No more minutes to give

To the editor:

According to the information put out by the Mat-Su Borough School District by the postmaster, “the district is not proposing a reduction in the number of hours teachers are provided for prep-time. The time will remain at 225 minutes per week; however, in the district’s proposal the calculation could include the 30 minutes before and after school.”

Hmmm, not taking away prep time? Does the district and school board not know what happens in the half hour before and after school? Breakfast in the classrooms, grade level meetings, parent meetings, taking children to the bus or pick up, responding to parental needs, before and after school tutoring, response to intervention meetings, data dialogue meetings and staff meetings — not to mention just preparing the classroom for students.

The district further claims “if this were the case (using the 30 minutes before and after school in the prep calculation) there would not be other duties as assigned during that time.”

This proposal leaves me with a lot of questions. How is the district going to keep parents from coming in to talk to you when they have a need, or should they? When would teachers be accessible to the families they serve? Are children going to walk themselves out to the buses? Are we going to stop greeting children at the door or helping them to pack up at the end of the day? The reason why that half an hour before and after school is not calculated into prep time is that it takes at least 15-20 minutes to get a class of students out the door. Teachers are available for parents during the time before and after school. It takes time to open and close a classroom — set up and take down (the elves don’t do it).

Perhaps the district thinks that because it has spent millions of dollars on canned programs that these programs do not require any prep. Perhaps the district knows teachers are very giving of their time and are trying to take advantage of this fact; the last survey shows teachers gave an average of 10-15 hours of unpaid time to their classrooms each week. Perhaps the district has a plan to save money and take away music, physical education and library science. We can only guess at their motives, but one thing is clear: they do not understand that reducing prep time calculates into less-prepared teachers for their jobs, which hurts the quality of teaching, which hurts the learning of our children. Where is the good in that?

And if the intentions of the district and the school board are pure, perhaps the school board and district are so far removed from the everyday workings of a classroom that they could be likened to Marie Antoinette when the peasants revolted: “Well, if they don’t have bread, let them eat cake.”

District and school board — I’m sorry, but we don’t have any more minutes in the day to give.

Tracey Martin

Wasilla