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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  I'm shocked at how many people think chronic teacher absenteeism is none of my business.  I agree the reason for her absences is personal and not my business, but it seems clear that this teacher is determined to do the bare minimum so I want to know what the bare minimum is so I can hold the administration accountable.

Not only is she chronically absent, she told the students that she will not respond to any email nor grade any papers outside of mandatory school hours - and she is sticking to it.  When I asked her about the curriculum for the year (she is new to the grade) she acknowledged that she did not know what it is but will be learning as she goes, so clearly she did no prep over the summer. She regularly does not make lesson plans for the substitutes because her absences are unplanned and she does not do any work out of school hours.  This week all of her classes started the week-long in-class test a day late because she was absent on Monday and had made no arrangements for the sub to start the test.  She is way behind on entering her grades into Aspen.  She is the only teacher on the team who regularly has a blank on the team weekly newsletter.  She has already been absent more than 12 days of the year.  Seems to me like she is dipping below the minimum but I wasn't sure.

I'm probably spoiled by so many amazing Deal teachers who clearly love teaching, are dedicated to their students and go above and beyond. Because when you have a teacher who is not interested or able to put in the necessary time and effort, it really has a detrimental effect on the student experience.  [/quote]

She might already plan to leave at the end of the year.

That said, this is a perfect example of DCUM’s inability to agree with itself: on one hand DCUM says teachers don’t NEED to take wok home. It can all be done during work hours and anything else is the teacher’s choice. On the other hand, here is a parent complaining that the teacher dares to not grade or email outside of work hours. [/quote]

All good and great teachers' work cannot be done during work hours. That is true of many professional jobs. The difference for good and great teachers is that to be good or great, it's an ever challenging, ever ending daily deluge of work after work hours. Children can always use more. You can deliver the regular curriculum but there are always kids who don't get it or get it much quicker than others. You need to find ways to reach them too and that requires spending time modifying lessons, looking at data, preparing for their interests. Plus meeting with parents, administrators, grade level teams, coaches. Sometimes the meetings are endless.

But.. like in other professions, there are people who just don't give a sh**. They take off without notice, won't stay a minute longer than their paid hours, and won't participate with other educators in any of the planning needed to have a really good school. These teachers can bounce from school to school because DC is so desperate to hire teachers. When they burn all their bridges in DCPS, they can go to the charters or to one of the other counties.

Every teacher is not a good one nor wants to be. Most are great, but we've got a few rotten eggs too. [/quote]

Teaching has all the education requirements of a white collar job with the respect and treatment of a blue collar one. Actually, that's not even true because blue collar workers get overtime. Having breaks and holidays off has no bearing on what we're supposed to do if something unexpected happens throughout the school year. Sick kid? This will also count against your "Core Professionalism" score. You aren't sponsoring any after school activities this year? That's going to count against your "Commitment to School Community (CSC)" score. Signed in two minutes late (a full 43 minutes before first bell)? That's one full hour of leave. Your lesson was amazing, but I had to take off points because one kid in the class couldn't tell me what the objective was.

There are a lot of professions where going above and beyond is the status quo, but you'd be hard pressed to find one that didn't require so much and yet provide no form of annual bonus or merit-based pay increase. IMPACT is an all or nothing Everest with most people never reaching the summit. There isn't much incentive to go above and beyond. "Do it for the kids" gets stale and difficult once you have kids of your own. You'll get 100% out of me while I'm at work, but I'm leaving at 3:30 to go home and help my children with their homework, eat dinner, and be a parent. [/quote]

Fine, but a stable classroom starts with the same teacher being present daily.  Whatever helps that, we support.[/quote]

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