Elementary teachers have had for at least 15 years, three days with an hour prep. High school teachers over the past 17 years have received a 93-minute prep five days per week. The problem in West Bloomfield School District is that elementary teachers have no prep.
Elementary teachers have had for at least 15 years, three days with an hour prep. High school teachers over the past 17 years have received a 93-minute prep five days per week. The problem in West Bloomfield School District is that elementary teachers have no prep.
Elementary teachers have had for at least 15 years, three days with an hour prep. High school teachers over the past 17 years have received a 93-minute prep five days per week. The problem in West Bloomfield School District is that elementary teachers have no prep.
Running Head: ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
Elementary Prep Time in West Bloomfield School District:
When Insufficient Planning Time is No Longer Acceptable Thomas R. DeGrand Oakland University School Community Development EA 748 Christine Abbott, Ph.D. June 15, 2015
ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
Elementary Prep Time in West Bloomfield School District: When Insufficient Planning Time is No Longer Acceptable Statement of the Problem Your newborn baby has woken up at 3:00 a.m. for what feels like ten years running. Youre tired, frustrated, and desperately in need of some sleep. You rock your baby for twenty minutes and finally feel he is ready to go back in his crib. You get up slowly, tiptoe to the crib, gently place him down, cover him with a blanket, and then turn around and tiptoe towards the door. As you head out of the room and slowly shut the door, you begin to pray that he will go back to sleep. You walk to your room, lay your head on the pillow fully expecting to hear your crying bundle of joy, but nothingpure silence! You take a deep breath, close your eyes, and enjoy the next few hours of pure relaxation. This feeling that Ive just described is what it feels like to walk your students to a special knowing you have the next hour to relax and grade the endless piles of papers, respond to the infinite number of parent emails, and if youre luckyplan! The problem in West Bloomfield School District is that elementary teachers currently have in our contract, and have had for at least 15 years, three days with an hour prep, a fourth day with a 30-minute prep, and a fifth day with no prep. Our district, in collaboration with our education association leadership team, has felt it was fair to the elementary teachers and the elementary students to have a day that they never attended a special subject area. In the meantime, the high school teachers over the past 17 years have received a 93-minute prep five days per week! I have found this to be inexcusable; therefore, I sought out a position on the association bargaining team to ensure this does not continue. The purpose of this paper is to
ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
analyze this problem in our district and to present a plan of action to help solve this longstanding issue. Stakeholders/Constituents Involved Due to the fact that prep time is a contractual item, the primary stakeholders involved in the decision making are the district administration bargaining team, education association bargaining team, and school board. All three units represent three of the main components of a school district: administration, teachers, and community. Though they are the primary stakeholders involved, it is ultimately the teachers union that must ratify a tentative agreement that was negotiated by those three parties. As you can see, the number of constituents involved in the creation, and solution, of this problem of insufficient elementary prep time is plentiful. What about the students? Personally speaking, I feel they are the most important stakeholders involved, yet they are not mentioned above. All decisions made in our district must always go back to what is best for kids, and those three units should be representing the students at all times. I would argue that what we currently are doing for elementary prep time is not best for kids, in more ways than one. We simply are not representing their needs very well. I will describe this in more detail below. It is the students, though, that ultimately have felt, and will continue to feel, the negative effects of our past and current situation. Analysis of Present Situation Seventeen years ago, West Bloomfield School District chose to move to block scheduling at the high school as a marketing tactic. By doing so, they were able to offer a wide array of classes to fit the interests and needs of students. There is no question that block scheduling allows for this; however, it comes with a price. Running a larger variety of classes causes a need for more specialized teachers. This, in turn, results in some classes with half the number of
ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
students that it could hold. This is not a very efficient system to have for a school district that is in a state that is not sufficiently funding public education. As a result of this, and many other factors, our district has reached a negative fund balance and is trying to keep itself above water through years and years of cuts and freezes. The effects of this always trickle down to the students. One would think that a district in this type of situation would cut its Cadillac scheduling, yet we continue to offer it without the funds to pay for it. What does this have to do with elementary prep time? Well, one major issue our district has been dealing with is the division between elementary and secondary teachers. Elementary teachers feel there is a tremendous inequity in working conditions between the two levelsrightfully so. What elementary teachers dont realize is that it is not at the fault of the secondary teachers. As I said earlier, 17 years ago, the West Bloomfield School District School Board decided to run this schedule at the high school. The intention, as it is still stated in our current contract, was to give high school teachers a 53 minute daily prep, while the remaining 40 minutes would be used to complete assignments given by the high school administration. After about 7 years of doing this, the high school administration decided to forego these duties and allow the teachers to utilize all 93 minutes for prep and planning. The misunderstanding amongst elementary teachers is that they feel the secondary teachers that were on the bargaining team bargained for this. That is not the case. Im sure they didnt oppose it, but it certainly wasnt pursued in negotiations. So whats the problem then? My problem is that nothing has been done to increase that need for more planning time at the elementary level. To expect a teacher and his/her students to go through a day without a single break, outside of a 30-minute lunch, is insane. It does not allow for a learning environment that is conducive to learning, and it certainly does not allow a teacher sufficient
ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
time to not only plan and prep for upcoming lessons that day, but also take care of the multiple other duties that come with elementary teaching. A solution was needed, and that is where I come in. However, our solution created another problem that we are currently in the process of trying to solve. Management Plan For many years, our associations bargaining team lacked any elementary voice. Personally, I feel this resulted in the continuation of a prep time that most would consider absurd and unfair. A couple years ago, we finally got a well-respected elementary leader on the bargaining team with the hopes that a change would be made. No change was made. I am not able to confirm a reason for this; however, I am guessing it is not due to a lack of effort on his part. It may have just been a non-negotiable for the district at that time. Over the past eight years, I have served as our schools union representative. I felt it was time for me to step into a higher level leadership role within the association in order to bring about needed change. I have taken on the roles of elementary grievance chair, executive board member, and bargaining team member. I am the elementary voice for our district. I felt this was my way to ensure a change was made, and for me, prep time was a non-negotiable. My team felt the same, especially after hearing it from all elementary buildings as their number one concern. We went into bargaining with this as a priority. After multiple bargaining sessions, we came to an agreement that gave elementary teachers a 51-minute continuous daily prep. However, in doing so, we sacrificed the current 25-minute prep time at the start of each day. With this agreement, administrators are free to use that as they wish, such as for bus duty, staff meetings, PLC meetings, etc. When the Letter of Agreement was released to the association, many people applauded our efforts and this needed change, however, some expressed deep concern over what
ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
will happen during those 25 minutes. It is the bargaining teams mission now to make certain that a fair and equitable agreement is made and placed in the contract to ensure that time is not abused by administrators in different buildings. Without such language, there is the likelihood that there will be some administrators that will use that time at a greater extent than others, and with this discrepancy between buildings, complaints will ensue. Unfortunately, current negotiations have been at a standstill due to the fact that our current Deputy Superintendent of Human Resources will be departing our school district soon. We will be bargaining with him one more time until June 30th when he leaves, but we dont plan on seeing much movement from the administrations side until the new Executive Director of Human Resources is hired and begins July 1st. We are hopeful that the new hire will see the need for sufficient prep time at the elementary, and will be more willing to place in the contract language that allows for fair and equitable use of those 25 minutes at the start of each day. If we can bargain language in the contract that protects our time, elementary teachers will be singing hymns of joy at this newfound time for them and their students. For me, this contract negotiation marks the start of bringing about equity between the elementary and secondary. It is important to note that by no means is the goal to bring the high school prep time down; rather, it is to bring the elementary prep time up. This is proving to be difficult, but I truly believe it is possible. If we find that the district is in need of that morning time due to required duties that will now be done by teachers instead of the paraprofessionals that have recently been laid off, then a different solution is needed. My idea is simpleif you need that morning time, then you need to increase our daily prep time from 51 minutes to 62 minutes to ensure we stay at our current 310 weekly minutes. It would keep us at our current
ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT
contractual amount, but it would allow for a daily continuous prepa luxury most elementary teachers in our district have never experienced. It is absolutely imperative that through negotiations, one of these two aforementioned solutions is agreed upon. It is a non-negotiable for me, and I will fight it until the bitter end. The next couple months will be very telling. We hope to come to an agreement by the end of the summer in order to have a tentative agreement ready to be placed in front of the association for ratification prior to the start of the 2015-2016 school year. The only question left is: Will the baby go to sleep or keep you up all night crying? The teachers and the students need the sleep!