Why Are You Whining? You Only Work 180 Days!

-->

I am not a political person. As a matter of fact, I hate politics, but that doesn’t mean I won’t speak up when there is a need.  During this RED4ED movement I have kept quiet and, to be honest, I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. But recently I have seen and read some misconceptions that people have about teachers and it’s time I spoke up for my colleagues.

The major misconception: Teachers only work 180 days and less than forty hours a week. Have you ever driven by a school parking lot? When I get to school at 6:30 a.m. the parking lot is already filling up and if you drive by a school parking lot at 6:00 p.m., it is probably still half full. Teachers’ work “days” go beyond a day because parents work, so teachers have to work nights also to have conferences, award ceremonies, after-school sporting activities, carnivals, book fairs, fall festivals, spring festivals, Read-to-Me nights, band concerts, choral festivals, school plays, dance recitals and the list goes on.

A teacher’s contract IS for 180 school days and they get paid for 180 days and that pay has to last for the entire year. Many teachers work two jobs. When I was young I worked summers. I have had many strange summer jobs I even sold vans one summer. I know many teachers, school secretaries, and aides that work a full day and then run to their night job at a local retail shop or movie theater and they work until closing, get home very late, grade papers, plan for the next day, fall in bed, get up early and start again. They do this because they don’t want to make the decision about what bill has to go unpaid so their family can eat.

I have taught for forty years and I have never worked less than fifty hours a week. I am at my desk at home first thing in the morning on Saturday and Sunday grading papers, writing lesson plans, searching for curriculum, creating curriculum, writing student objectives, writing success criteria, creating hyperdocs, texting parents, putting grades in the gradebook, etc., etc. and I am usually there until two or three in the afternoon. And I know this is what I signed up for forty years ago. And I know there are many professions that work extra hours, that go beyond the call of duty and that take work home.  But teachers don’t get paid overtime, they don’t get a tax deduction for a home office and  office supplies, and they don’t get bonuses. Do I think I work harder than a nurse, a police officer, a firefighter, or  a social worker? NO WAY! I want those that have been pooh-poohing the teaching profession lately to know that teachers work longer than just 8 to 3.

Another misconception: The teacher walk-out is about teachers’ salaries. Yes, Doug Ducey “promised” to raise teachers’ salaries 20 percent over time. That is like giving someone a promise ring. I think promise rings are given by men that don’t have the guts or kahonies to make a real commitment. This walk-out is about so much more than teachers’ salaries. It’s about 4.56 BILLION DOLLARS PILFERED from the education fund since 2009 and those cuts haven’t been restored. Arizona is frighteningly low in education funding. Arizona is one of the states that has the highest pupil-to-teacher ratio and the lowest per-pupil funding. This walk-out is about over 2,000 teaching positions that weren’t filled four months in to the school year, 3,400 teaching jobs filled by people who weren’t trained to teach and 866 teachers that quit before December of 2017 because the job was too hard. This walk-out is about the shortage of supplies for classroom, money for textbooks that are up-to-date, and healthy working and learning environments. Many may not understand this, but THIS WALK-OUT IS ABOUT CHILDREN.

I retired three years ago but I continued to teach because I LOVE MY JOB! The past three years I have had to work at grade levels that were short teachers. In 2015, I offered to teach 7th grade (Yea, I’m still asking myself, “What was I thinking?”) We were short a teacher and instead of subjecting the students to a steady stream of substitute teachers that never taught (at that time my district was working with a temp agency to fill in for the lack of substitute teachers), my teammates and I decided we would divide four classes of students into three classes. We had  an average of 45 seventh graders in a class. The logistics of square footage, desks, big bodies and room for my wheelchair was frightening. But we were dedicated, we wanted what was best for the students, we were gung-ho and we were sure we could do it. About two months into it, we were at my house on a Saturday lesson planning (which we did about every other Saturday) and we were exhausted, slap-happy and in tears. We were sure that eventually the district could find a qualified candidate that wanted to teach seventh grade. We were wrong. The district office did come through but two people from the district had to take the fourth class half-days. It was a good effort but it ended up difficult for all parties concerned. The next year I moved back to fifth grade with a full intact team. One of our teammates became very ill and was unable to teach and, as team leader, I spent the year writing lesson plans, grading papers, and keeping up on paperwork for a string of substitute teachers.

This past year I was positive it was going to be different. I had an intact team, no one was ill and all showed up on the first day of school and then our grade level became part of the “866 teachers leave the profession before December 2017” statistic. Our grade level had NOT ONE BUT TWO teachers resign before Labor Day.

Whenever I am in a group of unfamiliar people and someone asks, “What do you do?” I hate answering "that question". It is not because I am ashamed of what I do. I am very proud of what I do. Many times too proud. But, whenever I answer, "I am a teacher," I have to listen to every bad teacher story there is in the room. Whenever someone tells me, "I am a banker, CEO, or legislators," I don't tell them about the bad bankers, CEOs, or legislators I have come across, and I have come across many.

I know there are bad teachers, really I do know, but there are many more good teachers than there are bad teachers. I truly don't believe that any teacher goes into teaching thinking, "I am just going to do what I need to do to get by because I don't care about children. I am only here for the short hours and I get summers off"

In conclusion, teachers:

• many times leave for work in the dark and come home in the dark
• work at home grading, planning, etc. (this does not include their mom or dad duties)
• work for free doing parent-teacher conferences, meet the teacher nights, math nights, literacy nights, read-to-me nights, school carnivals, community clean-ups, science fairs, curriculum nights, book parades, and pep rallies just to name a few
• can collect field trip money, t-shirt money, homework, make-up work, notes from home, and have it counted, checked off, organized and put away in the first five minutes of the day
• can eat a seven course meal in seven minutes
• take a thirty minute lunch everyday (if that much)
• never get to go to lunch
• eat their lunch with children
• eat their breakfast with children
• spend thousands of dollars every year for their class and can only deduct $250 a year
• deserve Oscars for keeping the attention of children 7 hours a day
• never sit down
• are always exposed to germs
• are substitute mothers
• know more about some students than they want
• wish they could take many of their students home
• have to prove that they are highly qualified every year
• know their jobs are the first to be cut in a budget crisis
• are expected to have ALL students at grade level
• teach before school, during school, and after school
• are accountants
• are janitors
• are counselors
• are plumbers
• are organizers
• are behavior management specialists
• are mechanics
• have to wait forever to go to the bathroom

I have this quote on the bottom of my email that I would like Doug Ducey and the legislature to see:

"Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it." Henry Ward Beecher

It’s time for the great state of Arizona to restore the cuts made from the education fund. It’s time to lower the pupil-to-teacher and counselor ratio and raise the per-pupil funding. It's time to stop overlooking support staff. Our children should be the only thing on our minds. It’s time!

Paco’s Perspective

Doug Ducey is a person? When I make doo-doo in the yard and you pick it up you always say, “Wow! That’s a big Doug Ducey!” I am one confused chihuahua.

The Flip Side

Are you sure you’re NOT political?

Inclusion

I have been disabled all my life. Fortunately for me I had the opportunity to attend public school and be included in mainstream classes. This is no small fete considering that I am a child of the sixties when handicapped students were not allowed to attend public school. How could this happen?

I was born in Iowa. I have an older sister, a younger sister and a younger brother, Brad” that was also disabled. It was difficult for my brother and me to maneuver in the snow and the cold weather wasn’t great for anyone with Muscular Dystrophy. My parents took a big risk leaving family, friends and work behind to move to Arizona for my brother and I.

In the summer of 1962, my parents bought a John F. Long home on the Westside of Phoenix, Arizona a half of a block away from Holiday Park Elementary School in the Cartwright District. I was six years old and my mom decided to sign me up to attend school. In the sixties disabled children did NOT attend public school. My disability wasn’t obvious at such a young age. I could walk at the time but if I fell, one could easily see that I was disabled by the way I got up and the time it took me to get up. On the first day of school my mom looked me in the eye and said, “Watch your step! Don’t fall! And, Cathy, keep your mouth shut and don’t make waves!” (Even at the age of six, I was being warned to be quiet and don’t make waves. Those that know me will laugh at this and wonder why I didn’t follow that mantra all my life.) I happily attended Holiday Park Elementary School. My parents were part of the local Muscular Dystrophy Association and Brad and I were cute kids at that young age and were the “Arizona State Poster Children” for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. At many of the Muscular Dystrophy functions other parents were surprised that I attended public school and when my mother was asked how she got me in public school her answer was simple, “I went and registered her.”

The next year it was time for Brad to go to school. Brad was already in a wheelchair so there was no hiding the fact that he was disabled. My mom took my brother with her when she went to register him for school and this time she got a different reaction. She was directed to speak with the principal and he said he was sorry but Brad wouldn’t be able to attend school but he could give her a list of place where he could attend school. My mom said to the principal, “Why can’t he attend this school? His sister goes to this school and she has the same disability as Brad! Their problem is they can’t walk NOT that they can’t think!” The principal was dumbfounded and Brad attended Holiday Elementary School. At that moment in time, The principal, Robert Smith, my mom, Brad and I had set a precedent for the Cartwright School District – Disabled children were allowed to attend public school. Throughout my public school career I saw many disabled children attending school.

Why was this amazing? Public Law 94-142 was not passed until 1974, which was the year I graduated from high school. Public Law 94-142 gave ALL children the access to a public education. This was twelve years after I started attending public school.

I truly believe that if I hadn’t received a public education I would have never been able to attend or graduate from college. In the sixties, “education” for the disabled consisted of teaching life skills. Even in 1974 I had to fight to be allowed to become a teacher. The Arizona State University College of Education didn’t want me to waste my time and resources on a teaching degree that “the powers that be” felt would never be used because no one would hire disabled teachers. But I had spent years in the Cartwright District public school system influenced by so many amazing teachers and also by this time I had dropped the part of my mother’s daily mantra, “Cathy, keep your mouth shut and don’t make waves.” I was a tsunami and I fought to attend the College of Education, and besides The Arizona State University College of Education didn’t know I had an ace in the hole – the Cartwright School District.

Public Law 94-142 also stated that public buildings had to be handicapped accessible but there was a five-year time period that owners could take to make their buildings accessible. Many places started slow by painting a wheelchair on a parking space or taking the door off of a toilet stall to make it “accessible”. I spent most of my college years and part of my teaching career not drinking any liquids during the day and rushing home, at the end of the day, to go to the bathroom. In 1978, I graduated from Arizona State University with a teaching degree that many thought was useless.

In 1978 there was a push to “hire the handicapped” but at that time disabled teachers were not part of the “push”.  I went to the only place I knew that would accept me for who I was, the Cartwright School District. I figured if the Cartwright School District didn’t need a law to do what was right for children, then the district probably didn’t need a law to hire a disabled teacher.

In August of 1978 I started my forty-year teaching career. In the early 80s I was one of three teachers that implemented an inclusion plan where all special education students stayed in the mainstream class for the entire day. The Cartwright School District was doing inclusion long before the word was invented. The Cartwright District has always been open to research-based ideas that improve student achievement and has been the forerunner of doing what is the best for students without expecting any acknowledgement.

I am always amazed at the cycles in the education system. The Arizona State Department is cycling back to FULL INCLUSION. There are grants that teach and support schools on full inclusion. The school that I am teaching at now, Borman, is in the second year of the grant. I have always pushed to have my students with special needs stay in my class as much as possible. I believe they have a right to be exposed to the grade level curriculum. Many ask, “But what about the students that can’t handle the regular classroom?” The other day as I was walking across campus I ran into a student from another school I had taught in the past. When I first met him the word “autistic” was NOT part of our daily educational vocabulary as it is today.  I know this young man will never understand the middle school curriculum nor will he pass the state required tests. But being a part of the mainstream class is teaching him and his classmates life lessons. He is learning how to function in crowds. He is also learning how to avoid unkind individuals, unfortunately. I hope his classmates are learning to be more accepting of others. My head is not completely in the clouds. I know that there are students with special needs that will need a self-contained classroom and even one-on-one aids. But I also know that if one doesn’t set one’s goals beyond their reach then one will never reach the stars.

I am one of the lucky ones. If not for my full-inclusive public education, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I thank God for leading my parents to the right place, with the right open-minded leader at the wrong time in educational history. I guess I am again a “poster child” but this time for full inclusion. As I get ready to retire, no really I am, I’m not kidding this time, I realize how lucky I was to have a mother that wouldn’t take no for an answer and to have been a product of the Cartwright School District. 

Paco's Perspective

I like school. When will there be full-inclusion for dogs? I know there are a lot of faces to lick and hearts to melt.

The Flip Side

Do they have lizards at school? You know how much I love chasing lizards, oh, and bunnies and gophers and squirrels? Did some say squirrel? Is there a class in chasing animals?

Osa's Opinion

I'm thinking school is not the place for us! What is school?