On Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 Dr. Spiller and Mrs. Witte presented to the governing board about instructional minutes in the CSD. They have not yet put any suggestions together but will be doing so soon. Please read the message below from a member who is just as concerned as CEA with this and contact your governing board member to express your concerns:

After last night’s board meeting, I have more concerns regarding the increase of the instructional day:

It was presented and believed by administration that additional time is what we, the teachers, really want.  Yes, we have asked for more time but this request has been taken out of context.  Time is not an increase in the instructional day, but time within our current instructional day to:
•    Plan
•    Work with our team
•    Reduce the time commitments that continue being added to our days – meetings (site and district), trainings, PLCs, additional programs, curriculum restraints – 30 minutes of this and an hour of that…
•    Allow us to teach to the students during the already scheduled time frame with minimal interruptions

If we are “under” the state requirement by 70 plus hours in the middle school, why is the solution in our district to add 180 hours (one hour of instructional time per day) so that we would be over 110 hours?

What impact does this have not only on teacher salary due to being asked to work a 9 hour day, but also, afterschool sports, clubs, etc…. ? I am at an early start school so my day starts at 7:00 and ends at 3:00.  After school games can’t start until 4:00, but usually start at 4:30 due to transportation issues.  So now will the games start at 5:30?  That would put our coaches (and security for those games) working from 7:00am to 7:00pm at least twice a week, and those students from 7:25am to 6:30pm.  That is long day for both the staff and students.  In the winter months, students will be walking home in the dark.

District offices are only open from 8-4; while some in those offices may work longer, just like every teacher I know, it’s not possible to contact anyone at district by phone after 4.  Is district office time going to increase, too?

The district PLCs last until 4:30 right now.  Are they going to last until 5:30 and cut more time from our personal lives?

I have heard from administrators that increased instructional time is what we want and in the past we have gotten raises with no increase in district expectations.  I am outraged by these comments!  First of all we have not gotten a percent raise that was at or above the normal cost of living inflation factor for years; if anything we have been frozen more years than not.  Teachers already work “extra” hours out of a sense of duty to the district and site during carnivals, parent nights, PTO events, parent teacher conferences, meetings with parents, home visits, planning at home, researching materials, etc…  Teachers are spending more and more money out of their pockets for motivational and instructional items not funded by the district.  Any “extra” money we have received has been put back into the district by our devotion to the students and our sense of what is right.  Now we are going to be punished for this commitment and have to hear comments such as this from our administration.  I have been in this district for 16 years and I have watched the staff morale decline and become demoralized by district.  We have been beaten down so much that it is a common belief that our professional opinions and input do not matter.

While this situation is so maddening to me, I still have the same concerns that I presented last night, and I want to remind you of those:
•    Adding more students on a caseload due to a loss of a .5 CC teacher and we have to accept the policy change from the recommended caseload of 17:1 to 22:1 with no input to this change and that it was decided upon using inaccurate data.
•    Being stuck with a calendar that teachers didn’t support and ironically neither did the parents.  Parents voted 149 / 149.
•    Having a school that is open for only 350 students.
And now we are being told that we will probably be working an extra hour a day with no increase in pay!  That 60 minutes of “extra” is approximately a months work of pay!

Now, during these tough economic times, is not time to make this change, when we can’t compensate the staff for the time, we have limited amount of information available to the majority of the parents, and with no input from staff regarding longer school day.

I urge you to dig deeper into the information presented by district and make correct decisions that benefit everyone involved.

To contact the Governing Board you may do so by clicking on the links below as well as come to a Board Meeting and speak about this as well. CEA will keep you informed when this will be coming up for a vote at the board meeting.

Governing Board President Robn Ferguson

Governing Board Clerk Carl Zaragoza

Governing Board Member Matt Jewett

Governing Board Member Donna Young

Governing Board Member Suzanne Schweiger-Nitchals

CEA leadership will be meeting with the district administration to express our concerns over this, but we need all of you to also contact them and express your concerns. We must be united and organized to do this. Please share this with all your colleagues and encourage them to join CEA as members.