Reply to Teacher workdays/school planning are ridiculous!

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Reply to "Teacher workdays/school planning are ridiculous!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

You sound ignorant. You don't have a clue what's asked of teachers. Also school isn't daycare figure out your parenting.[/quote]

Shouldn’t you be grading some papers instead of arguing with parents on here? Since you’re so overloaded and all?[/quote]

I'm a DP, but I am also a teacher.

Let's be honest: if you don't teach, you ARE ignorant of the demands of teaching. That's not an insult. Ignorance is literally defined as lacking knowledge or awareness about a particular subject. Therefore, if you haven't taught you DON'T actually know what is demanded of teachers. And again: that's not an insult.

But is IS insulting when you come here and belittle a job you know little about.

So when teachers try to explain to you why we need planning time, this is an opportunity for you to learn about something you're unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, posters on this site label comments from teachers as "complaining" or "arguing" when it's simply "explaining." I see it all the time. It's why teachers become defensive, because their words are misconstrued and dismissed at almost every turn by people who are ignorant. (Again: not an insult.)

So, I'll take your advice and go grade papers. That's far more productive than posting here considering these trends.[/quote]

I am not going to out myself on here, but rest assured, I know the demands of your job because I used to live in a household with a teacher and my own job carries some of the same demands. I also know the demands of other people’s jobs where they are under tremendous pressure to show consistently excellent performance or they will be fired. Being a great teacher is really hard. It’s a thankless job and you have to bring a lot of work home with you if you’re doing it right. But it’s also true that it comes with a lot of job security. Mediocre and lazy teachers can sit in their jobs for years and the worst thing that happens to them is they get moved to a different school. Right now there are a lot of parents who feel like they are barely hanging onto their jobs and this calendar is really not helping.[/quote]

The majority of those parents get paid considerably more than teachers. Enough with the false equivalence. Hire a f—king babysitter.[/quote]

I'd prefer better pay for teachers, particuarly when FCPS salaries are compared to surrounding jurisdictions but....

Teacher pay is for a less than full year so its not an apples to apples comparasion. Scale it for an equivlent amount of time and the ~60k starting salary in FCPS jumps much closer to entry level engineering pay.[/quote]

Nope. That’s not how salaries work.

(Also, I made that as an entry level engineer in the area over 20 GD years ago. It’s laughable to defend these miserly salaries for professionals in one of the wealthiest areas of the country.)[/quote]

You are paid based off a set of contracted hours for 195 days which occur over a 10 month period. Yes, you are salaried, and yes you have had the option in prior years to be paid 10 months or 12 months out of the year.   You are not however working the same number of days per year as a full time employee in most other professions given both the 2 months off for summer + 30 holidays this year  (not including 14 sick with 6 as regular leave days) which accounts for some of the pay differential unless you are on the 260 day scale.

A starting salary of 61k with a BS.
https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/fy26-teacher-195-day.pdf

If other professional jobs have 260 days worked  (including 10 federal holidays so a 260 day calendar), then we can scale a starting engineering salary of 72k by 75%(195/260) and we  get 54k. Meaning that starting teacher pay is inline with starting engineering pay for an equivlent number of days worked and in fact higher.

Now if we look at FCPS teacher pay for260 days its actually lines up nearly to starting engineering pay at 74.4k.
https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/fy26-teacher-260-day.pdf

[/quote]

Teaching is a generously compensated part-time job. Teachers who want to feel like they are “equal“ in some way to other professionals, rarely think that they should work the same hours and time as those other professions. [/quote]

[b]Part time jobs are classified as being 20 hours or less a week[/b]. We are contracted 40 hours and often work more than that like many other salaries people. Claiming this is part time idiotic. [/quote]

By whoM? I understood part-time to mean fewer than 40 and certainly teachers work fewer than 40 hours over the 52 weeks of the year particularly given the 39 non-work days during the school year.[/quote]

Teacher here, wrapping up hour 11 today. I work 60 hour weeks consistently. Never fewer, often more:

195 days pay = 39 weeks of work
39 x 60 = 2,340 hours of work a year

Let's compare that to full time pay for a 50-week / year job:

39 weeks of work at 60 hours = 2,340 hours
50 weeks of work at 40 hours = 2,000 hours

Now, this is as bit simplistic. Maybe that employee also works more hours. And that's fine. The numbers change.

My point remains. I'm not part-time. I'm way over full-time. Way over.

And, to ward off the inevitable mean-spirited attacks: I'm not complaining. I choose to do this. But there's a lot of misinformation on this thread that needs to be corrected.

Back to work. I have tomorrow's lessons to plan.[/quote]

Your contract is for 40 hours. You work 40 hours for 39 weeks, 1,560 hours. If you worked 48 weeks per year (assuming the normal 20 days of PTO) you work 32.6 hours per week. You are a part time worker. Part time vs full time reflects the hours you’re paid for not the hours you work.

Your decision to work “always” 60 hours reflects choice or inefficiency, and doesn’t take into account all the days within the 39 work weeks during which you’re not teaching (this year if you’re in FCPS, thats over 20 days. Four weeks of work) either for unscheduled PTO for “weather” or planning and work days specifically set aside.

Being a part time worker isn’t a lesser caste. [/quote]

This is a dumb and pedantic argument.  No, teachers are not part-time workers.  [/quote]

I’m sorry math upsets you.

There is nothing at all wrong with being a part-time worker. So much of this discontent from teachers comes from signing up to be a teacher — to work only part of the year, to be given all of the school breaks, etc— and then being bitterly disappointed that the world doesn’t treat you like you’re an award-winning brain surgeon. Unrealistic and mismatched expectations are what caused the most disappointment in life..[/quote]

;) You are quite funny!  Look I teach pre-K and we have grown adults whose job it is to follow us around multiple times a year recording every facial expression, question, word, action and choice we make for 2-3 hours at a time.  This is part of a 10 million dollar contract (plus) from the commonwealth of VA. Those scores are then publicly posted. Do you know what they patterned this after tool after?  Protocol work done with surgeons. Do you know what they don’t publicly post?  Professional information about doctors professional second by second choices. 
So though I don’t think I’m an award-winning brain surgeon I have more scrutiny than they do. [/quote]

I don’t see your point? You are responsible for young children of course you should have scrutiny? Some prison guards are on camera 24-7 but I don’t often hear teachers say they want to be given the respect and deference of the correctional professionals.

The job you signed up for is the job you signed up for. Constantly comparing it in respect, perks, etc. to other jobs and finding it wanting means its either not a good fit or the expectations are t reasonable. Ranting about how everyone should give you more won’t fix it.[/quote]

??  I merely continued your comparison to surgeons. Did you know they operate on people and have people’s very life in their hands?  They are community helpers. They also have a board in charge of them and many layers of respect, but yet they don’t have their death or infection rates publicly posted in an easily searchable online portal.

I’m not ranting that “I need more.”  I”m just arguing with your “award-winning brain surgeon” comment because it shows how little you know.

Now, you are bringing up prison guards as you continue to compare teaching to other careers. Why do you keep doing that?

But hey, since you mention it.  We all know prison guard and police body cam footage can very easily be “lost.”  There are many examples just in the Epstein case…. The footage also isn’t rated in a publicly searchable online portal, it requires FOIA.

Which profession are you going to choose to compare next?[/quote]

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