Teacher workdays/school planning are ridiculous!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Memorial Day is not a religious holiday.

Fine, but the one right after? Are you kidding me?

I'm pretty excited about an extended Memorial Day. That one worked out well.

Me too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of two thoughts:

Yes, the calendar is too disjointed and it needs to be fixed.

But teachers need work days. If we want teachers to stay in the profession, they need to be granted time during the work week (even just occasionally) to get their work done. It shouldn’t be the expectation that nights and weekends belong to their jobs, too.

I have a demanding job. It has me on calls for a good portion of the day. This means I have to work outside of work hours to get my work done.

Teachers need to also use their time more efficiently. FCPS ES and MS have very little grading to do.

My kid is in 6th and our teacher grades a lot. I know since things get sent home. Many middle school kids are taking high school level classes. So I disagree that they have little grading to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of two thoughts:

Yes, the calendar is too disjointed and it needs to be fixed.

But teachers need work days. If we want teachers to stay in the profession, they need to be granted time during the work week (even just occasionally) to get their work done. It shouldn’t be the expectation that nights and weekends belong to their jobs, too.

I have a demanding job. It has me on calls for a good portion of the day. This means I have to work outside of work hours to get my work done.

Teachers need to also use their time more efficiently. FCPS ES and MS have very little grading to do.

Judging by the amount of quizzes, tests, and homework my middle schooler has, I disagree!!

+1

My child's ELA teacher grades and gives feedback on one or two (usually two) assignments every week. I know my child's class has 32 students. If all of the teacher's classes have 30-32 students, that's 150-300 things to grade every week.

My child's Math 7 Honors teacher writes to every student in their "math journal" every week. She also grades quizzes and tests, which all are handwritten. That's also probably 150-300 things to grade every week.

While the other classes don't seem to have as much grading, I doubt those teachers are sitting around wasting time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just messed up. We have a super short Q3. Teacher work day and school planning immediately after the spring break. 3 days days off in May to celebrate yet another religious holiday. This school year has been a disaster. These kids are barely in school.

There needs to be 1 TW per quarter. One. And follow federal holiday schedule, no religious stuff. FYI, not a Christian here, I don't care if you are closed on my religious holidays or not.

Will you promise not to complain if your kid’s teacher switches to all multiple choice assessments, and doesn’t get things in grade book? Or would you prefer if they put videos on the SMART board and graded at school?

I actually wouldn't mind multiple choice. As far as grade books - most of my DC' teachers didn't have anything for a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just messed up. We have a super short Q3. Teacher work day and school planning immediately after the spring break. 3 days days off in May to celebrate yet another religious holiday. This school year has been a disaster. These kids are barely in school.

There needs to be 1 TW per quarter. One. And follow federal holiday schedule, no religious stuff. FYI, not a Christian here, I don't care if you are closed on my religious holidays or not.

Will you promise not to complain if your kid’s teacher switches to all multiple choice assessments, and doesn’t get things in grade book? Or would you prefer if they put videos on the SMART board and graded at school?

I actually wouldn't mind multiple choice. As far as grade books - most of my DC' teachers didn't have anything for a month.

DP. So, just to confirm: you are okay with video instruction and multiple choice assessments, since that’s what it will take to get grading done quickly?

[Anonymous]

I’m a recently retired teacher. My spouse is a teacher. Other than the early dismissal days at the ES level, the number of workdays without students really hasn’t changed. Students have had 180 days for years. Teachers have had 195 contract days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just messed up. We have a super short Q3. Teacher work day and school planning immediately after the spring break. 3 days days off in May to celebrate yet another religious holiday. This school year has been a disaster. These kids are barely in school.

There needs to be 1 TW per quarter. One. And follow federal holiday schedule, no religious stuff. FYI, not a Christian here, I don't care if you are closed on my religious holidays or not.

Will you promise not to complain if your kid’s teacher switches to all multiple choice assessments, and doesn’t get things in grade book? Or would you prefer if they put videos on the SMART board and graded at school?

Jokes on you, that's already happened

[Anonymous]

Teachers have so much they need to do when not actually teaching. They need the work days. The county needs to decide to use the federal holidays as teacher work days or get rid of the cultural holidays in the calendar. TW days and federal holidays and cultural holidays are causing the scheduling issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a recently retired teacher. My spouse is a teacher. Other than the early dismissal days at the ES level, the number of workdays without students really hasn’t changed. Students have had 180 days for years. Teachers have had 195 contract days.

This year was an anomaly where students had 178 scheduled days and 17 workdays scheduled due to special elections. On top of that, they moved a TW that was traditionally held before the first day of school (Aug 8) and had it occur during the school year. So they had 11 TW/SP between the first and last days of school, when in a usual year they might have 7 or 8.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a recently retired teacher. My spouse is a teacher. Other than the early dismissal days at the ES level, the number of workdays without students really hasn’t changed. Students have had 180 days for years. Teachers have had 195 contract days.

This year was an anomaly where students had 178 scheduled days and 17 workdays scheduled due to special elections. On top of that, they moved a TW that was traditionally held before the first day of school (Aug 8) and had it occur during the school year. So they had 11 TW/SP between the first and last days of school, when in a usual year they might have 7 or 8.

That’s not how it was to start though, was it? Wasn’t it adjusted during the SY?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a recently retired teacher. My spouse is a teacher. Other than the early dismissal days at the ES level, the number of workdays without students really hasn’t changed. Students have had 180 days for years. Teachers have had 195 contract days.

This year was an anomaly where students had 178 scheduled days and 17 workdays scheduled due to special elections. On top of that, they moved a TW that was traditionally held before the first day of school (Aug 8) and had it occur during the school year. So they had 11 TW/SP between the first and last days of school, when in a usual year they might have 7 or 8.

That’s not how it was to start though, was it? Wasn’t it adjusted during the SY?

Correct. It was adjusted during the school year. The anomaly was that there were two special elections in the school year which resulted in 17 planning days when there would otherwise be 15, as you originally described.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a recently retired teacher. My spouse is a teacher. Other than the early dismissal days at the ES level, the number of workdays without students really hasn’t changed. Students have had 180 days for years. Teachers have had 195 contract days.

This year was an anomaly where students had 178 scheduled days and 17 workdays scheduled due to special elections. On top of that, they moved a TW that was traditionally held before the first day of school (Aug 8) and had it occur during the school year. So they had 11 TW/SP between the first and last days of school, when in a usual year they might have 7 or 8.

Two special elections—16 hours— should have been the death knell of early release.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of two thoughts:

Yes, the calendar is too disjointed and it needs to be fixed.

But teachers need work days. If we want teachers to stay in the profession, they need to be granted time during the work week (even just occasionally) to get their work done. It shouldn’t be the expectation that nights and weekends belong to their jobs, too.

I have a demanding job. It has me on calls for a good portion of the day. This means I have to work outside of work hours to get my work done.

Teachers need to also use their time more efficiently. FCPS ES and MS have very little grading to do.

What percentage of your 40 hours are you on the phone with a client. Don’t count anything else, like meeting with a colleague to plan a call, or reviewing information before a call. Also if the call is such that you can multitask, don’t include that.

40 hours?

As a professional, the expectation is far more than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of two thoughts:

Yes, the calendar is too disjointed and it needs to be fixed.

But teachers need work days. If we want teachers to stay in the profession, they need to be granted time during the work week (even just occasionally) to get their work done. It shouldn’t be the expectation that nights and weekends belong to their jobs, too.

I have a demanding job. It has me on calls for a good portion of the day. This means I have to work outside of work hours to get my work done.

Teachers need to also use their time more efficiently. FCPS ES and MS have very little grading to do.

What percentage of your 40 hours are you on the phone with a client. Don’t count anything else, like meeting with a colleague to plan a call, or reviewing information before a call. Also if the call is such that you can multitask, don’t include that.

40 hours?

As a professional, the expectation is far more than that.

DP. I see where that poster is going. How often, during your 40 hours in the workplace, are you actively participating in a call? And not one during which you can multitask.

You’re being asked because that PP is trying to draw a comparison between your calls and the 25-28 hours a week a teacher is actively presenting a lesson and can’t do other work.

We all work after hours. You were being asked how many hours during that initial 40 can you get your own work done vs being actively on a call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of two thoughts:

Yes, the calendar is too disjointed and it needs to be fixed.

But teachers need work days. If we want teachers to stay in the profession, they need to be granted time during the work week (even just occasionally) to get their work done. It shouldn’t be the expectation that nights and weekends belong to their jobs, too.

I have a demanding job. It has me on calls for a good portion of the day. This means I have to work outside of work hours to get my work done.

Teachers need to also use their time more efficiently. FCPS ES and MS have very little grading to do.

What percentage of your 40 hours are you on the phone with a client. Don’t count anything else, like meeting with a colleague to plan a call, or reviewing information before a call. Also if the call is such that you can multitask, don’t include that.

40 hours?

As a professional, the expectation is far more than that.

You said you are on calls a lot during “work hours” which I assume mean the first 40 hours, and therefore have a to work outside of “work hours”. So I am asking how many of those “work hours” are spent on calls.