At a contract negotiation meeting with teachers union Association of Bay County Educators, the School Board proposed 60 additional instructional minutes be added into teachers’ 450-minute workday. Currently, teachers are required to instruct students for 300 minutes and take a 30-minute paid lunch break.
The proposal calls for 80-percent of the school day, 360 minutes, to be reserved for instruction. That is, instead of 120 minutes for planning and meetings, 60 minutes would be left over.
“We’re not getting the results that we want and this would be another tool for us to use,” said Bay District Schools chief negotiator Pat Martin. “And it is very much supported by research that the amount of time that students spend in the classroom is one of the primary contributors to academic success.”
But union negotiators rejected the idea.
More instruction time doesn’t always translate into better grades, Cindy Fowler, ABCE chief negotiator, pointed out at the meeting.
Recently released school grades show former C school Springfield Elementary had dropped to a D in its second year with an additional hour added to its school day.
“It didn’t work for them,” Fowler told School Board representatives.
“(The School Board) thinks this is the magic bullet,” she later told reporters. “We’re not convinced.”
Faculty, departments, grade-level and parent conferencing meetings, in addition to planning and individualized educational plan (IEP) meetings couldn’t be carried out in the left over 60 minutes that the School Board is proposing, she said.
“It would seem that that would have to be done after the pay day, after the seven-and-a-half-hour day is over, or at the very least, the planning and the paper grading would have to be done at home,” Fowler added. “We just don’t think that’s fair.”
It was the second time this year the School Board submitted the proposal for more instruction time.
“Everyone deserves a good lunch and for teachers to do a good job, they need the planning time,” Martin said. “But, the proposal still allows for that to occur during the day and it gives the district and the school administration time to ask teachers to spend more time instructing students.”
Both parties agreed to resume negotiations at 2 p.m. Monday at the school district’s headquarters,