To the DISer whose husband was looking for a teaching job

[Mrs. Bradbury]

Want to move to Rhode Island?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,587334,00.html?test=latestnews

 

[Hannathy]

I am thrilled beyond words that they backed up the superintendent! I was afraid they would cave. Now if more school districts followed suit we may get control of the schools again. Good for that superintendent!

 

[happily single]

I agree. The local news is reporting the story accurately, but I don't think the nationwide news is. Bottom line is the Superintendant wanted the teachers to commit to a few things (5 or 6 specific things) to help the students, such as spending ONE lunch period per week with the students and the teachers REFUSED. So I'm glad they are going to be let go; now teachers who actually want to teach and who are willing to work will have an opportunity.

 

[Tinkerbelle32]

Ok, I have to disagree here. Maybe I'm just not understanding the full story but as a teacher why should we give up any of our lunch breaks. That is our time to relax for 40 minutes, grade papers, make phone calls, use the bathroom, etc. If they are being expected to tutor after school, are they getting paid? Our teachers do. Teachers have more and more thrown onto their plates it seems like year after year, then we get less and less time to do it in. I'm curious to see other opinions.

 

[Hannathy]

I think when you are making $70,000 a year for approx 6 hrs of work every weekend and holiday off and a full 2 months of vacation and you are asked to work an addition 20-40 minutes a day you should be willing to do it. They weren't so now they get to see what the rest of the real world has been dealing with.

 

[okeydokey]

I think when you are making $70,000 a year for approx 6 hrs of work every weekend and holiday off and a full 2 months of vacation and you are asked to work an addition 20-40 minutes a day you should be willing to do it. They weren't so now they get to see what the rest of the real world has been dealing with.

Teachers don't work 6 hour days and get 2 full months off here at all. They start in the low 30s for salary.

 

[bumbershoot]

Wow:

Central Falls High has long been one of the worst-performing in Rhode Island.

Consider:

* Just 7 percent of 11th graders tested in the fall were proficient in math.
* Only 33 percent were proficient in writing.
* Just 55 percent were proficient in reading.
* In 2008, just 52 percent of students graduated within four years and 30 percent dropped out.


If I had a passel of kids and homeschooled them all, and had those as my stats by the time they all were in high school, why I do believe the state would want to chat with me!

On the other hand, I wonder why the teachers at the middle and elementary schools that feed into this high school get to keep their jobs....

 

[Callie]

Teachers don't work 6 hour days and get 2 full months off here at all. They start in the low 30s for salary.

My mom doesn't work just 6 hours a day, she's at school from 7am til at least 4pm every day, then you add in about an hour or two of paper grading 7 days a week. They need that lunch hour! If it was any other job, people would probably have an uproar against making people take this offer.

 

[Callie]

I just did the math....that's an extra 375 hours or so a year!

 

[Boston Tea Party]

I don't think that anyone would argue that nothing needs to change. I don't think, however, that taking away a meal period is acceptable. It reminds me of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It starts there, but where does it stop? Aren't meal breaks part of basic humane working conditions?

 

[Boston Tea Party]

My mom doesn't work just 6 hours a day, she's at school from 7am til at least 4pm every day, then you add in about an hour or two of paper grading 7 days a week. They need that lunch hour! If it was any other job, people would probably have an uproar against making people take this offer.

I don't know about your mom, Callie, but my lunch hour is actually a lunch "28 minutes."

 

[MM27]

My mom doesn't work just 6 hours a day, she's at school from 7am til at least 4pm every day, then you add in about an hour or two of paper grading 7 days a week. They need that lunch hour! If it was any other job, people would probably have an uproar against making people take this offer.

I don't work 6 hours a day either, but people that don't know like to use that as fuel to support their position. I also don't get a two month vacation in the summer. I get paid for 10 months. I don't get a paycheck in the summer. My contract runs from September 1st-June 30th and once I get that last check, the pay stops until September. If they take away my lunch too I'm going to have to have them install a toilet in my classroom because that's the only time during the day that I get to go. We can't deny a child from going out to use the bathroom but teachers don't need that luxury.

 

[marko]

Unfortunately it seems that many people believe that teachers "only work 6 hours a day, have summers off"... perhaps people should educate themselves on the actually demands and expectations within the teaching profession before they post replies. If teachers are expected to donate a lunch break one day a week, then why wouldn't we expect from all professions, including police officers, office workers, assistants, sales people, doctors, nurses, cashiers, hair dressers, dental assistants...

 

[MM27]

I don't know about your mom, Callie, but my lunch hour is actually a lunch "28 minutes."

Mine is a lunch "30 minutes" but by the time I walk the kids to the cafeteria, get them settled and then do the same thing in reverse, it becomes a lunch "15 minutes" But why should we think we are entitled to more?

 

[Boston Tea Party]

I don't work 6 hours a day either, but people that don't know like to use that as fuel to support their position. I also don't get a two month vacation in the summer. I get paid for 10 months. I don't get a paycheck in the summer. My contract runs from September 1st-June 30th and once I get that last check, the pay stops until September. If they take away my lunch too I'm going to have to have them install a toilet in my classroom because that's the only time during the day that I get to go. We can't deny a child from going out to use the bathroom but teachers don't need that luxury.

THANK YOU for writing this. Summer is not paid time off. I am not employed during those months. My contract ends on the last day of school and at that point I am no longer employed. I become employed again on the first contract day of the new year. If I want to be employed during the summer I have to apply to work summer school. It reminds me of the duck driver I talked to in Boston this summer. He doesn't get a winter vacation. He's not employed at that time. The ducks are closed.

I don't relish a "pile on" of any poster. I just think that people don't understand the demands of the job. It's a great job for me, but I am not sipping coffee watching kids play tiddly-winks six hours a day.

And my position on that super is that he is terribly short sighted and just cut off his nose despite his face.

 

[muscarello4]

I have now developed my "teacher bladder". I go when I leave for school at 7:20 and again when I get home around 5:00. No toilet needed for me. I fixed that problem. (People who don't teach don't really get it.) I honestly believe that EVERY parent would benefit from substituting just ONE day each year. It would be an eye opener, wouldn't it?

I LOVE my kids and LOVE what I do, but I certainly work more than 6 hours a day. I often have kids in my room before school and after school. I will give up my plan here and there to help a kid and have given up my lunch here and there. I refuse to have the district mandate me to give up my lunch once a week. Ridiculous!

 

[Took]

I agree with the teachers who have posted here. No one who hasn't taught, and taught effectively, understands or even believes in the demands of that profession. The super in R.I. is a fool and short-sighted, imho.

 

[defendthehill]

7:50-3:30 are my contracted hours of work. 30 minutes for lunch. My day normally runs from 7:30-4:30 (4:50 today when I left the school)

Here is some of what I had to do today:

1. Teach AP World History. Motivated students etc...can be great. Biggest difficulty is trying to teach the entire course before the first week of May. Why May instead of June? Well, the AP exam is the first week of May and the exam is about the entire course. Oh, sorry you don't have time to teach it all. And if your kids don't do well on the test, I guess you aren't doing your job.

2. I designed, adapted and modified test for World History and Sociology. Three versions. Many kids with IEP's. Some get extended time, some get modified answer choices, some get the test read to them due to reading difficulties, some have vocabulary issues, hand writing issues all of which I can not mark against them for. Some have ESL issues (English as a Second Language), some have speech and hearing issues and I am required to make eye contact with the student (who won't look at me) so they can read my lips when I speak.

3. Today I also had to deal with a situation that was shared with me from other students and an aid in the building. But a boy had inappropriately touched a girl in the building.

4. I also had another student hand me a note. In the note was a chronicle of her dreams over the last week. They were disturbing. I was required, by law, to discuss this issue with the administration of the school.

5. I am not underpaid. I have a master's degree. I have taught for 15 years. I make around 47,000 for teaching and around 3 grand for some extra curricular things that I do. The top of the pay scale where I am is around 57,000.

6. But what I do deserve is lunch.....without kids around. Sometimes I just want to get away from it for a few minutes. Sometimes I have to pee. Sometimes I have to email, call, or write handwritten notes home (oh that is required by my principal).

7. My job is not easy....yours isn't either. Sorry for the rant

 

[karinbelle]

I agree with the teachers who have posted here. No one who hasn't taught, and taught effectively, understands or even believes in the demands of that profession. The super in R.I. is a fool and short-sighted, imho.

Ｔｏｔａｌｌｙ　ａｇｒｅｅ．　　Ｔｅａｃｈｉｎｇ　ｉｓ　ｄｅｍａｎｄｉｎｇ．　　Ｔｅａｃｈｅｒｓ　ａｒｅ　ｎｏｔ　ｔｒｅａｔｅｄ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｐｒｏｆｅｓｓｉｏｎａｌｓ　ｔｈｅｙ　ａｒｅ．

Ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｉｓ　ｍｕｃｈ　ｍｏｒｅ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｓｔｏｒｙ, I suspect. What are the demographics of the school? Any factors involved like a "charter" school that would lure away high performing students and not have to meet testing and other goals?

How is parental support? This is the biggest indicator of individual success.

Sounds like a horrible working environment for the teachers. How would you like to work extra hours for no extra pay?

In a majority of other countries, the teaching profession is regarded with high respect. With that respect from the adults in the community comes respect from the students. With respect from the students comes a willingness to learn and an appreciation of the teacher.

In this country, many people who are not teachers are very quick to judge. Little respect granted to teachers by adults leads to little respect by students. This attitude really gets in the way of learning in the classroom.

Want your kid to succeed? Believe in your child's ability. Model respect for adults at home. Believe the teacher if they contact you with a concern. Volunteer at the school. Stay positive and assume the BEST in people.

Stop playing "Gottcha" and start working together.

 

[mrudman]

I think unless you have spent a day in ANY profession, you cannot say what should or should not be done, or what is reasonable to be required to do.

This is a very sore subject for me.. I am a nurse and dh is a teacher, and some people are always hinting how much of a more difficult job he has than me.
I only work "part time", he's "full-time", yet when I counted the # of hours per year we both actually are at work, I'm only about 25 hrs shy of him (for the whole year).

He arrives at school, kids get there around 7:45, he gets a 45-minute planning period every day, a 30-minute lunch period every day, and the kids are out the door at 2:30. Yes, granted he has paperwork outside of the "school hours", yet he has the 45 minutes to get some of that accomplished. And he gets from the 1st week of june until the 3rd week of august off (paid year-round).

I arrive to work at 2:45p, leave at 11:30p (if I'm very lucky, 90% of the time it's midnight or later), get a 15-minute break if I'm lucky to eat dinner... and most nights during that 15 minutes, I'm getting 2-3 calls about my patients.
Even get calls while taking bathroom breaks! And to put it plainly, the job is incredibly stressful! (trying to decide if i want to switch positions, lol)

Then people wonder why I don't want to pick up hours at this point.. when nobody expects him to work at all during the summer.

Now having said that, i agree teachers do have it incredibly hard.. i would never want to have to deal with all the parents who think their kid can do no wrong! But to the previous poster who said to ask other professions to give up their lunch hours like this superintendent was asking of the teachers, i wish i had a lunch hour to give up, lol.