Teachers need real prep time, not release time
The New York City Department of Education has scheduling guidance. But nothing to get excited about.
A new DoE document is floating around – I’ll get my hands on a copy tomorrow. It is called “Instructional Principals and Programming Guidance.”
People are focusing on the model schedules. Since I only have screen shots, that’s what I will start with.
In the Programmer’s Group, first comment? “I love how non-programmers program” So, no, not good. Not usable for most of us.
Preparation Tiime
The worst part? Teacher prep is 30 minutes per day, moved to the end of the day, with the expectation that teachers can prep at home.
We know we never get enough time for preparation. It would have been nice, you know, pandemic, remote learning, that sort of stuff, if they had actually given us a tiny bit more prep time, since it takes about twice as long to do everything. But ok, we can save that for another day.
So instead of more prep, they are going to generously allow us to prep, for half an hour, at home?
Do these people think we are so dumb that we will overlook the serious safety problems if we can leave half an hour early? What insulting garbage.
Message for your UFT Reps
Mulgrew did good on Friday, telling the DoE and us, no we are not going to return to schools without real safety in place:
“the city’s safety proposals fall far short of anything we would agree to.”
Tell him he needs to do it again. We want plans that work, we want safety to really be dealt with. We are not sure the DoE can pull it off. But we’re sure as hell not going to smile and say ok and forget about safety in the face of this pandemic because they let us leave a few minutes early.
Email your chapter leader, your district rep, your borough rep, your VP, and Mulgrew. Let them know:
We will not trade our safety and the safety of our students for anything. We will not trade safety for time.
And
It is time for the DoE to stop insulting teachers’ intelligence, and get to work preparing for September. They are way behind.
New York City Department of Education has scheduling guidance. But nothing to get excited about.
A new DoE document is floating around – I’ll get my hands on a copy tomorrow. It is called “Instructional Principals and Programming Guidance.”
People are focusing on the model schedules. Since I only have screen shots, that’s what I will start with.
In the Programmer’s Group, first comment? “I love how non-programmers program” So, no, not good. Not usable for most of us.
Preparation Time
The worst part? Teacher prep is 30 minutes per day, moved to the end of the day, with the expectation that teachers can prep at home.
We know we never get enough time for preparation. It would have been nice, you know, pandemic, remote learning, that sort of stuff, if they had actually given us a tiny bit more prep time, since it takes about twice as long to do everything. But ok, we can save that for another day.
So instead of more prep, they are going to generously allow us to prep, for half an hour, at home?
Do these people think we are so dumb that we will overlook the serious safety problems if we can leave half an hour early? What insulting garbage.
Message for your UFT Reps
Mulgrew did good on Friday, telling the DoE and us, no we are not going to return to schools without real safety in place:
“the city’s safety proposals fall far short of anything we would agree to.”
Tell him he needs to do it again. We want plans that work, we want safety to really be dealt with. We are not sure the DoE can pull it off. But we’re sure as hell not going to smile and say ok and forget about safety in the face of this pandemic because they let us leave a few minutes early.
Email your chapter leader, your district rep, your borough rep, your VP, and Mulgrew. Let them know:
We will not trade our safety and the safety of our students for anything. We will not trade safety for time.
And
It is time for the DoE to stop insulting teachers’ intelligence, and get to work preparing for September. They are way behind.
JD2718 
Thank you for your work and insight. I wonder if the DOE has any grasp on how much personnel they will have come September. My school makes every class (including AP) an ICT experience. Are they still expecting to follow IEPs? Who’s going to handle the remote learning kids while we’re in the classroom doing live instruction? What if a school doesn’t have enough remote learning teachers working from home? How many teachers are there in September after retirements, resignations, leaves, transfers, hiring freeze, etc. to handle small and remote classes? Who covers classes when teachers are absent? What’s the update on air filtration installation? Will all schools have nurses? When do custodians clean classrooms in these schedules?What kind of pedagogy are they expecting now that social distancing makes group work untenable? Do teachers even know what they’re going to teach? September is looking uglier with each passing day!
So true on all fronts.
I’m really worried about the inept plans the doe has set forth thus far. None of them are practical. So many variables go into play that those in the ivory tower do not know exist.
I think the DoE will absolutely say that they are following IEPs – and then put principals in the position of finding ways to violate them.
It’s all part of the same shifting of responsibility. They won’t break rules to be able to say “schools are open” – but they will set up principals until their only choices are endangering students and staff – or saying no.
How many principals will say no to Carranza? That is an important question.
Instructional lunch is going to be an epic disaster.
Ever see how elementary breakfast works with fifth graders?
The teacher winds up cleaning up the mess.
This is a total joke.
And we haven’t looked closely at the models – but try this one on. “Duty free lunch” – who watches the kids during the teacher’s duty free lunch?
These horrible, unforgiving schedules are WORSE than they look at first glance.
Also, where do we go for “duty free lunch”? The staff lounge the size of a closet? What about parapro lunches, are they all at the end of the day? No mention of parapros… does D75 not exist anymore because these plans are garbage… bussing.. yeah. This is gonna go real well…
141CL? There are real space issues in my buildings outside of the classrooms. Not sure if you have ever passed by mine, if they bring in full faculty, there’s no room in the building for those not teaching (we are ok if Lehman is open). But it’s not just my building.
Completely off topic – have you ever been on the Martin Guitar factory tour? Really first rate. Well worth the trip to Nazareth. And i’m saying this as a non-guitar kind of guy.
In Chicago we are looking at a 7 hour day MT and RF. Wed all day remote for “deep cleaning” by a privatized service that is underpaid and understaffed (Aramark). Assuming you have a prep for an hour and someone to cover your group during lunch, you’re teaching or in front of Ss for 5.25 hours. Even if we had full staffing, routine or chronic absences would cause all kinds of crazy contingencies for us to figure out. We have many, many bros and sisters taking Leaves so I see many holes in coverage being exacerbated a lot. I suggested to CTU that we in the buildings get any time overages on those 5.25 for MTRF given back to us on the following Wed. Knowing what I know about sub coverage, Wed would pretty much be a day off. I will have timer in hand. I am not working for free, and no, this year I don’t want the extra $$$$, so don’t give me some redundant time sheet. If they want, I can make a still video that says “teacher make up time” for six hours in GoogleMeets, maybe with some Kenny G or SweetBack (Sade’s band) playing.
They are attempting to treat a crisis as if it were an ordinary time. It all adds up to disaster.