About 60 teachers gathered at the food center at Wegmans in Gainesville for an old fashioned grade-in. What’s that, you might ask? Those damn union teachers!!!! Actually, they met at Wegmans, ate lunch, and spent several hours grading papers and making lesson plans. Their goal was to show the public some of the things that they have to do outside the regular school day. PWC teachers have not had a step increase in 3 years.
The public has been very supportive. The County needs to stop poor mouthing. First class quality education starts with teachers with good morale. People who haven’t had a raise in 3 years generally feel under appreciated. The housing market is coming back. Businesses are returning.. The Board of Supervisors needed to set the tax rate high enough to support the County school system. Trying to educate OUR children on the cheap just isn’t going to fly.
According to insidenova.com:
Some of those shirts even had a roadwork sign emblazoned on the back that read “Educator at Work.”
PWEA and other teacher groups have been lobbying the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, the School Board and even state legislators for additional funds for the school division after learning in February there are no plans for pay step increases in the 2013 budget and perhaps not until 2016.
“The grade-in is designed so that the public can see that there is a lot more in the daily life of a professional educator than just 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 7 to 2,” said Jim Livingston, a PWEA board member. “There’s a lot of activity that has to go on outside of the contract day.”
David Foose, a music teacher at Sinclair Elementary School, brought a thick, black three-ring binder full of lesson plans and papers to grade.
“This is all work that’s done outside of the school day,” he said.
“We’re expected to do more and more with less pay,” said Trish Purschwitz, a second-grade teacher at Sinclair. “This is just to show the public that teaching isn’t just done at the school.”
Riley O’Casey, a civics teacher at Bull Run Middle School, said although it varies week-to-week, she works up to 12 hours a week beyond her contract hours.
“I have a unit test coming up,” she said, “so it will take me, with 168 students, a good week or week and a half to grade all those.”
A similar scene played out at Potomac Mills mall, where upwards of 90 teachers worked and ate at the food court.
Teachers said there has been no shortage of support from the community.
In addition to no raises, teachers have also had to put up with an assault from the state on their retirement and an attempt to remove them from the practice known as continuing contract. Are we sending a message that there is a war on teachers? It sure sounds like it.
This might be the time to send in a carton of coffee or a box of donuts for the teachers at your child’s school. Just a note letting them know you support their efforts might make the difference in a good day and a not so good day.
Love it! How many professions,other than teaching, bring their work home almost every day?
I thought the plan was really ingenious. Nothing like doing it in front of everyone to draw attention how much work is really done on free time.