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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a question for the teachers of this forum. It seems clear that a reason for job dissatisfaction is the demand for teachers to work beyond their contracted hours. Does that mean that the expectation is that all of a teacher's work should be accomplished during the regular work day?

In my county, the teachers' contract calls for a 7-hour, 35-minute work day which includes a 30-minute duty free lunch. If the expectation is that all work can be done during the contracted hours, does that mean that teachers are only expected to work 7 hours per day?  [/quote]

The problem is it takes 3-4 hours of work to prepare for that 7 hours, especially if you are a newer teacher. You don’t actually get time AT work to complete your work. I get 42 minutes to myself each day to plan all my lessons, grade all my assignments, contact my parents, respond to emails, complete required trainings, plan for committee meetings, meet with committees, etc.  The remaining 6 hours of my day are directly in front of students. I may get to sit at my desk for 2-3 minutes at a time, but that is rare and I can’t actually complete any of my tasks when students are in the room with me. That 42 minutes needs to actually be 3-4 hours. Since it isn’t, I get a tremendous backlog of work. That’s why I work 6 days a week, with Saturday being my “catch-up” day from home. Usually it’s 10-12 hours, so I spend almost every Saturday in my home office completing what I didn’t have time to do during the work day. I often can’t do it after school because I have an obligation to run one club, help with parking duty, and run tutoring. When I do get home, usually 2 hours after my contracted time, I have to check in on my own family.

This is why I am dissatisfied. I think many teachers would feel better if our time in front of students was scaled back to give us more time for the other 50% of our job.

- Signing off to start working. I attended 6 hours of meetings today, so received no time to prepare for the school year [/quote]

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