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November 10 School Bosses in Planning Time CrossfireBrevard School Bosses are experiencing crossfire in a way most Florida School Bosses have experienced recently, or soon will.
The teachers have contracts guaranteeing a planning period during the school day, and other demands are infringing upon this contractual guarantee. Unions, instead of filing grievances (after all, contracts are clearly being violated), are whining about it at bargaining time.
Of course, the union position, usually ( and unfortunately) conceded to by school board negotiators and board members, is that school bosses are the culprits.
School bosses, and honest teachers, know better.
Planning periods have been taken for years for IEP meetings or preliminary sessions known by other acronyms (SST's in my old district). Sometimes parent conferences, especially in middle schools, are arranged during team planning times. There are a variety of other reasons that meetings are scheduled during planning periods. These are not usually at the discretion of school bosses.
The number of these meetings... that are necessary or at least required by policies set by someone other than the school boss... has steadily increased over the last generation. All of these meetings can't be held in the other two available windows... before and after school... if people other than teachers need to attend. A guidance counselor or admininstrator can only attend one meeting at a time. Even the teacher(s) can only attend one meeting at a time.
Sometimes teachers prefer to have team parent conferences during their planning time when the alternative is an after-school meeting. These meetings are still counted in the data when unions claim that more than half of a typical teachers' planning periods are taken from them. Technically correct, but misleading.
But without counting these "teacher scheduled" meetings, nobody can deny that a contractual right has been eroded.
The problem, other than the fact that sometimes school bosses are treated like whipping boys, is that there isn't a viable alternative. In other words, what is the union's solution or end game?
Fulfilling the contractual commitment to teachers regarding planning time just isn't possible, if the mission of the school is to be accomplished.
This is a perfect example of a contractual concession (in this case conceded many years ago) that has come back to haunt us. There was a time when it was possible to set aside a teacher's planning time, with only a few interrruptions, like meetings with the principal for evaluation feedback or an occasional meeting between a teacher and counselor to discuss a strategy for kids. Now, the contract provision is out of sink with the real world of IDEA and a team approach to serving kids.
The real solution, of course, is to eliminate the contractual provision. Ha! The gutting of planning time clauses would be considered a major kick in the gut by teachers. Not just union lovers either! But, of course, they aren't getting their planning time now. What can we do... pay them more money in order to give up their planning time? In other words, pay them to plan some other time?
And if we had money to do that, we could just increase salaries and leave the planning time nightmare alone.
Which is what we already do.
And school bosses will be blamed... ad nauseum... for "taking away" planning periods by our (implied) incompetent scheduling abilities.
I'd love to see board members and superintendents... and chief negotiators... just tell it like it is. But it won't happen.
But that's why we get the big bucks. So I'll quit whining.
And Brevard contract talks about this issue and a bunch of other non-monetary items? Settled the next day. A study committee approach will be applied to most of the issues. TrackbacksWeblogs that reference this entry
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