All these days off...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher and I love the 4-day weeks, but I wish it was 4 days in a row instead of having a Tuesday or Thursday off. Anyway, studies have shown that a 4-day week has a lot of benefits. And trust me, your kids aren't learning that much in school anyway. Most of them just really need more sleep.

Citation needed for this, particularly at the elementary level.

Or you could, you know, Google it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

Haven't these teachers had enough days off though to do said grading?

I am done with the excuses! Grading is essential to getting a basic education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

What do you call all these days off they've had? That's time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher and I love the 4-day weeks, but I wish it was 4 days in a row instead of having a Tuesday or Thursday off. Anyway, studies have shown that a 4-day week has a lot of benefits. And trust me, your kids aren't learning that much in school anyway. Most of them just really need more sleep.

Citation needed for this, particularly at the elementary level.

Or you could, you know, Google it.

Google says elementary students need routine and repetition, but I thought perhaps an “educator” had a different resource, and knew the importance or citing sources. No wonder our children’s scores are falling with teachers like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

Haven't these teachers had enough days off though to do said grading?

I am done with the excuses! Grading is essential to getting a basic education.

Yes, it is essential!! So essential that teachers should be given WORK time to get it done.

Teachers are increasingly not willing to be martyrs. I am a martyr, but I’m getting a ton of pressure not to be. I perform well, but it takes me 7 full work days a week to do that. I put in two full work days this weekend. My coworkers are increasingly angry at me because I am the reason we’ll never get the workload fixed; as long as there are people like me, the system will continue to abuse teachers. And I’m starting to see it their way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This calendar is an embarrassment!! The School Board needs to be fired. We are looking at weeks on end of 4 day school.

How have we come to accept this for our children? For our community?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

What do you call all these days off they've had? That's time.

Do you mean these recent school holidays? Those are not days teachers are paid, they are not teacher workday or staff development days; so as the PP mentioned, teachers are not working on them.

[Anonymous]

I remember my son had a Jewish teacher who took off on one of the Jewish holidays before they were mandatory days off…and he gave the class a quiz. Make it make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember my son had a Jewish teacher who took off on one of the Jewish holidays before they were mandatory days off…and he gave the class a quiz. Make it make sense.

Make it make sense that you remember this? Who remembers the specific days a teacher has a sub and days the class got a quiz from over 5-6 years ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember my son had a Jewish teacher who took off on one of the Jewish holidays before they were mandatory days off…and he gave the class a quiz. Make it make sense.

What are you talking about? The issue is the county was having trouble locating enough substitutes to cover the classes for the teachers that wanted to takeoff for the holiday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember my son had a Jewish teacher who took off on one of the Jewish holidays before they were mandatory days off…and he gave the class a quiz. Make it make sense.

What are you talking about? The issue is the county was having trouble locating enough substitutes to cover the classes for the teachers that wanted to takeoff for the holiday.

They’re making things up. FCPS has had the Jewish Holidays as observance days since 2017. So even the years prior to having off, they were not allowed to have tests, quizzes or introduce new materials.

No normal person would remember the day their kids teacher took a day off and had a quizzes from at least 7-8+ years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember my son had a Jewish teacher who took off on one of the Jewish holidays before they were mandatory days off…and he gave the class a quiz. Make it make sense.

What are you talking about? The issue is the county was having trouble locating enough substitutes to cover the classes for the teachers that wanted to takeoff for the holiday.

No. They did not.
They first had no jsutificaiton for taking those days off other than the Calendar Committee (comprised of multiple religious groups mainly) recommended it. When the SB pushed back to question the legality of that and need for it they were tasked with pulling absentee data for those days and others. Unfortunately it didn't really show there was a problem. As i recall the absentee rates never seemed to rise above 5% except if it was a date otherwise kids would be out for (eg Fridays in late May or early June; wrapping with a long weekend where the Monday was a federal holiday, etc).

So then in the end they simply asserted - during the Covid return year i think in 2021 - that they were having trouble getting enough subs overall so therefore all these days were needed. No justification by data at all that specific days were the ones where subs were insufficient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

What do you call all these days off they've had? That's time.

Do you mean these recent school holidays? Those are not days teachers are paid, they are not teacher workday or staff development days; so as the PP mentioned, teachers are not working on them.

This is the key issue. Teachers work contract hours and no more- they’re not professionals in the sense that professionals get their work done and don’t just clock out based on work hours. And not all professionals are highly paid. Many local government and nonprofit and other public interest workers are not highly paid but do want to get the job done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If teachers are working 70hrs/week grading, can someone explain to me why my child has no grades entered into SIS for English and History?

+1. No grades in Civics. It’s almost October.

As I posted above: you may have a teacher who isn’t going to work more than their paid hours. Some teachers will work dutifully during the school day, but they aren’t willing to give their nights and weekends to the job anymore. There’s a growing argument that those of us who are willing to work around the clock are actually enabling school systems, who then expect even more blood from stone.

My own kids have high school teachers who haven’t put grades in. I get it, and I can’t fault them. Sure, it’s annoying. But if we want grading done in a timely manner, then we need to provide time at work to get it done.

What do you call all these days off they've had? That's time.

Do you mean these recent school holidays? Those are not days teachers are paid, they are not teacher workday or staff development days; so as the PP mentioned, teachers are not working on them.

This is the key issue. Teachers work contract hours and no more- they’re not professionals in the sense that professionals get their work done and don’t just clock out based on work hours. And not all professionals are highly paid. Many local government and nonprofit and other public interest workers are not highly paid but do want to get the job done.

Good for them. As you mentioned, many teachers are drawing the line on giving up their free/family time and trying to prioritize a work/life balance.