't a big deal.

+1
Yes! Great idea!

You really think ending the ES day 30 minutes early every day -- or 2 1/2 hours of planning time a week -- won't be filled with more meetings?

Not if you don't schedule them. I'm sorry, but I'm in a meeting heavy environment and I block off 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon of focus time to work on deliverables because otherwise, I'm in constant meetings with people constantly bothering me and asking me questions. If I don't block off the time and tell people not to bother me, then I won't get things done. This is what you need to do. Like you tell your students, learn how to manage your time better.

You think teachers can block off time? For example, this past Monday after the students dismissed early. Do you think that time could be reserved for planning vs attending a scheduled meeting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we all have to quietly accept this utter garbage of a proposal if it extends to MS and HS?

I don't see how PP is getting that. If "this year were on Mondays, but for next school year we will be moving them to Wednesdays" then it refers to the ES early release. Nothing in the Superintendent's Weekly update says anything about extending them. I haven't watched the Superintendent Matters section to see if she said that - did anyone actually see that?

I asked the same thing earlier and I watched the Superintendent Matters video clip. I see no mention of MS and HS.