Here’s a bright idea, School Board
Cats: Canada|Why don’t you just make it easy on everyone and tell us the days you WILL be available to teach our kids.
You could just say that schools will be open this day and that day and this day. It would be so much easier than splattering our schedules with closings and early dismissals. That’s so negative.
Most parents work for a living and have to make alternate arrangements when school’s aren’t available to teach our kids. What with professional development, union meetings and report cards, you can hardly be expected not to close as often as you do.
Next week, you’re closing schools for two days in a row. And of course there’s no economic impact, inconvenience or problem for the tax-paying, working parent who just somehow finds a workaround to accommodate those days.
So wouldn’t it be easier and more positive just to say when you’ll be opened. That way we would make permanent arrangements, you know, to accommodate you on the days you aren’t available to teach.
Far be if from me to suggest that you do your professional development in July or August. Everyone knows that the reason schools are closed for those months each year is so that children can help their parents around the farm. And it goes without saying that teachers and school board employees are busy on the farm too.
We wouldn’t want to use empty school buildings for educational purposes in summer because that could lead to a collapse of our agrarian society. And we couldn’t have that.
So just tell us when you’re schedule fits with the teaching and leave all the other non-teaching day arrangements to the taxpayer with children.
OK, School Board?
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Of course, it may still snow – in which case – no school
Or, the forcast might call for snow – in which case – no school
And what if it rains? – Isn’t it possible the temperature might drop and produce snow – therefor – lets cancel school.
A bright sunny day? – Can you spell melanoma? – better cancel school.
What’s that? The UV levels just as high on a cloudy day as a sunny one? – that’s right – CANCELLED!
The line for home schooling forms on the left, right next to thee line for the tax rebate for the unused educational dollars freed up due to to the multiple cancellation days. Let’s go celebrate! Sledding anyone? Hope for snow…
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
PD Day? Ha! The last one we ran was on a Friday afternoon – about 2 of twenty teachers attended. Truants!
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
tagbagger, HA!!!
Hahahahahahahaha! I. Can’t. Breathe. Hahahahahahahaha! Stop. It. hahaha.
tagbagger2, I tell that story often, names and professions changed to protect the innocent, of course. Sort of makes a mockery of PD days.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Unions and their bloody entitlement culture. They have us by the short and curlys. “Give us another day off or we’ll strike”.
Maybe some day they’ll remember why we have schools, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
These kids today. We rarely ever had a day off school when I was in HS. I guess that’s why I’m so damn smart.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Dick, given the fact you’re in one, that comment speaks volumes.
These days unions represent white collar middle class workers. Meanwhile low-paid retail and fast food workers have no representation. Something’s wrong with a labour movement that protects the middle classes and ignores the poor.
BeckEye, yeah, it’s those damned ‘tweens. They get too many days off school and go all soft in the head. Next thing you know they vote Michael Johns off Idol and now they’re going to vote in David A. If only they could be as damned smart as you.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
A bunch of Disricts in the US have experimented with year round school, but it’s never caught on.
Speaking from the school end, I do think staff needs regular professional development and it shouldn’t just be once a year during the summer….the problem is that the agrarian function of most public schools may no longer be relevant, but the childcare aspect of school hasn’t phased out. We use it as the cheapest babysitter of them all…
The real cure would be to have more community-wide after school activities for children.
That said, yeah, it’s a pain to deal with minimum days, staff days, etc.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
This is not a response, just some further thoughts.
I find that the unions have a tendency shift the focus away from the client, and onto the employee. Whether government, schools, hospitals,… it should be all about the client.
There is a balance to be struck between one’s workload and ones personal and professional development. The bottom line is that there is a job to be done and if we lose focus on that, we have failed our clients (i.e public, students, sick people,…).
Professional development should be on-going, and shouldn’t trump what you were hired to do. It should be done to enhance the service being provided to the clients.
P.S. My union reps think I’m a pain in the arse.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Chance, by way of context, you are talking to weary, winter-worn Northern dwellers, so if we sound a little loonie, we are!
Tagbagger’s comment is not an exaggeration. We’ve missed so many days this winter and now (thanks to litigation chill) they cancel on the prediction of snow.
Working parents (women) are in a bind. If the society is organized around the idea of parents working – and it is – then school is by default a form of state childcare. If the economy needs productivity to generate taxes to pay for state education, then it is self-defeating to close schools in the middle of the school year. For someone who is self-employed like me, it hurts. And I work in a business with deadlines that have no mercy for snow or closed schools or anything. Single mothers in low-paying jobs are crucified by this system. etc etc.
Why not have stagged PDs and use substitutes to fill in, or keep schools open and organize big jamborees or something.
There has to be a way to address parents, teachers and students needs.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Dick, I’ve never been in a union but the individual vs collective is one of those debates that will never be settled.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Those poor teachers have to plant and combine and milk the cows and everything!
April 24th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
GT,
I definitely understand. In the United STates, we have a system that doesn’t especially value children. The day is built around and prioritized around work rather than the needs of the family.
It’s probably more “productive” in a narrow sense, but I don’t think it’s very advanced. IN a period where Marx has fallen into direpute, his analysis of the various forces that lead to maximizing marginal output (surplus value) over actual human need have been strangely accurate. One of the ironies of a market-based society is that while it sanctifies “choice and freedom” actual families often have less of both because market efficiency becomes the driving force in designing institutions that are supposed to serve human beings.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Elegant analysis Chance.
I’m continually amazed how Marx’s analysis keep proving true. He predicted the consolidation of smaller businesses into bigger and bigger enterprises. Microsoft anyone?
I guess I’m just a little cog caught between the state apparatus and market-driven forces. Next week, teachers have conferences two days ergo I have kids home. My pre-industrial model “home office” enables certain freedom to continue working, but the noise and continual distraction of kids in the house will interfere with my productivity.
Meaning I will have to make up my work (surplus value) at night or early in the morning.
*sigh*