On another post Anonymous wrote:
"**new post**
Teacher Cuts Sent Out Again
Major teacher
cuts are happening again. While there is an a opportunity to put in for a
transfer, many teachers find there isn't a single job posted on the
transfer list they can apply for. This means more bumping around and
students who have formed bonds with their teachers will find that bond
harshly broken when the teachers disappear next year.
This also
means that more teachers will be teaching over a full load, with more
preps and much bigger classroom numbers. It's that's much harder to be
an effective teacher when the focus for planning is spread in too many
directions.
Teachers are given 45 minutes per day to plan for as
many as five different classes, complete paperwork, make phone calls or
write emails to parents, document those contacts, grade papers, make
copies, and...what am I forgetting? Oh, right. Pee. There are other
things that need attending to, but hopefully not every day, like dealing
with students I having a personal crisis, talk to social workers about
student mental health and home life issues, and provide tutoring.
However, teachers can handle those things instead of eating lunch, so no
big deal.
In order to try to keep up with this work, teachers
put in countless hours in the evening and on weekends. Many stay after
school until 5 or 6 to run clubs and play catch up. And while the board
is expecting teachers to document every minute of the up to 16 hours
that must be made up for snow days, it was never considered the number
of hours put in, unpaid, all year that they had already provided.
Unfortunately, none of that make up time is going towards instructing
our students, because the students aren't making up those hours.
What
does this all mean? Parents, demand better circumstances for your
teachers! Demand better care for your teachers! Demand better support
for your teachers! Because those things will benefit your students.
Become educated about the cuts. Become educated about the job of a
teacher. Demand to be able to shadow a teacher, though you'll have to
get clearances first. Write letters to the editor. Have your students
write letters to the editor. Grab the biggest whistle you can find,
stand in front of bellefield with your students and blow it hard!
Parents, we need you!"
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25 comments:
Are these cuts through failure to replace teachers leaving or retiring? It seems that only the layoff kind of cuts receive news attention. Re: clearances, isn't the requirement waived if you are shadowing or otherwise accompanying a teacher or other person who does have clearances?
two things talked about at the agenda review were interesting. a board member gave a shout out to the director of career and technical education for decreasing the number of corrective actions (unsure of term)and there was a small change or increase of days for Ripper Consulting at perry and oliver or because days at oliver were added. an outsider might ask what the career dept did to decrease the corrective actions. why wasn't a minute or two devoted to that topic. if what was done differently is not explained, sorry folks, we can't believe the numbers. is there somewhere outsiders can see the reports of the success at perry and/or oliver.
sorry, the point was that we need to increase the number of teachers to deliver a quality complete education.
are PRC teachers exempt from cuts?
To my knowledge PRC teachers are not exempt from cuts. Students are going to be in very large classes next year because of these cuts. Never mind what Melinda Gates says, class size does make a difference.
Who didn't know there would be more cuts! There simply isn't the number of students in Pittsburgh there once was. What they are doing is not part of some master plan. It is shrinking the staff to meet the shrinking student population. Would you rather they raise taxes even more?
If staff numbers were just being reduced to meet reduced student numbers, class sizes would not be increasing.
Too much logical thinking Questioner! Not allowed at Bellefield.
Besides, the bigger the classes, the more people with any other options will leave and...fewer students. The only real question is how far into this death spiral will they go before they admit that they've screwed up a ton of things and change course?
"They" have only "screwed up" if this was not their purpose in the first place! What else makes any sense, the death spiral of PPS has not opponents inside its Central Office! Everything is aligned for one-by-one take over by Propel. First the Northside, then Hazelwood, next the Hill District and then Homewood. Pittsburgh, A+ Schools, the United Way, the Foundation Community, and a few lesser players are paving the way. The liberal white community is facilitating the process all while seeming to advocate for public schools. Let's hear a few good arguments and some evidence that says it isn't so.
Shadowing, even under teacher supervision, requires clearances. Alumni have a hard time gaining access to the school and are often turned away when they offer assistance to their old high school.
PRC is safe from cuts. When talking to HR at Bellefield, cuts only happen to teachers NOT serving career ladder positions.
I do have a question. What percent of residents living in the city limits pay school taxes? Just curious.
Liberal White Community. I'm not touching that one.
Questioner said:
If staff numbers were just being reduced to meet reduced student numbers, class sizes would not be increasing.
April 27, 2014 at 5:27 PM
keep repeating this.
Here are proposed HS physical education "displacements":
Allderdice 7 to 6 (1330 students)
Carrick 4 to 2 (838 students)
Brashear 7 to 4 (1416 students)
Perry 4 to 3 (789 students)
Oliver 2 both staying (133 students)
Westinghouse 2 adding 1 (500 students)
Student Ach, Ctr. 2.5 staying at 2.5 (169 students)
CAPA 4 staying at 4 (923 students)
Sci. Tech 2 staying at 2 (548 students)
Obama 4 staying at 4 (900 students)
The elective program Dr. Lippert discussed at the previous agenda review meeting, will only work at Allderdice. And some high schools aren't even offering PE to their 11th and 12th graders.
I wonder how "they" decided which schools will have cuts? How do schools with much smaller student populations justify adding a teacher (Westinghouse)?
I am afraid we are looking at the demise of PE in the high schools. Some schools have coed gym which is a disaster, no swimming, no dressing for class, etc. It will be like "recess" in the elementary schools.
What about Milliones U-Prep? Is there a reason this school is not listed?
If you are a Carrick or Brashear parent you must be worried. The numbers at those schools sure don't match the idea you might have had listening to Dr. Lippert at agenda review. What of all the PE electives that were talked about? What of the idea that the electives will be needed because there will need to be somewhere for the kids to be?
Apparently there are more PE cuts, but not everyone has responded yet. (UPrep) We may be looking at 11-12 displacements.
If they don't have PE as their "dumping ground," where will these students be placed - or will the PE classes be 60 and over?
These cuts will be a big mistake if the result is an increase in the number of co-ed gym classes. Can we get some teachers to pipe in about that?
Dr. Lippert needs to teach a few co-ed classes before the end of the year.
There will have to be more co-ed PE classes. Allderdice has 7 teachers - 5 men and 2 women. The teacher being cut is female which leaves 5 men and 1 woman.
Dr. Lippert specifically said the contract allows for 40 max in a gym class.
There should be no co-ed classes.
Are all the cuts at the 9-12 level?
Brashear will have 3 male Phys Ed teachers and one female for over 1400 students. Lunacy!
Don't forget that PE teachers are also responsible for teaching Health classes.
So if a school has 3 PE teachers, it's quite possible that only 2 of them are running gym classes. The other PE teacher would be teaching Health in a classroom setting.
And that gets me wondering. How in the world could Carrick get by with just 2 PE teachers? Those 2 PE teachers would have to cover all of the gym classes and all of the Health classes.
How is that possible? Something would have to give. And that something would have to be gym class size. You'd have to pack 80 or more kids into each Carrick gym class.
What if we said, nice try but we liked Pps better how it was before 2006; please put everything back as close as possible to the way it was. The amount available to spend per year (approx $500 million) was actually less than the amount available now and it covered many many more students. From there changes could be made but they would need to meet specific standards in terms of logic, transparency, proof of effectiveness ( for example through piloting) and cost effectiveness.
It would be interesting to see high school by high school the ratio of male PE teachers to female PE teachers.
We already heard how Allderdice will be 5 men and 1 woman - Brashear 3 men and 1 woman. What about the remaining high schools? If I had to bet money, I'd bet that in the high schools, there are far more male PE teachers than women PE teachers.
The PE contract called for equal male/female PE staff for separate male/female classes. Some schools got around this contractual issue by making classes co-ed. The PFT did not fight this issue. (surprise) We are going to have VERY large co-ed PE classes in the high schools, mostly taught by men.
Last night's Public Hearing had two female PE teachers and about six male PE teachers testifying AGAINST the new requirements and design of PE programs in PPS. Most had in excess of 15 years in the District. Even so, it was courageous of them to speak out so forcefully against what will happen next year IF it is not voted down at Wednesday's Legislative Meeting. Hopefully, they will not all be CUT due to their audacity in speaking out publicly against Central Office decisions.
Wonder why the Press no longer covers PPS public hearings?
One theory on in-the-room reporting might be that since we now televise the committee and agenda review meetings there is no need for on-the-spot reporting. Reasonable, right?
Hopefully one of the board members can at least offer a motion to ban dodgeball in high school. Then someone can move to amend the motion to only ban dodgeball in co-ed gym classes. Then another member can move to table the motion thus allowing dogeball to continue to be played. Possibly this discussion will prompt a board member to suggest benchmark concussion testing for all students not just those who play competitive sports.
A few years back, A male PE teacher was to teach girls health. There was an outcry for a short time as this would have displaced a girls PE teacher at Carrick. Her mother was a former school board member. So, the male was displaced instead. A year or two later, the male was returned to his old position until the next rounds of cuts. This time, it was determined that a man can teach girls health as there are NO requirements for any specific gender. And so now a man can teach girls health, co-ed PE, adapted PE and live happily ever after
You realize that Spolar and HR had already sent out notices to the teachers being "displaced" notifying them to look at "open" positions. They went ahead and did this BEFORE the Board members had a chance to vote whether or not to cut positions. This is the way HR worked before we got a new Board. The times are changing...
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