what does 'flexible scheduling' for DC teachers mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. Sorry. It’s 2023. This tired, stale excuse is expired. Try again.

you don’t get to fiat it out of existence.

+1

There are reports coming out on the regular about how children in DC are still impacted by pandemic learning losses caused by s extended school closures. It’s embarrassing that people are ignoring this impact ON CHILDREN.

No one is ignoring this but do you think staffing shortages (teachers, social workers, speech pathologists, aides, etc) have zero impact on children?
We will never be able to fill a gap with staffing shortages or teachers who are so burnt out they aren't giving their best anymore.

You really can't sit here and say 'it's only about children,' because for school staff it is still a job. This is what teachers mean by we are not martyrs, we cannot help our students if we don't have the capacity or means to do so. You must also have known many school budgets were cut and now schools must excess 1-6 staff members.

It’s execrable that you are pulling this again. Stop holding kids hostage. Parents are in favor of more support for teachers, but NOT less classroom time for our kids. Come up with other solutions.

You didn't answer the question or comment on what I said.

How are you going to retain teachers or make up for staffing shortages?

If you don't think this is an issue, you don't care about children. You only care about pretending to be sanctimonious.

Also just an FYI many countries have less classroom time than we do and their schooling is better.
Some countries have much more than we do and STILL aren't doing any better.

I am also not for any remote or virtual days or a 4 days school week. That's not even on the table. But I am for one day a week ending the school day at 1:30pm or 2pm.

[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.

What are you talking about? This is true of every white-collar job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What are you talking about? This is true of every white-collar job.

Really? When my programmer friends take off a day sick they are not expected to provide detailed plans for another unrelated person to continue writing their code. They just pick up where they left off when they returned. When my friends in HR take off they don’t need to leave detailed plans for a random person to read applications for them for the day. When my dentist is out sick my appointment is rescheduled. When I held a non-teaching admin job at my school I could take off and pick everything up the day I returned. I’m not saying there is no pressure not to take off in other jobs. I’m not saying you might not face scrutiny if you take off too much. I’m not saying it might not be hard to take off if you have a deadline looming. But what job do you need to put together detailed plans for someone you’ve never met to do your actual job for the day if you need to take a day off? And yes I know many teachers leave nothing or super crappy plans for the sub but let’s assume we are talking about a teacher trying to set up a decent day for their students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

What are you talking about? This is true of every white-collar job.

Really? When my programmer friends take off a day sick they are not expected to provide detailed plans for another unrelated person to continue writing their code. They just pick up where they left off when they returned. When my friends in HR take off they don’t need to leave detailed plans for a random person to read applications for them for the day. When my dentist is out sick my appointment is rescheduled. When I held a non-teaching admin job at my school I could take off and pick everything up the day I returned. I’m not saying there is no pressure not to take off in other jobs. I’m not saying you might not face scrutiny if you take off too much. I’m not saying it might not be hard to take off if you have a deadline looming. But what job do you need to put together detailed plans for someone you’ve never met to do your actual job for the day if you need to take a day off? And yes I know many teachers leave nothing or super crappy plans for the sub but let’s assume we are talking about a teacher trying to set up a decent day for their students.

I'm surprised no one has discussed the major flexibility that doesn't exist in teaching: going to the bathroom when you need to. I get that you can't just leave in the middle of a client meeting, and a doctor can't just walk out in the middle of an appointment. But I literally cannot go to the bathroom for hours at a time. If it's an emergency, I need to call the office, and then wait 15-20 minutes for someone to come cover my class. I fully accept that this is part of the job, and this isn't intended as a complaint. But it's definitely an example of inflexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. Sorry. It’s 2023. This tired, stale excuse is expired. Try again.

you don’t get to fiat it out of existence.

+1

There are reports coming out on the regular about how children in DC are still impacted by pandemic learning losses caused by s extended school closures. It’s embarrassing that people are ignoring this impact ON CHILDREN.

No one is ignoring this but do you think staffing shortages (teachers, social workers, speech pathologists, aides, etc) have zero impact on children?
We will never be able to fill a gap with staffing shortages or teachers who are so burnt out they aren't giving their best anymore.

You really can't sit here and say 'it's only about children,' because for school staff it is still a job. This is what teachers mean by we are not martyrs, we cannot help our students if we don't have the capacity or means to do so. You must also have known many school budgets were cut and now schools must excess 1-6 staff members.

It’s execrable that you are pulling this again. Stop holding kids hostage. Parents are in favor of more support for teachers, but NOT less classroom time for our kids. Come up with other solutions.

You didn't answer the question or comment on what I said.

How are you going to retain teachers or make up for staffing shortages?

If you don't think this is an issue, you don't care about children. You only care about pretending to be sanctimonious.

Also just an FYI many countries have less classroom time than we do and their schooling is better.
Some countries have much more than we do and STILL aren't doing any better.

I am also not for any remote or virtual days or a 4 days school week. That's not even on the table. But I am for one day a week ending the school day at 1:30pm or 2pm.

Well how do they make it better? I think this has a lot to do with the specific case of DC with significant percentage of kids in poverty and/ or other challenges. Which is to say, maybe things should be tailored to the individual circumstances here, which means including the parents in decionmaking.

[Anonymous]

Former DC teacher here and never realized how good i had it. I still work 60+ hours a week in my new field, but have no summers off to look forward to. While my job is fully remote, the workload, meetings, and demands are simply not comparable. For what it's worth my salary is about the same as it was teaching.

Teaching is hard, but so are A LOT of other DC jobs. I'm actually considering going back to the classroom...something I never thought I'd want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former DC teacher here and never realized how good i had it. I still work 60+ hours a week in my new field, but have no summers off to look forward to. While my job is fully remote, the workload, meetings, and demands are simply not comparable. For what it's worth my salary is about the same as it was teaching.

Teaching is hard, but so are A LOT of other DC jobs. I'm actually considering going back to the classroom...something I never thought I'd want to do.

Well the good news is there are going to be plenty of openings for you.

[Anonymous]

Teachers never seem to be aware of how benefits work outside of the teaching profession.

How much do teachers pay for their health insurance?

How much do teachers pay for their retirement? In DCPS, it is 8%.

What do teachers get for their retirement? Suppose a teacher worked from 25-65. They'd earn more than 75% of their salary as a defined benefit retirement package. Find me a private sector job in which you received 75% of your salary in retirement from just this one prong? (https://dcrb.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcrb/publication/attachments/SPD_Teachers_Plan_2017_Final_6-5-2018.pdf)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers never seem to be aware of how benefits work outside of the teaching profession.

How much do teachers pay for their health insurance?

How much do teachers pay for their retirement? In DCPS, it is 8%.

What do teachers get for their retirement? Suppose a teacher worked from 25-65. They'd earn more than 75% of their salary as a defined benefit retirement package. Find me a private sector job in which you received 75% of your salary in retirement from just this one prong? (https://dcrb.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcrb/publication/attachments/SPD_Teachers_Plan_2017_Final_6-5-2018.pdf)

I'm wrong: the retirement is actually better than that: 2% of salary for each year of service. This is for a defined benefit plan and doesn't include any voluntary saving or social security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers never seem to be aware of how benefits work outside of the teaching profession.

How much do teachers pay for their health insurance?

How much do teachers pay for their retirement? In DCPS, it is 8%.

What do teachers get for their retirement? Suppose a teacher worked from 25-65. They'd earn more than 75% of their salary as a defined benefit retirement package. Find me a private sector job in which you received 75% of your salary in retirement from just this one prong? (https://dcrb.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcrb/publication/attachments/SPD_Teachers_Plan_2017_Final_6-5-2018.pdf)

What does this have to do with the discussion on flexible scheduling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers never seem to be aware of how benefits work outside of the teaching profession.

How much do teachers pay for their health insurance?

How much do teachers pay for their retirement? In DCPS, it is 8%.

What do teachers get for their retirement? Suppose a teacher worked from 25-65. They'd earn more than 75% of their salary as a defined benefit retirement package. Find me a private sector job in which you received 75% of your salary in retirement from just this one prong? (https://dcrb.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcrb/publication/attachments/SPD_Teachers_Plan_2017_Final_6-5-2018.pdf)

What does this have to do with the discussion on flexible scheduling?

Everything in life is tradeoffs. You cannot complain about a bad thing without properly judging it as penance for a good thing.

Yes, your schedule is inflexible. But it also includes relatively lavish retirement benefits, summers off, and other perks.

Likewise, cops and military can retire at 20 years with full benefits (instead of the more common 30 years). This isn't some perk-from-nowhere; it is compensation for a job in which they risk their lives and undergo physical hardship.

So, generous retirement has everything to do with inflexible daily schedules since a job is a package of attributes, not just some random things cobbled together without a connection to each other.

[Anonymous]

I'm very concerned that "flexible scheduling" means a 4-day week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers never seem to be aware of how benefits work outside of the teaching profession.

How much do teachers pay for their health insurance?

How much do teachers pay for their retirement? In DCPS, it is 8%.

What do teachers get for their retirement? Suppose a teacher worked from 25-65. They'd earn more than 75% of their salary as a defined benefit retirement package. Find me a private sector job in which you received 75% of your salary in retirement from just this one prong? (https://dcrb.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcrb/publication/attachments/SPD_Teachers_Plan_2017_Final_6-5-2018.pdf)

What does this have to do with the discussion on flexible scheduling?

Everything in life is tradeoffs. You cannot complain about a bad thing without properly judging it as penance for a good thing.

Yes, your schedule is inflexible. But it also includes relatively lavish retirement benefits, summers off, and other perks.

Likewise, cops and military can retire at 20 years with full benefits (instead of the more common 30 years). This isn't some perk-from-nowhere; it is compensation for a job in which they risk their lives and undergo physical hardship.

So, generous retirement has everything to do with inflexible daily schedules since a job is a package of attributes, not just some random things cobbled together without a connection to each other.

Considering teachers are not making it 10+ years in the field, maybe this retirement benefit isn't as big of a carrot as you think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers never seem to be aware of how benefits work outside of the teaching profession.

How much do teachers pay for their health insurance?

How much do teachers pay for their retirement? In DCPS, it is 8%.

What do teachers get for their retirement? Suppose a teacher worked from 25-65. They'd earn more than 75% of their salary as a defined benefit retirement package. Find me a private sector job in which you received 75% of your salary in retirement from just this one prong? (https://dcrb.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcrb/publication/attachments/SPD_Teachers_Plan_2017_Final_6-5-2018.pdf)

What does this have to do with the discussion on flexible scheduling?

Everything in life is tradeoffs. You cannot complain about a bad thing without properly judging it as penance for a good thing.

Yes, your schedule is inflexible. But it also includes relatively lavish retirement benefits, summers off, and other perks.

Likewise, cops and military can retire at 20 years with full benefits (instead of the more common 30 years). This isn't some perk-from-nowhere; it is compensation for a job in which they risk their lives and undergo physical hardship.

So, generous retirement has everything to do with inflexible daily schedules since a job is a package of attributes, not just some random things cobbled together without a connection to each other.

Considering teachers are not making it 10+ years in the field, maybe this retirement benefit isn't as big of a carrot as you think it is.

Au contraire: average number of years of teaching experience is about 15 years. See https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/ruraled/tables/tablea3_8.asp

[Anonymous]

One of my kid’s teachers has taken about the same amount of time off as I have this school year, including a couple of long weekends for travel. She also sets really good boundaries with parents and seems pretty confident and happy. I guess this is unusual in DCPS?

IMO, before more flexibility is even possible, DCPS needs more teachers. Or community partners or something. I keep seeing a $20k signing bonus advertised for police officers. How about we start with something like that?