Teachers Propose 9,000 Fewer Teaching Minutes and Less Supervision Time

Yesterday Bongo looked into the outrageous increase in compensation being sought by the Huntley Education Association’s negotiating team. Today, Bongo will show his readers that in addition to asking for ridiculous increases in compensation, the union negotiators are actually suggesting that the teachers should spend less time teaching and supervising kids. That’s right. “Pay me tons more for doing less work.” Where does Bongo sign up for that deal?

Disclaimer for the day:

The initial union proposal was written by the negotiating team and did not go before the union membership for a vote. Bongo knows lots of teachers and has heard this from several of them. In keeping with “A few bad apples don’t spoil the whole bunch,” Bongo urges readers to keep in mind that this document is the handiwork of a few teachers, not of every teacher who works in District 158.

This school year includes 183 days. Three of those days are reserved for teacher training, school improvement plan work, etc. Kids are not in school on those days. The proposal submitted by the teachers’ union negotiating team calls for eliminating the three non-student-contact days.

Of course, they still want to get paid for those days.

This year, the average number of minutes spent with elementary students per day is 320 minutes. That’s 5 ½ hours with the kids. In fairness to teachers, additional time is spent on lesson planning and in meetings. The proposal calls for shortening the number of minutes that teachers spend with students each day by 50 minutes. They also want to decrease the number of minutes they have to be in their buildings before and/or after school by 15 minutes.

Let’s do the math. Next year the union negotiators propose shortening the number of minutes spent with kids each day from 320 to 270. Since they are asking for no more than 180 teaching days, the decrease in minutes per day for those 180 days would add up to 9,000 fewer minutes spent educating kids while receiving a lot more in compensation each year. Again, where does Bongo sign up?

While elementary teachers are asking for only 4 ½ hours of contact with students per day, high school teachers would spend just less than four hours per day teaching under this ludicrous proposal.

In addition, the proposal calls for early dismissal for students on one Wednesday every month so that teachers can participate in their professional development activities. Bongo is all for professional development, but at what cost to District 158’s working families? Did these negotiators give any regard whatsoever to the working families who would have to make alternative childcare plans on these days? Evidently not.

The proposal also calls for early dismissal for any day that teachers have to return to the buildings in the evenings, for conferences, curriculum nights, etc. They are asking to never exceed a 7 ¾ hour work day. And if (gasp) they have to put in more than 7 ¾ hours… you guessed it. They get more money!

Want to meet with a teacher after school to discuss your child’s education? It’ll cost ya. Bongo doesn’t know about you, but if I told my boss that regardless of the circumstance I was not willing to put in more than 7 ¾ hours at the office without getting more money, I’d find myself in the doggy-unemployment line!

Another gem in the proposal deals with time when union members can get full pay while out of the classroom tending to union business. The current contract allows union members to receive full pay for eight days during each contract year. Hold on to your flea collars folks, because the union negotiating team is asking that that number be increased from 8 to 50!

No that’s not a typo.

Fifty days with full pay for teachers to be out of their classrooms tending to union business. Knowing what Bongo knows about union work, eight days is plenty. Suggesting 50, in Bongo’s opinion, is equivalent to letting Bongo decide how many doggie treats he gets every single day! Oh yeah, that rule wouldn’t apply to the union president. That person would get as much time as he/she needed to take care of union business. Bongo would hate to be the parent whose child lands in the union president’s class…

Speaking of the union president, Bongo rolled over with laughter after reading this sentence, taken word-for-word from page 67 of the proposal: “Kindergarten teachers will get one day per week of one hour uninterrupted plan period.” Did Bongo mention that the union co-president is Chesak kindergarten teacher Christy Henderson? Gee Christy, if one hour of uninterrupted planning time is so critical to a teacher’s success, why are you only proposing it for the teachers at your grade level?

Other attempts by the union negotiators to shorten the teacher work day includes a suggested new rule that teachers do not have to supervise students at all before the beginning bell and after the final bell, and they would no longer have to walk their kids to their buses after the first month of school. Oh yeah, and they also think that walking students to and from their specials (art, music, PE, etc.) is too much of a burden. The proposal says they would not have to do it. I guess they believe the district should hire other people to do that nasty task.

As Bongo said in the intro the other day, this document makes all the teachers look really bad. Those responsible for writing it should either be sent to their kennels with no dinner, or better yet, be replaced immediately by a new negotiating team.