Public school teachers throughout Montgomery County wore stickers Friday to raise residents' awareness about their lack of time to plan lessons for students.Article continues here.
The school system's $2.15 billion fiscal 2010 operating budget cuts back on planning periods for teachers. The current budget already eliminates much of the support staff teachers once had.
This is the second consecutive year the school system has scaled back on teachers' planning time. In fiscal 2009, several teachers sent letters to the school board asking them to reinstate planning periods.
"If I don't have planning time, then my classes won't be as tight," said Patrick McCann, a special-education teacher at Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Rockville. "Teachers need time to make sure their kids are able to be successful in class. We'd like to have some time to do our jobs."
Note: The teachers' union has representatives that sit on Superintendent Jerry Weast's secret budget planning committee. (No Board of Education members are on the budget committee.) Each year, for the last 3 years, when the MCPS Operating Budget is presented, Superintendent Weast has had the support of the 3 unions and MCCPTA as "partners" in the creation of the Capital and Operating budgets.
It isn't so much that they cut back on their planning time as they have also added more meetings to the schedule. The more time they meet, the less time teachers have to plan for students. MCPS has decided that collaboration is the way to go, but how do you implement what you have learned through collaboration if you don't have any planning time as it has all been turned into meeting time?
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