what does 'flexible scheduling' for DC teachers mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a bit lost as to what is being proposed wrt DC teachers and flexible scheduling.

e.g. here: https://wjla.com/news/local/dc-public-schools-dcps-teachers-leaving-turnover-problems-overworked-understaffed-violence-council-member-robert-white-introduces-bill-educator-retention-incentives-paid-mental-health-flexible-schedules-district-education

"White’s bill would require OSSE to establish a flexible scheduling pilot program and launch a task force that addresses compensation."

Does that just mean more subs? A 4-day week (ala this proposal: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-01-10-teaching-must-get-more-flexible-before-it-falls-apart)? More virtual?

Here is the bill here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rjlmk6awknfdlwz/Educator%20Retention%20for%20Student%20Success%20Act%20of%202023.pdf?dl=0

If you don't want to read the bill, you can read about it here:

https://www.washingtoninformer.com/new-legislation-tackles-teacher-retention-problem/

Amazingly, the article doesn't provide any details.

The bills says "Flexible schedule means a scheduling arrangement that allows for variation in the
educators’ instructional calendar and format on a daily, weekly, or yearly school schedule to enhance staff productivity while meeting students’ learning needs."

Yeah, so again: same question. What does 'flexible scheduling' mean? It could be anything from full virtual, to shortened days, to more subs to allow teachers to go to doctors' appoints, to a 4-day week.

Again, Robert White doesn't fail to disappoint.

"His co-introducers are: D.C. Council members Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3), Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) and Trayon White (D-Ward 8)."

Seems like a city wide coalition outside of Vincent Theis. I mean chuck Gray.

All right, so the entire Council seems generally anti-parent, per usual.

Very nuanced messaging from the gems of DCUM

[Anonymous]

It’s a no go for me too… teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teaching is by its nature not a flexible job. And teachers are usually free by 3:15 and all summer … not to mention three weeks of break during the school year.

Teaching is a very flexible job. Summer off, tons of school holidays, nice winter and spring breaks. They finish the day early enough to run errands and do appointments after work. Plus the planning periods during the work day to catch up. Lots of flexibility and perks.

[Anonymous]

This should help the underperforming schools...oh no wait. It won't.

[Anonymous]

I’m a teacher and have no idea what flexible scheduling is either. But school admin need to apply for the pilot and figure out what they want to flexibility to look like. This is a pilot- it will likely look different in every school that tries it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teaching is by its nature not a flexible job. And teachers are usually free by 3:15 and all summer … not to mention three weeks of break during the school year.

Teaching is a very flexible job. Summer off, tons of school holidays, nice winter and spring breaks. They finish the day early enough to run errands and do appointments after work. Plus the planning periods during the work day to catch up. Lots of flexibility and perks.

There are a lot of perks to teaching (and tons if hard work) but it is not flexible. It is one of the few jobs where you cannot take off without doing a ton of work to prepare for that absence (or deal with the consequences of your kids not learning and bring a mess for the sub). The summer off is great but I feel lucky my husband has a more flexible programming job. He winds up taking care of covering all sick kid days and random couple of hours off to meet plumber or similar things. It is really stressful to be absent as a teacher. We do have the school breaks but no flexibility in taking off. So yes- teachers get more days off than most but the job is not flexible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teaching is by its nature not a flexible job. And teachers are usually free by 3:15 and all summer … not to mention three weeks of break during the school year.

Teaching is a very flexible job. Summer off, tons of school holidays, nice winter and spring breaks. They finish the day early enough to run errands and do appointments after work. Plus the planning periods during the work day to catch up. Lots of flexibility and perks.

There are a lot of perks to teaching (and tons if hard work) but it is not flexible. It is one of the few jobs where you cannot take off without doing a ton of work to prepare for that absence (or deal with the consequences of your kids not learning and bring a mess for the sub). The summer off is great but I feel lucky my husband has a more flexible programming job. He winds up taking care of covering all sick kid days and random couple of hours off to meet plumber or similar things. It is really stressful to be absent as a teacher. We do have the school breaks but no flexibility in taking off. So yes- teachers get more days off than most but the job is not flexible.

+1

Well said. Lots of days off, lack of flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to find some other solutions besides two mental health days. Teachers have a solid amount of leave that can accrue. What they need to do is loosen the inflexibility of the hours. Some districts allow people to come in late or leave early if they have planning. You could offer to have two teachers split a position so they could go part time. I’d be open to those options during the years I have young kids or am of retirement age.

Our DCPS ES has teachers doing both those things.

This doesn’t seem to be the norm but should be. I can’t make a doctor’s appointment during my planning period without taking leave. A co worker had an emergency health situation and needed to get surgery. When they told my principal the first comment was ‘can you take a different day, we don’t have any subs’.

[Anonymous]

Here's a report from a teacher advocacy group in DC that lists a lot of models for what flexible scheduling could look like: https://www.weareempowered.org/flexiblescheduling.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teaching is by its nature not a flexible job. And teachers are usually free by 3:15 and all summer … not to mention three weeks of break during the school year.

Teaching is a very flexible job. Summer off, tons of school holidays, nice winter and spring breaks. They finish the day early enough to run errands and do appointments after work. Plus the planning periods during the work day to catch up. Lots of flexibility and perks.

Wow! All these years in this profession, and I never knew how good I had it! I have planning periods? Can you tell my admin and my students that? They just keep showing up and expecting me to do things. I can get my own stuff done after work? Great! Where should I drop off these crazy stacks of papers so they can grade themselves? Does this service also plan all my lessons for me?

I just wish you told me this before I spent my whole weekend grading.

[Anonymous]

I know in my county (not DCPS) they are starting to offer school based psychologists more flexibility. They can telework when they need to write reports. While this is very different then a classroom based position it shows steps that employees can be trusted to work at home and because there is a big school psych shortage, if something doesn't give then more people will jump ship.

As a teacher, I am hoping more flexibility means less meetings and more opportunities to telework at the end of the school day for the 45 minutes we are expected to stay. Either way I bring tons of work home so I would prefer to just do it at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's a report from a teacher advocacy group in DC that lists a lot of models for what flexible scheduling could look like: https://www.weareempowered.org/flexiblescheduling.html

I cannot believe the utter freakin’ nerve of that group. Four of their suggestions involve reducing instructional time for kids, when kids are still struggling to recover from the school closures. Seriously, stfu.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teaching is by its nature not a flexible job. And teachers are usually free by 3:15 and all summer … not to mention three weeks of break during the school year.

That’s nice. Irrelevant, but nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teaching is by its nature not a flexible job. And teachers are usually free by 3:15 and all summer … not to mention three weeks of break during the school year.

I’m so tired of hearing this. That simply means that at 3:15, I can pick my own time to do the extra 4 hours of work I still have to get done that day. (Kind of like weekends. I still have to work 10-12 hours, but I can actually pick which hours. Lucky me.) And summers? I figure that’s my break for the 60-70 hour weeks I’ve been working all year. Summer is the only time I can take care of my own needs: my own appointments, my rare chance to get to the gym, etc.

You have all summer off and 3 weeks during the year. If you don’t like the schedule that’s fine, but unless schools are going to increase staff time or decrease instructional time, it’s not feasible to make the job “flexible.” Presumably you chose teaching for a reason rather than a desk job.

Well, clearly the fact that this bill has made it this far proves that you don’t define what’s “feasible.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a nightmare for schools. How are they going to cover teachers regularly being out for half a day? My kid has an IEP and the teachers are legally required to be present for the meetings, and it's hard enough to coordinate coverage for that.

No
Ma’am. They are required to give input.
Schools had better start offering work settings that mirror the work from home perks.

Teach for an online school and you'll get "work from home perks."

Oh, STFU.