How Much Will Your Plate Hold?

Recently the majority of our mandatory compliance training moved from part of our professional development time to an online tool we may complete at our convenience over the course of the year.

Perhaps the future holds increasing amounts of online professional development on your own time.

My recommendation would be to find the recommended time for completion for each required tutorial, and then to put in for a professional development day (or days) to match the total amount of time required.

As more is placed on a teacher's plate, if something isn't removed intentionally, things will begin to fall off.

How is your union handling this issue?

Fund Raising

I put my finger on how I feel about fund raising.

If it's by choice then I'm all for it.

If someone feels compelled, then I'm against it.

It's that intrinsic/extrinsic issue.

Unions are meant to prevent individuals from being put in uncomfortable positions. A union should never attempt to look good by making a member feel bad.

Teacher Evaluations and Inter-rater Reliability

I'd like to see a randomized video sequence evaluated using our adopted system (Marzano). The evaluators would not see the sequences in the same order (or they might), and then the results could be compared.

It seems that evaluations are dependent on the evaluator(s), and scores adjusted after evaluators discuss their findings, and then adjusted once again during the post-evaluation meeting.

Proposed Teachers' Union Position on Stipends

Teachers' Unions should not permit stipends for work done during the work day. However stipends for work beyond the work day should be negotiated by the union, unless it's a non-union position that is posted for all.  Stipends for work done during the day send a message that one position is more valuable than another.  If it's an administrative role, take it out of the association and pay it accordingly.
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What if the stipend is for the potential of work outside the school day?
In this case a stipend should be available if all teachers could apply for the posted position.  However, if it is only available to a specific job description, then that position should probably not be in the same bargaining unit.

What if someone is already receiving a stipend that breaks this position?
They should be grandfathered or moved to an administrative position.

Photo credit: ronnieb from morguefile.com