The Observation Deck

Will,

First of all, I for one, (and I would hope, many in the teaching profession) am delighted to explain as much as I am able to, regarding the particulars of teachers' experiences. I certainly do not care to interject any emotion either, as the facts simply speak for themselves so much better.

You raise some good questions, and I'll try to answer them for you as best I can.

As for your health care question, districts normally contract with best-price carriers, often with annual renewals, and yes, the contract will normally cover employees over the summers for the calendar year. I can also say, that in the district where I taught, we went through a time where we had several carriers in rapid succession, as our district tried to get the best deal from several vendors.

In response to your other question, Teachers in many, if not most districts, can indeed elect to receive their paychecks only during the school year, or have them spread out over the summer. The exact percentage amount is always spelled out in the negotiated agreement.

As to teacher performance? Of course, there may be teachers who do not do a good job. Every single year those questions come up, in probably every district. The main thing that teacher' unions need to do, in these cases, is to make sure that an accused teacher has adequate representation, and that due process is followed. As there may be teachers who might not do a good job, so too, might there be administrators who could be unfair, vindictive, or arbitrary. So too, might there be parents out for revenge, and so on.

It's all about getting at the truth of the matter, in a fair and impartial way.

Now as to recycling lesson plans, or finding expedited ways to grade papers..etc...?

Yes, some general plans are indeed used year to year, but teachers are also expected to formulate particular plans each day in response to best practices guidelines.

As for grading papers? These days, there are oftentimes new data processing machines that will quickly tabulate T-F and multiple choice questions...but at the end of the day, a teacher still has to hand-check those 130 or so essays. The good news is that progressive schools like Lakewood's now have online interaction between parents, students and teachers, so yes, technology is very much a factor in today's education.

I'm not quite sure how to respond to your comments about P.E teachers. Yes, coaches are not necessarily the same as P.E. teachers, but they do share much of the same training requirements. As for America's problem with obesity, and why more was not done back then? Well, perhaps I suppose we COULD pay our P.E teachers an additional supplemental check, so that they could go grocery shopping for us, or perhaps, be with us when we go out to a restaurant?

Seriously, everyone, effective teaching is indeed a labor-intensive, at times stressful, and oftentimes frustrating occupation. There are many factors over which we as teachers have no control, and very little influence. Still, I truly enjoyed the profession, and I was honored to have been a part of it.

Even as a retired teacher. I continue to assist as a volunteer with the Lakewood Schools. So does my Dad. He retired from the Lakewood Schools as a band director in 1983. He just celebrated his 90th birthday, and he STILL regularly works with the music program students of the Lakewood Schools. We also recently bought hundreds of dollars worth of drums, out of our own pocket, for the Lakewood RANGER drumline.

"You SAY that you don't play the drums?
We don't care, that's cool.
We just want you all to know,
that RANGER DRUMMERS RULE!"

Dad and I truly believe in the Lakewood schools, and we put our money where our mouth is. Not only are we NOT paid to work for, or advertise for the schools, WE HAPPILY PAY THEM- with our time, our talents, and our resources.

I mention this fact NOT to brag in any way, but rather, to ask that others of you all please do volunteer to do whatever you can to help our schools. Dad and I wish that we could do much more, but our resources are limited. If each of you help out just a little, however, great things can, and will, be done.

Come and visit your schools. See where you might be able to offer your talents or expertise. Even if you don't feel that you can vote for the levy, maybe there is some other way that you could offer something of yourself to the students of Lakewood.

You are needed.

Why not roll up your sleeves and get involved?

Back to the banjo...

If you deduct the 45 minutes for lunch the work day for an elementary teacher is 6 1/2 hours. Given the 12 personal days in addition to the summer holiday and Thanksgiving break and Christmas break and Easter break I find it hard to understand all this talk about how overworked teachers are.

How about 8 1/2 hours per day actually working with students and establishing lesson plans? What is so sacred about the 6 1/2 hour day? Teachers like to compare themselves to engineers and other professionals. How many other professionals work 6 1/2 hour days?

If the schools are going to operate just fine with the $4 million in cuts just announced why weren't these cuts made 3 years ago?

And if there are going to be fewer students and fewer teachers why are labor costs estimated to increase 20% over a three year period?

Bill,

Classroom contact hours are a necessary part of the negotiated agreements for each district, and for each level of instruction. These contact hours do not generally, however, include conferences, planning, phone contact hours, supplemental tutoring, and paper grading scenarios. In reality, I truly believe that many, if not most educators, spend more like 9-10 hour days working at their teaching responsibilities.

Planning also varies by subject. To be perfectly candid with you, teachers themselves sometimes think that teachers who teach another subject have it easier than they do!

Case in point...Often, due to the fact that I was a Special Education Special Class teacher, I was the envy of the building; due to my relatively small class sizes...

What those teachers did not understand, was that I had to develop and coordinate individualized plans and programs for each child, and that I, at times, had to plan for English, Math, Science, Reading, and Social Studies programs each day for these students in two different grade levels; as if I were doing a one-room schoolhouse model. I also needed to regularly confer with other teachers who had those students in the mainstream classes. Talk about paperwork and communications issues! Working past midnight on that paperwork, or on the phone, was not uncommon for me.

Add to that the fact that Special Ed classes were once divided by category. Towards the end of my career, they often followed a "cross-categorical" model; where behavioral and learning issues were mixed together.

These days, by the way, there are fewer special classes, due to efforts to mainstream students more and more.

I mention some of my former duties not to extract sympathy. That was my job, and I made it work. My point here is simply that there is often misunderstanding as to how much time successful teachers need to apply to their craft...

...and then...there's the evening and weekend continuing education coursework to be taken.(often, out-of-pocket, too)

REAL teaching is oftentimes a 24 hour per day job, of which the actual classroom time is but one component.

Regarding so called "personal days", these vary per negotiated agreement from district to district, In the district where I taught, we only had 3 per year. Those are not the same as sick days.

As for labor costs going up? Just look at the factors involved. A district cannot unilaterally reduce salaries, due to labor relations agreements; therefore they are forced to cut staff, programs, and services in bad times. Many teachers go far beyond what the contract stipulates. I recall where there were labor disputes in other districts, the term "work to the contract" was invoked, and that caused all kinds of grief. There's no easy financial answer here. Teachers here have already agreed to a salary freeze. So far, everybody in our district seems to be trying to work together for the greater good. I've seen all too well what can happen when things go the other way, and believe me, it's not pretty.

Back to the banjo...

Gary Rice wrote:Bill,

Classroom contact hours are a necessary part of the negotiated agreements for each district, and for each level of instruction. These contact hours do not generally, however, include conferences, planning, phone contact hours, supplemental tutoring, and paper grading scenarios. In reality, I truly believe that many, if not most educators, spend more like 9-10 hour days working at their teaching responsibilities.

How many engineers, doctors, lawyers and other professionals would get away with:

I'm only in the office 6 hours per day and my contract states that I'm not supposed to have any contact with customers more than 5 hours per day but thats ok because when I am at home I think about this job a lot."

Only in the twilight zone of public education is the concept of an 8 hour day beyond the pale.

Bill--- I think you have pretty accurately described what in fact does exist in the private sector.
Stan

Billyboy - Do you have any idea how many hours outside the school, teachers spend working? This is good teacher I'm talking about.

I've worked for non-profits most of my life and, in my case, the mission was so important I had to to work at least 60 hours a week most of the time.

Most teachers work more.

Actually Bill, classroom contact hours comprise only a part of the daily picture.

If you read any of the contracts that I've ever read, they clearly stipulate what the length of a teacher's work day will be, and that is different than the actual classroom contact time alone.

Generally, a teacher's full day is stipulated to be about 8 hours in length, with an allowance for a short lunch break, (oftentimes, only about 40 minutes) and variances for starting times and class lengths. (as the class lengths and schedules of elementary and secondary schools are oftentimes different) The rest of the day is thus divided between the contractual-agreed classroom contact time and conference/planning/tutorial time.

Unlike many in the private sector who are able to take 2 hour lunches, teachers generally need to eat on the run.

Bill, candidly here, your opinions are your own. I do respect that, and you certainly do not have to respond to me on the following point... but I would really love to know the reasons why you seem to have these kinds of concerns regarding teachers.

Back to the banjo...

Bill, the ignorance of your last post is truly stunning. If it were "just sitting at home thinking about it" I would get it, but it's not. That's been explained to you and you somehow refuse to believe it.
At this point my guess is you are either just trying to rile people up or you have some true and complete blind hatred toward the profession of teaching. It is not an easy job and one most people can't even comprehend when it comes to complexity.
I guess after 6 hours of teaching students all those papers get graded by themselves. All those lesson plans and curriculum get written by themselves. All the students who need some extra attention get it from someone else. etc, etc, etc.

Why can't you grasp that teaching is a LOT more than just student contact?

I was a teacher's aide way back when....and let me tell you it was the hardest job ever. And that was just being an aide.

Please don't forget, that a teacher not only teaches, but the "other" stuff they do is overwhelming. They are mentors, friends, confidants etc. At times, a teacher is the only time a child is given praise, or even acknowledged at all. Do you know how many kids come to a teacher to talk about abuse at home? Imagine that...imagine a child coming up to you and telling you the horror stories of their home life. Not only do you still have to teach your other 20+ students in your class, you now have to help this child. That is something you live with for the rest of your life!!!! (trust me I know this for a fact)

You grade papers, you write out lesson plans, and again not each child in your class is at the same level, so you have to adjust to 20+ students.

Imagine being a special needs teacher. You now have to adjust each lesson plan to each student. You have to do IEP meetings, quarterly report IEPs, parent teacher conferences which can be many.

Being a teacher is not just standing up in front of class talking to a group of kids. It is giving them a piece of you, your heart and helping them grow in to adults. It is not just 1+1=2 anymore. Not in today's world. A teacher is a teacher, friend, mentor, and parent. And yet we as society blame our teachers for the way kids are today. Forgetting that we created those kids, we are the ones who should be parenting them. Let the teachers go back to teaching, and let us go back to being parents!!!!

Ed Dickson wrote:At this point my guess is you are either just trying to rile people up or you have some true and complete blind hatred toward the profession of teaching.

I'm just asking questions and making observations about the contract.

I was surprised to see that the contract limited the number of hours of teacher/student contact.

If mentoring is an important part of the education process and if the LTA is concerned about education why all the verbage about limiting contact with students?

The current contract specifies a 6 3/4 work day. Can an increased work day be part of a compromise on wages? "OK, you get your COLA raise and your two step raises each year and raises for continuing education but you work 8 to 5". Would an 8 hour day be that burdensome?

If all those extra hours were worked in the school with proper supervision and support would that improve the education process?

Is a medical plan that provides 100% coverage with no meaningful deductibles fair to the residents of Lakewood?

Should school board employees pay at least 25% of the premium?

If so, should school board employees who live in Lakewood pay only 10% of the premium or none of the premium?

Nine sick days per year? Plus 3 personal days? How about a short and long term disability policy instead of sick days? Or are sick days really vacation days and if so why?

California has a $500 billion dollar unfunded pension liabiity for its government employees. That liability will endanger the States ability to pay for education, health and welfare and basic infrastructure. Nationwide that unfunded liability is in the Trillions. What affect will Ohio's unfunded liability have on Ohio's ability to fund education and other needs? What is Lakewood's share of that liability?

If these public pensions are untenable should they be replaced with a defined contribution plan?

I'm sorry if these questions upset you or others. That is not my intent.

Bill,

As you are aware, I've met you personally, and have found you to be a concerned, educated, and personable individual, whom I certainly enjoyed talking with.

Some of us in the field of education sometimes can forget that those not in that field might not always be fully aware of the parameters involved with some of the issues that we, as teachers or former teachers, support personnel, board members, or administrators, have had to deal with.

Firstly, nearly all of your suggestions given above, would fall under the negotiations packages issues that a district and a labor association might discuss at contract time. Virtually NONE of those suggestions could be implemented unilaterally by a school board, outside of the negotiations process.

For many years in the past, collective bargaining rights of educational employees were not as well developed as they presently are. In our own lifetimes, for example, teacher strikes were once considered illegal. All that has changed now. Labor groups (of which teachers are only one...there are other groups with which a school district must negotiate) now negotiate with schools every so many years...

...and questions as you have raised go to those give-and-take talks.

You mentioned in another thread the feeling that there might be teachers who might not agree with whatever presently was in place. Actually, only rarely are ALL teachers EVER in full agreement with anything. (smile) As you may be aware, contracts must be ratified by an agreed-upon majority of association members, but also by contract, boards can generally only negotiate with the associations named. They therefore will not make individual or small group deals or exceptions outside of the contractual process, as that would firstly, take forever to do, and secondly, in matters like salary steps and health insurance, there needs to be some fairness.

Bill, I for one welcome your questions, and hope to try to address some of your concerns. Normally, active teachers, administrators, and even board members in a system rarely go to the public in these matters, because they don't want to circumvent contractually agreed procedures. As a retired bystander and an outsider to the Lakewood schools situation, I can perhaps help to offer some limited insight into the general processes involved here, rather than offer any specifics.

Back to the banjo...

Bill,

It's not that the questions upset me (I won't speak for others) but in the instance of contact time with students you seem to lose sight of all the other responsibilities that students have to perform the job at hand. Asking questions is an important partof any process and you raise very good points about funding of education. It's a flawed system. I don't have the answers as to how to fix it nor do I pretend to and asking questions and laying everything on the table is important. When doing that, though, you must lay it ALL on the table. Just because a contract has an assigned number limit to student contact time doesn't mean that's ALL they do. It's important to acknowledge that a teacher has a large amount of responsibilities that go beyond the amount of time they spend in front of a class. That would be my only complaint with your discussion. You're bending the reality of the situation in that one instance. Can we agree on that at the very least?

Ed

I doubt there will ever be agreement between those who claim an inside knowledge of the educational system and demand that we accept their assertions that teaching is a very stressful position, and that teachers are spending untold hours out of school doing some of their work, and those who, with or without actual experience, doubt those claims.

Granted, we expect, and accept, that teachers will act in loco parentis, but that does not mean that we expect them to parent our children.

As far as stress, I think it is more stressful being a parent than a teacher, considering that a parent is responsible for all aspects of the child's welfare, while a teacher is responsible (I should say should be responsible, since they resist being evaluated in part on the child's educational achievement) only for the child's educational achievement. I suspect those who think teaching is a high stress job have led very sheltered lives, and have never been in combat, nor policed a dangerous neighborhood, nor faced a life threatening fire, nor had to get a rig to the coast in two days through a blizzard.

If the teaching profession wants us to believe they are spending all these secret hours planning and grading (I would think they would also be spending time keeping up with developments in the area they are teaching, but they never mention that), perhaps they could do it under supervision. If they adhered to a full day in the workplace schedule, they would have more of a collegial environment and would be more available to parents and students. We have the space, why not make full use of it? If you ran a business, an insurance office, for example, and had employees who wanted to work less than a full day, but promised they would do some planning and evaluation at home, would you take that deal?

As for comparable professions, most professionals are in a field because they are interested in it, and can support themselves. But I think many professionals would seriously consider giving up a sometimes longer lunch, a longer workday, weekend work, and the stress of an uncertain client base, in return for the short lunch, short workday (not to mention days off), free weekends, lack of stress of an uncertain client base, and extreme free time in the summer and at holidays, that teachers have. Law firms, hospitals, accounting firms, and architects do not close down during the summer. Some traditional professionals might not take the trade, but I think that is because they actually enjoy their work, and are very happy working 60, 80, or more hours per week. Does the fight for continued short hours perhaps show that teachers don't really enjoy teaching, or just that they value time off; I don't know. I would hope that they enjoyed the work enough to be open to year-round schooling, and I would certainly be happy to pay them more for giving up the summer break; note that we apparently already pay their medical plan year round (and I have no problem with that), so increasing the school year by 33% would not cost us 33% more in expenses.

In my youth, teachers were highly respected in the community, despite their relatively low pay. Somehow we have dissipated that respect while correcting the pay problem. Perhaps it is because most of us are more well educated than our parents, so while our parents viewed a teacher as a well educated person, we view them as less well educated. I read some time ago that the standardized test scores frequently viewed as a measure of the quality of a college's admittees, was shockingly low for colleges of education when compared with other colleges.

But I do have a question concerning the bargaining unit. I know that all teachers are in the bargaining unit. Do all of them have to join the union? If not, do non joiners have to pay dues? And do non-joiners get to vote to approve the contract?

I know management can bargain only with the union, and that, if there are non joiners in the bargaining unit, they must deal through the union. So even if Mr. Call is correct in his assertion that some teachers residing in Lakewood are talking about doing something on their own, there isn't anything they can do, short of decertifying the union, and I think there is little chance of that, as the union has what many of us view as a pretty sweet deal. But then, the steelworkers union had a pretty sweet deal, until they killed the golden goose.

Will Brown said--

Somehow we have dissipated that respect

No Will, I had an innocent, youthful respect that was representative of the 50s and 60s but now, after having the opportunity to associate and work with current teachers and my past teachers, I have MULTIPLIED my respect for our teachers.

Remember folks, there are those who would divert your attention with the current popular revivification of the 1930s debate of labor versus capital.

Those of you who are actually living in the 21st Century realize that we will vote next Tuesday on the ever present requirement to maintain our community and give today's and tomorrow's kids a good "ole" Lakewood jumpstart into their future.

Vote for the Levy

Stan Austin

Stan Austin wrote:Will Brown said--

Somehow we have dissipated that respect

No Will, I had an innocent, youthful respect that was representative of the 50s and 60s but now, after having the opportunity to associate and work with current teachers and my past teachers, I have MULTIPLIED my respect for our teachers.

Remember folks, there are those who would divert your attention with the current popular revivification of the 1930s debate of labor versus capital.

Those of you who are actually living in the 21st Century realize that we will vote next Tuesday on the ever present requirement to maintain our community and give today's and tomorrow's kids a good "ole" Lakewood jumpstart into their future.

Vote for the Levy

Stan Austin

Speaking of the 21st Century: http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/total-government-spending