O.k., I said I had nothing for this morning, but I wouldn’t be a blogger of long standing (and they’d probably pull my bar membership) if I was truly unable to hold forth on something, no matter how trivial. So, we’ll go with the Indianapolis Star’s editorial on school start times. The General Assembly is holding hearings on when an appropriate time to start school might be. The Indy Star doesn’t say when the proper time to begin school might be, but merely opines that it is a waste of time to consider the matter. It should be a local decision, they say.
I think there is probably some value to the state setting the start date. Schools need to coordinate with one another in a number of ways. Maybe they should set a default starting date and allow schools to apply for a waiver to start at a different time if the school has a particular need. As for the proper start date, I guess I don’t have strong opinions, but the dog days of summer seems like an awfully hot time to be starting things. They started my boy’s kindergarten in the first half of August. If we’re going to have summer break, I’d probably recommend not starting school until late August or early September. If they want to structure things so that there are longer breaks scattered throughout the year but no true summer break, I suppose I’m open to the idea.
As for the push for more days and longer hours, my main concern is that we lose some of the unstructured time for kids. We’re losing a lot of that anyway as kids are scheduled for all manner of sports and extracurricular activities. My recollection of being a kid is that there was a lot of creativity involved in figuring out how to fill hours where I had nothing scheduled; particularly when I was younger. When I was older, that time was more likely to be filled with random books, TV, or video games.
I’m OK with longer school days, but there will have to be a trade-off. That longer time will have to be comprised of activity learning, not sit-in-your-seat-quietly lecturing, add in a little more “play” time, AND an end to homework. Homework is the bane of parents, teachers and students alike these days. Git er done during office hours, or it ain’t all that durn important. What little time there is during the evenings ought to be for parents and their kids to be spent doing something besides rote assignments or doofy projects.
1. Here’s my idea, with the usual odds of passage: let’s tie the remuneration of America’s Third-Worst State Legislature, Now In Permanent Session!™ to the efficacy of This Month’s Fantastic Educational Solution of the Week. New start times? Okay. Then if test scores decline, so does your pay.
2. Hell, extend it to every goddam educational expert in the state, a sizable chunk of whom haven’t set foot in a school since 8th grade graduation: Charter schools are the Answer to our educational morass? Okay, when they prove not to be, that’s 10% off your commission on the mortgage you just foreclosed on, or the tip you got for valet parking, or what you earn picking up Todd Rokita’s internet dry cleaning.
3. I say that because there will never, ever, be a bill introduced in the World’s Third-Worst State Legislature & Per Diem Manufacturer™ calling for the state to quit using Education as a political football, and changing the rules every time there’s a slight shift in the breeze, and start facilitating real education.
4. The start date has been moved back to early August for one reason: so the first semester ends before Christmas vacation (if I may call it what it is for the moment). This is based on the idea–or observation–that students lost too much of their training during that two-week sabbatical, and returned to score lower on end-of-semester tests. This is the precise logic the legislature used in approving the move of ISTEP to the spring.
5. Of course, since everybody had the same two-weeks off the effect on scores was a wash. But, then, who’s responsible for tying everything to high-stakes testing in the first place?
ISTEP testing should be the last thing done before leaving for summer break.
If we’re going to measure schools, let’s measure them on their performance for the year. Testing at the beginning of the year was insane, and testing at the middle is pretty dumb.
In my experience school starting times effect school ending times and in final anaysis it’s an issue of extra-curricular activities and co-ordinating bus schedules. Academics are never the the top decider,and I don’t mean that in a cynical way.Schools don’t have that option. The major purpose of the elected School Board is to save tax payers’ money so every change would be evaluated with that in mind. Grade and elementary school bus pick ups must be co-ordinated with high schools,so school days vary so they can be co-ordinated with available busses.. A longer school day crowds sports schedules,and that’s always a big issue.Big schools have lots of extra curricular activities besides sports.
The community-involved parents are likely the ones with actively involved students. The school board takes these parents very seriously,and if they would complain, for example ,about an untenable long school day due to late ending days, that would be taken very seriously.
( People assume too often that teachers and the teachers’ union run the schools)
The proponents of a longer school day have only one thing in mind: bust the Teachers Union. There are many other trivial excuses, but it comes down to one thing. Teachers are going to come out and be against longer days without more pay. The proponents are going to smear the unions for this. Look, who wants a longer day? The Indiana Chamber of Commerce. That’s it. That is the list. What do they care about students or education? They do not. What do they care about getting rid of unions and privatizing education…lots.
Teachers arent paid by the hour; they’re paid by the year which is divided up into either 12 installments or 24,or some variable.For any teacher’s ogranization to ask for more salary for a lengthened teaching day would be nonsensical.It would be like asking for overtime for time spent grading papers on the weekend.It would also be the dumbest public relations move imaginable.
Clarification and question: Teacher pay situation—teachers are contracted BY THE DAY length of contract. That is, 183 or 184 or 185 days or whatever is the base in the local contract. Example: salary base of $30,000 for 185 days IF a teacher in that system was contracted for 200 days then $30,000 divided by 185 times 200. The school system sets the “duty hours per day” thus if it is 8am until 3:30 with 30 minute duty free lunch period would be the “duty time day”. Work before, or after this (grading, prep, supervising after school activity, taking tickets at sporting event, attending events, etc. etc.) is likely not part of the pay. So, if school changes duty time to 7:30 am until 4pm—should this not be reflected in the pay? Still have all the other things that teachers must do whether “required” or considered “normal for teachers”.
The only time a teacher’s salary(in my experience) is divided into days like 1/180 is when he misses work for no valid reason,so a day without approved leave, salary is deducted at 1/180th of yearly salary.That’s a huge deduction.But when a sub comes they were paid like $50.
There are other extra pay duties like Department Chair ,or supervisors of extracurricular activities and they are all on a published rate schedule. In my school deparment chairs also got a lowered teaching load,depending on number of teachers they supervised.
My working day was set from 7:30am -3:30 pm ,but school dismissal was 3pm and start time was 8:00am . If I wanted to leave school at dismissal time I had to get special permission. So I was sometimes assigned supervision duty at 7:30 or at 3:00 pm. Just before and just after school are very critical times.
If school day were lengthened that might be an issue brought up in next negotations,but everything is negotiable,and any issue is a trade-off over another.There’s only so much money,so they told us,so it can be divided up in various ways. And if the teaching day hadn’t been lenghtened, the money available would have been the same.
In fact many schools lenghtened teaching hours back in late 80s/early 90s,but I cant remember it being an issue for teachers in and of itself.
Im just saying how my school was …
I was involved in teacher contract negotiations many times over the years (now retired) and realize different corporations have different ways of doing things–but I had an “extended contract” and my salary was determined as stated above. Example: salary for 185 days with x years of experience and BS or MS divided by 185 x the days in my contract. Extra curricular pay was figured either as flat amount or percent of base teacher salary depending on the position. Pay for regular teachers could be based on school year months of pay or spread over 12 (individual choice).
Lou,
I can tell you that in a number of school districts length of day is an issue in every monthly discussion meeting.
The stance of the teachers is any minute required outside of the set day HAS to be be compensated.
Also, there is only one pot money and it can be divided in many different ways, but it still one pot of money. It is always a trade-off.
I see many instances when the teacher’s salary is divided in to days. Some contracts call for non-school year professional development to be paid at the teacher’s daily rate. Some retirement is calculated on number of accumulated sick days multiplied by the daily rate. Some teachers can sell back excess sick days at their daily rate.
Paddy wrote:The stance of the teachers is any minute required outside of the set day HAS to be be compensated..
I agree..
Duties outside the set school day should be compensated,otherwise some schools would assign teachers to drive the schools busses,or unload cafeteria supplies..
My point was that my school and others a few years back lengthened the official school start and dismissal times by about 15 minutes on each end of the day,so we had a longer official day.It was a general national trend under the heading of ‘accountability’. I didn’t have any more duties but the duties and classroom time were extended somewhat and I probably complained about having to arrive at school 15 minutes earlier,but not because I thought I was treated unfairly.
I am not talking about extended duties, I am talking about the same duties on extended time. If you tried to extend the school day now, even under the guise of accountability, it would not fly, at least in my locality.
Of course extended duties should be compensated, to think differently would be asinine.
Paddy,
I don’t know what the community-public relations situation is in the school you teach,but Ive always felt teachers should be careful how they frame issues,because the rhetoric otherwise becomes the issue , as it does in politics. Teachers are not paid for our time; we’re paid for doing our job and time is always open-ended.You don’t want the headline in the local papers reading: ‘Teachers balk at teaching longer school day: demand more pay’.
I was Junior Class sponsor and the job description was something like: organize homecoming and build a float ,do some fund raising as needed,help organize the Junior-Senior Prom,and sponsor some dances.Believe me, there was no relation to what I was paid and the time I spent,and that’s way it should be. Let’s not tie teachers salaries to the time spent; no school could ever afford it,but it always serves as a cheap shot against teachers.
I was getting a haircut one day waiting with the retirees of Bethlehem Steel as one was was lambasting teachers because his grand daughter’s teacher dashed out of the school ahead of the kids when the bell rang.That leaves an awful impression but if we were ‘paid for our time’,why not? I retorted that I imagained steel workers did that too.But Then I realized that teaching and steel work are two different mindsets.