Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They get all the days when teachers are off, (think Diwali, Jewish holidays, etc.) plus 2 week winter break and 1 week spring break, all paid for. Teachers on the other hand, do not get paid during those breaks.

And this is not the norm for employees that accrue leave (as they do). This was new under Duran. Also- someone from central office is obviously on this thread. For every five I’ve met, any teacher does the work of four of them. Syphax is a s—t show, and, yes, teachers in APS are very pissed off about it.

School board should conduct a survey to ask teachers what they think of Syphax, if they actually care about teachers who are at the front line.

Syphax= Ivory Tower... the majority of Syphax people (look for the Rothy's) haven't been inside a school building in years, long before covid. Teachers are sick of them and all the trumped up busy work they throw at teachers in the schools. They certainly didn't come back to work when the rest of us did; Syphax is like a ghost town with a lot of them "working from home" and calling it in. The fact that they are given paid leave is sickening considering what is happening in understaffed, over capacity classrooms filled with highly stressed, needy students. Can't wait to be done with all of them. I hope they are reading this and get a clue how much they are despised.
Signed, longtime APS teacher

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They get all the days when teachers are off, (think Diwali, Jewish holidays, etc.) plus 2 week winter break and 1 week spring break, all paid for. Teachers on the other hand, do not get paid during those breaks.

And this is not the norm for employees that accrue leave (as they do). This was new under Duran. Also- someone from central office is obviously on this thread. For every five I’ve met, any teacher does the work of four of them. Syphax is a s—t show, and, yes, teachers in APS are very pissed off about it.

School board should conduct a survey to ask teachers what they think of Syphax, if they actually care about teachers who are at the front line.

Anonymous wrote:I want everyone here to be aware of this post from Facebook AEM Group written by an APS teacher:

12-month employees are those who work at central office (Syphax) holding administrative non-teacher positions.

Quote: "Twelve month employees are paid on a 260 day contract. Yet, this year for instance, there are 31 paid holidays lowering the days worked to 229 days (88% of their contract). Plus, 12 month employees are given, at a minimum,14 days of leave. If they take all of their leave, a 12 month employee will be paid for working 215 days of a 260 day contract. That is 83% of the time.

Quote: "12 month employees get 14 days of leave PLUS an additional day of leave for every year of service. So, a 20 year (12 month employee) gets 34 days of leave beyond the 31 paid Holidays"

Why does this matter? well, APS teachers are not given the same level of benefit as central office staff. No wonder Syphax headcount has skyrocketed, every department has a chief of some sort, plus director, assistant director, supervisor, assistant supervisor, specialist, admin assistants....whatnot

WE NEED MORE TEACHERS AND SMALLER CLASS SIZE, WE DO NOT NEED MORE CENTRAL OFFICE STAFF, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ONLY WORK LESS THAN 200 DAYS OUT OF THEIR 260-DAY CONTRACT.

I hope this gets every Arlington parents' attention, email your school board members to bring this to their attention.

Anonymous wrote:People in non-teacher jobs frequently work well over 40hrs/week and don't get paid for it. No, we don't have contracted hours, we're at will employees, but we get paid a fixed salary for 40 days a week. I usually work 45-50 hours a week.

Anonymous wrote:Why so many chiefs? What was wrong with the previous system? Under other administrations there didn’t use to be so many central office people. They all fit in one small building by the planetarium. As a tax payer, I am paying attention and am glad teachers are speaking up.

Anonymous wrote:Yes- I can personally think of many former school based staff (some good, some really not good) who have disappeared into Syphax. Its a cushy cushy job. It basically combines the benefit of a 'good' govt job with telework, flexible hours, generous leave, paid holidays, and then they were gifted the two week winter break and the one week spring break, plus all the new 'holidays'. It really makes being a 'curriculum specialist' a much much better job than being a classroom teacher.

I don't anymore, but sat on some of the aforementioned committees for several years- the committees are part of the problem here. You have all these advisory committees that need staff support. They push for more and more specialists at syphax. Look at the committee recommendations- they pretty much always have 'add another person' as a recommendation- e.g. we need a specialist to oversee immersion whose only job is to be 'curriculum support' for immersion. So you get a more and more bloated central office, and bigger and bigger classes with unfilled teacher positions.