Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The first of many glitches to come

Today we passed out letters to certain students in the school telling them that they were mandated to attend the 37.5 minute sessions M-F. (Every teacher submitted a list of 10 students that they wanted to "target.") We also gave letters to students selected for enrichment programs such as yearbook and drama (they didn't get to choose what they wanted to participate in).

The first thing that I noticed about the letter was that it stated that we were switching to a new schedule. School would now be in session from 8:30 a.m. until 2:50 p.m. The 37.5 minutes would begin at 3:00 and finish at 3:37 1/2.

Hmmm . . . This is not what I remembered reading about the new contract. Somehow my administration is trying to get an extra ten minutes a day (40 minutes a week) out of us. They say that this time is for dismissal. Still, it is time that we are working.

Luckily, our union rep is all over this. Usually he doesn't push too hard for things but this, he says, isn't right. He said that he already mentioned it to the administration but they didn't agree with him. Now he has to take it to his people.

I was so glad that I heard him talking about this in the teacher's lounge today because I brought it up to some teachers and they didn't even know that school was supposed to end ten minutes earlier with the implementation of the new schedule.

Anyway, now once this all gets sorted out we're going to have to send out new letters most likely resulting in everyone being more confused than they already are about the whole situation.

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