Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
A provision in the newly ratified teachers’ contract that will end elementary school 45 minutes early on Wednesdays has left some Sweet Home parents upset.
Last month, the School District and SHEA ratified a contract that will shorten Wednesdays in grade schools by 45 minutes to allow elementary teachers preparation time. The new release time begins in March.
The provision replaces an arrangement allowing eight early-release days each year. The early release dates were approximately once per month on a Wednesday. On those days, students went home at lunch time.
Parent Vicki Fox said she is one of those upset about the change. She is a stay-at-home mom and doesn’t have a problem picking her children up early.
But she said she’s complaining “because they didn’t ask parents.”
“Nobody knew about it,” Fox said. “I’m not happy. I feel our kids are out of school too much as it is. I’m angry. They could have sent home a questionnaire and asked parents how they felt about it.”
“We didn’t do any kind of formal survey,” Supt. Larry Horton said. The concept was developed in response to parent comments to school board members. Those parents told board members they didn’t want any more half days.
“I agree we should have surveyed parents more than we did,” Horton said. “We’re sorry if it did create any hardships for parents.”
“It looks like a lot of time off,” Horton said, but it is actually about nine hours more time off over the course of a full school year.
The rationale for the change was based on an attempt to provide equal preparation time for elementary teachers, Horton said. Junior high and high school teachers get more, and still get more, time than elementary teachers, although they have similar work loads.
The teachers had asked for 16 early release days, Horton said. “The board felt that was entirely too much time out of school.”
SHEA President Dan Swanson last week explained that teachers ideally wanted 16 early release days each year and were looking for 12, Swanson said. The district board’s bargaining team offered a 45-minute early release every Wednesday in a counter offer.
The reason for the extra preparation time for teachers is that grading requires more time than it did in the past, Swanson said.
Before the state education reforms of the 1990s, teachers could hand papers off to assistants or even students for grading, Swanson said. The reforms are aimed at making sure students understand the concepts and check their work, verifying their answers.
Students now are required to find the answer and then explain their thinking when they do work in certain subjects, Swanson said. Grading that work takes longer earlier in the year, especially for teachers new to Oregon’s education system.
“When we first started a lot of the state portfolio (benchmark requirements), (student work) took a lot longer to correct,” Swanson said. “You’re not just looking for the correct answer. You’re looking for all the steps behind it.”
Math papers can take five minutes to grade per student, Swanson said. Writing can take 20 minutes, much more than it used to take to grade papers.
Teachers need to have dialogues with other teachers, Swanson said. The extra prep time gives them that opportunity.
Teachers used to get prep time when specialists took their classes, for music, computers or library, for example, Swanson said. Music time was usually time the teacher could work on things without students, although with library and computers, it often required teachers to stay with their classes.
But since music and other programs are no longer offered by the district, the early-release times provide teachers time for for class preparation, portfolios, working with other teachers and school projects.
“It’s the only time we have to talk together,” Swanson said. “We were asking for more early release days, and the district came up with, ‘what about 45 minutes once a week.'”
The elementary teachers talked about it and were not opposed to it, Swanson said. It will give him more prep time each month than the old early release days, but that may not hold true at all the schools.
“I think that 45 minutes every week is going to be more predictable for parents,” Swanson said. It will be easier to track than the previous system of early release days.
It will probably take till “the end of the year before we figure out if this is doing what we want,” Swanson said. “I think we’re all liking the idea that the district and teachers are on the same page right now. It’s a different approach. We’ll see how it works, and hopefully it’ll work out well.”
“The idea is that teachers will be using the time to better improve their instruction,” Horton said. “Yes, we would anticipate instruction would show improvement with this added time teachers are preparing.”
The new 45-minute early release times begin on March 22, Horton said. Kindergarten classes will arrive early or leave late, providing the 45-minute period in the middle of the school day. The 45-minute period will be split between morning and afternoon sessions.
Fox said she feels the district “sold us out without asking us how we feel about it.”
She counted up the days students already spend outside of school each year, pointing to three weeks at Christmas and three days in March followed by spring break.
She has students who have special needs, she said, and they need to be in school.
“I don’t actually believe it’s in the best interest of the children,” Fox said. “I don’t understand. When we went to school, the teachers did conferences during half the day, and now it’s three days. I’m starting to feel like why do we even bother sending them to school.”
“I think it’s a cover-up for poor (time) management on the teachers’ part,” parent Robin Adams said. Walking unannounced down the halls of a grade school, “it’s like total chaos.”
Teachers spend too much time telling students to sit down, a discipline problem, Adams said. It’s worse in the older grades, but “by then they should know better.”
Nine hours “is a lot when you figure they’re in the classroom so little as it is,” Adams said. She points to grading days, the short school day with students out at 2:20 p.m., lunch, recess and more.
They’re not a lot of time they’re in their seats, Adams said. Instead of taking time away from education, the district needs to make sure teachers buckle down in their classrooms and keep students seated.
The district realizes that it can be a problem for parents, Horton said, but the Boys and Girls Club is open during that time, and parents can place their children there for $20 per year. The club has scholarships available for families that cannot pay, and Horton said he would be willing to help parents obtain those scholarships if necessary.
Right now, it’s like, “I can’t get my job done with kids int he classroom, so I’ll just send them home,” Adams said.
“In the long run, I think we’ll be meeting more of the needs of parents,” Horton said of the new agreement with teachers. “I think it’ll be good for kids too.”
Consistency is important for children, Horton said, and this will provide a consistent schedule where the old agreement was more irregular.