Ever since I have been at Chets Creek, I have not been required to do bus or lunch duty except for the first few weeks to help out with kindergartners. However,I gave up my lunchtime for a year because I had a student that just couldn't get through the lunch period without severe behavioral issues. The point is, I have done lunch and bus duty in the past, but always because I felt my expertise was needed for those specific times of the day to meet the needs of students.
Now, however, teachers are doing lunch and bus duty, simply because there is no one else to do it. To make sure that all the duty is "fair" we often have more teachers than are really need in the Dining Room at one time and more than are needed at the bus, but we have to be "fair." I was thinking today about the amount of money that taxpayers are paying me to stand at the bus for 45 minutes at the end of the day. I'm embarrassed to say what it is costing them! I don't really offer much. Safety is not the issue here. There are five adults out there and a patrol for every bus - a job that could probably be handled by two adults easily. It's not hard work. I enjoy getting hugs from former students and asking how the day has been. Today there was actually a nice breeze and I kept thinking about how I was using my six years of college and thirty plus years of experience in reading as I waved good-by to kids.
The same could be said for the lunchroom. I'm sure administrators won't fight for a change because I'm sure there are probably less issues with so many teachers overseeing, but what is lost when teachers are spending their time handing out napkins and forks instead of sharing lunch with their colleagues? Although our school has a small faculty Dining Room, few teachers actually eat there. Instead, before this year, they usually ate with a partner and 90% of what I saw is that they were planning and collaboratively talking about issues and kids. There's not really a lot of personal conversation, although they certainly can do that, but instead, at our school it was mostly about the work. Because co-teachers are split this year, one in the lunchroom while the other eats and then one at recess while the other eats, they miss this valuable time of comparing notes and planning together. This really takes its toll in the primary school where teachers really co-teach the entire day. It's not like one teacher teaches the entire 36 while the other plans for half the day and then viceversa. In the primary school, where I can speak with authority, most teachers are both on their feet teaching the entire day together. That takes extra planning, but this year, instead of being together running through ways to fine tune instruction, they are opening pop top fruit and putting straws in juice bags. I wonder how businesses would feel about this really poor use of time... It may be "fair," but is it efficient? Funny that we would have teachers spend their day in this way in a time when we say we believe in rigor... Food for thought...
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