Are you kidding me? March break was just last week and now this week my daughter doesn’t have school on Friday because teachers have an evaluation day? Heaven forbid they used one of their days last week as an evaluation day, wouldn’t that make sense? They complain about the amount of days students miss due to storms and whatnot but then make bonehead moves like this one. And don’t tell me teachers don’t have enough time off during the school year, and they deserve to have their march break. Within the last few years of school my daughter has had a sub teaching her about 25 percent of the time. And I would trade my three weeks off a year for two months in the summer any day. Suck it up and use some better judgment. —Laughing at the Stupidity
This article appears in Mar 18-24, 2010.
Would you also trade your salary for a teacher’s? What about your free evenings for theirs filled with marking and lesson plan prep? And what of your workday without screaming children and / or bratty teenagers to deal with, would you make that exchange?
get used to it laughing guy…hopefully you’re bright and can pick up the slack at home
A friend of mine was in Cuba last week and said that half the resort was full of teachers. Jennier, give me a huge and colossal break! I work evenings and weekends as well and do not get the time off that teachers do. It is called being on salary. You do what you need to do to get the job done because you are doing the job of 4 people. Suck it up. These are the same teachers who are now whining because they may *GASSSP* get told they need to actually go into the office on a storm day. They are very well paid and have great benefits
Teachers don’t work hard. They copy and paste lessons plans from Google!
Sounds like someone’s pissed they have to shell out some extra coin for someone to look after their spawn.
These “evaluation” days are there for a reason, OP. Teachers aren’t just sitting on their asses at home playing with themselves on these PD days. They go to conferences and shit on these days so they can do a better job teaching your kid.
And how would YOU like it if your boss said “yeah, so, about those three weeks vacation — you’re going to have to work three of those days.” Somehow I don’t think that would go over too well, OP.
You’re an asshole, OP. A giant, flaming, hemorrhoidic asshole.
Listen, I’m on a salary too, so I know all about unpaid overtime.
All I’m saying that I’m not personally cut out to deal with a classroom with 30 kids everyday *not to mention their asshole parents) without losing my mind. Having your summer free isn’t exactly worth it if you have to spend that time in therapy…
Well said Jennifer.
Bobby33..ignorance is bliss dude. Teachers aren’t that well paid.
shhhh, don’t use that word around, about government employees. you could find yourself without any of the marvelous services we pay lots of taxes for, ha.
they aren’t well paid… and don’t seem to be doing very well as a whole either in teaching anyone anything… kids learn more from spongebob than they do in class.
The fact that they can’t really fail a kid without approval is kind of appalling…
Pretty Kitty, What are you talking about ? I agree teachers need these evaulation days and I never said any where in my bitch that they were sitting on their asses at home. but I am sure they could have used one of the days over March break to do it. No your right I probably wouldn’t like it if I had to lose a day or two in my THREE WEEKS vacation to work, but if I had to I would. Also if I had as much time off as a teacher gets then I would be be fine with a day or two here and there. And don’t give me that evenings and weekend shit , I work from home all the time like bobby33 said. Teachers aren’t the only ones who have to take work home and dont get paid. How you think I am as asshole for thinking this way is even funnier,its a valid point if you ask me. Just sounds like you forgot to take your meds today.
Those poor teachers are caught in a catch 22. Some of them would actually love to make the system better but they are not allowed to talk about the problems that goes on in the school they work in, and no one listens to the kids that care because of the kids that don’t care.
Yeh, Lets all blame the teachers, those assholes…
Are you kidding me? Maybe, just maybe, if people stopped depending on others to raise their children the youth population wouldnt be mostly disrespectful, inconsiderate, entitled degenerates…
Do the teachers have a say in all this? Nope… But yeh, those teachers and their time off…
Yay, its been so long since we had a teacher bashing day. They have your kid’s future in hand, but you’re willing to fuck them over if the chance presents itself. Would you treat the guy adjusting the brakes on your car badly? Ah, whatever…
if you have a choice (other than private school), choose french immersion…but you have to be involved
Stop complaining about teachers time off. You should have become a teacher then. What? Too hard? Don’t like kids? Boo hoo.
Teachers do not get paid enough for the amount of work they do. Alot have 30-38 kids in each class and they teach 2 or 3 subjects that are all writing essays, reports etc that you have to mark (on your own time of course). Is EXTREMELY time consuming.
Yes they get time off, but it is dictated time off, they don’t get to choose when they stay home.
Storm days were pretty scarce in 2009 actually. If it is too bad for the buses to run why would the teachers go to school? To teach the kids that aren’t there. The teachers can do their marking at home.
I think that OP is pissed at the fact that her kid is going to be home and she has to make arrangements or worse stay home with her.
No worries people. I am sure the teachers must be near ready to strike again and hold the pulic as hostages. Look people, they knew what the job entailed when they went to school. They get more time off than any other profession that I know of. And, like everyone else in the real world., they have to work a few extra hours without pay. Cry me a river.
Bobby – It isn’t the teachers that are crying about the time off it is the parents of the kids they teach. Maybe everyone else should stop being jealous of the benifits that the teachers do get beacause everyone else knew what the (teacher job) entailed when they chose not to be one.
Two of my three best friends are teachers, and I can assure you – they RARELY do any work at night on the weekends. They do their correcting/planning during prep periods and their lunch hour. (Remember when we were kids and the teachers supervised recess and lunch? Yeah, they don’t do that any more. They have support workers who do that)
My teacher friends start their day the same time I do. The difference? They’re off at 2:30 or 3:00 while I’m at work usually until 6:30. They’ve already been to the gym, gone grocery shopping, and had a haircut by the time I’m leaving the office.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying teachers don’t work hard. But I work hard too – and I don’t get to stay home in my PJs eating ice cream every time it snows more than 3 centimetres. Nor do I get to go to the beach all summer long. I’m just saying we need to take all their boo-hooing with a grain of salt.
They had a 2 week March break in some BC schools because they added 2 minutes to each class from Sept til March, and then had a Pro-D Day (Professional developement) on the following Friday. Nice work if you can get it…
HH that doesn’t say very much about your friends as teachers then…what do they tach elementary?. My sister is a high school teacher as well as a few friends and they is ALWAYS doing marking or prep. They have to take part in awards nights, supervising dances, coaching sports all of this happens AFTER school hours.
I am sure your job has perks that the teachers don’t get. If you think they got it so good why aren’t you a teacher living the good life then? It’s not the teachers bitching it is the parents of the kids. Read the original post again
teach not tach
You’re right, they do have to occasionally supervise dances, and a banquet at the end of the year. Those events are the exception though, not the rule. 95% of the time they go home when the bell rings and don’t think about school again until the next morning.
Sure my job has perks too – namely that I make more money than the average teacher does. They get more time off than me. So we each have our perks. The difference is I don’t constantly belly-ache about how bad I have it.
nor do I have someone to call who will do all my work for me for the day if I’m sick….
I basically have to come in and pick up where I left off along with all the day’s work I missed.
I used to be a teacher and quit. Trust me, the job sucks.
The kids suck, the parents suck, the other teachers suck, the administrators suck, the school boards suck, the union sucks, and the department of education sucks.
If you think it’s so good, then go to university for 6 years, battle for a job for 10 years, and then do it, otherwise shut the fuck up.
mr. yorkke that rings very true. what about teaching at a private school? hopefully you have put your education to good use
I work in a school and I don’t know one teacher who leaves at 3pm. That comment made me laugh. You walk into any school at 5 and you will see 90% of the teachers still there. I didn’t appreciate how much work teachers actually do and how much bull shit they deal with until I started working in the school system. I promise you wouldn’t last a day trying to be a teacher. Evaluation day is there to evaluate YOUR kids. They are working that day. All the PD days, guess what?? The teachers are working then too.
This is a direct quote from a new parent I had the “pleasure” of meeting the other day…
“I can’t wait until my son starts school. The first time I get called into the office for his behavior, I can’t wait to look at them and laugh, its your problem now, not mine, you deal with it. Its pay back time for all the asshole teachers I dealt with growing up.”
Teachers don’t have it easy. They have to deal with this kind of mentality from parents to often. And the kids are worse. They should be getting paid a lot more then what they do. And if they’re just sitting on their asses eating ice cream on days off or in the evening, good on them. They deserve it.
Teaching isn’t a great gig by any stretch, even with the summers off. The good teachers lose quite a bit of time at home, have PT interviews, report card deadlines, etc… Don’t forget the many years of school required (minimum 5, I would have spent 8 had I actually gone that route). It’s not all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows in teacherland. OP seems to think of them as nothing more than educated babysitters, which they are not.
Oh yeah, don’t forget the many years of subbing needed to even get a FT position at the same school. Walk a mile in their shoes before you judge OP.
I think your encounter was with the OP virgo!
My beer is too cold !
My chips are to crispy ! !
I make too much money! ! !
complain , complain, complain, nothings ever good enough .
I know, logic! Its the parents who think the school should raise their children for them that’s the problem. Not the teachers. God forbid the teachers have a day off and the parents actually have to deal with their children for a day. I’m only with the kids for 4 hours a day and that’s more then enough for me! And I’m not trying to teach them anything.
I have many friends who are teachers, many of whom are in the 10 years of battling for a job, yorkke. It sucks.
I remember one friend of mine working every weekend and into the evenings, especially around report card time and she teaches primary. Another friend regularly stays at school until 7 or 8 every night to get things accomplished.
So, I don’t really begrudge them a measly week off during the term.
kirbul, if you think having your summers off is so great instead of three weeks every year, then why didn’t YOU become a teacher?
my dad taught for 34 years ( latin included now that’s old school) and i’d say he had it pretty good ie: kids listened; weren’t all fucking squirrely on the sugar and whatnot; respectful and good natured on the whole and what a pension it’s gold plated at least in ON. but nowadays i wouldn’t wish that job on anyone; you wanna pick on someone go after like civil servants and the bullshit contracts they get fuck it’s obscene
Eh, who really cares? There has been few snow storms this year and the kids need a break… no wonder school makes people insane.
Interesting. My best friend who teaches junior high in HRM goes to the gym after school each day and is always home by 4:00 at the latest. My other best friend, who teaches elementary, picks her kids up from daycare at 3:30 every single day.
Yes, they have parent teacher interviews. Once a term. Oh no! They have to work one night a term! Heaven forbid! How many people regularly have meetings that run later than the regular working day, yet NEVER complain about it???
As I said earlier, they get the vast majority of their marking/report cards/planning done during their prep periods or lunch hour. It’s rare they take it home with them. I don’t know – maybe they have better time management skills than most.
Again, I’m not saying teachers don’t work hard. I know they do. I just don’t think they work any harder than any other profession, yet they do more moaning and whining than the rest of the working world combined.
I also have friends who are teachers, and no judgement on your friends (maybe they have superhuman time management skills, I dunno), HH, but I’ve met some teachers who keep the same sort of time as what you’ve described. They are often the teachers that make life harder for everyone else working in the school.
And to whomever said that teachers don’t have to do recess/ lunch duty- I don’t know what schools your kids go to but the schools I’m aware of (in several different boards), the teachers take part in this and can often lose a free period to do so. Usually because the board didn’t/ couldn’t come up with the funding to hire helpers and there aren’t enough parents volunteering.
There are good teachers and bad teachers. We just don’t hear enough about the good, in my opinion.
I’ve always felt that potential teachers should take psychological tests because at least half the ones I’ve met through my kids were fucking either nuts, neurotic or psycho. The good teachers work damn hard for a bunch of ungrateful little bastards and I applaud their nerves of fucking steel.
FYI a teacher’s pay reflects the fact that they get more time off than you. A teacher’s salary is based on a daily rate. Teachers are paid for 195 days a year therefore not getting paid to sit on the beach in the summer or travel during march break. Our world may be in better shape if parents cared more about the quality of education their children are receiving (ie having teachers who are receiving professional development to better teach your kids) and less about themselves being inconvenienced.
its not like they’re getting paid to not work on friday. they are getting paid to do professional development, to get reviewed and hopefully improve.
the short-sightedness of this bitch makes me angry.
You’re right, halifornia! The thing with teacher’s salaries is that it’s spread out throughout the entire year so people think they get paid for their summers off and they don’t!
And they’re not being paid for March break because those days aren’t teaching days…so why should they work days they’re not being paid for, kirbul?
iypants: there are TONS of organizations that pay their employees to take training (I’d say this is more the norm than not). As well, last time YOU had your work evaluation (if you had one), did you have to do it on a day off? Every work evaluation I’ve had was done during working hours.
The *only* reason teachers get as much shit as they do is because their workdays are *technically* over at 3 and they get March break and their summer’s “off.”
Unpaid time off at that.
The spreading out of salaries is something that is not done everywhere either. There are many school boards in western canada where teachers only receive pay for time they work therefore do not receive paychecks in the summer or for breaks.
Also, I’m not sure where some people get their information but any teacher in the Halifax Regional School Board is required to do playground duty a few times a week. This can occur in the morning when kids arrive, recess, or lunch hour. There are lunch monitors to watch kids while they eat but the playground is the responsibility of the teachers.
I really think some of you people don’t actually read the bitch. You skim through it and then come to your opinions based on what you think it said. I agree that teachers are overworked and underpaid, it is definitely a job a wouldn’t want. What I am saying is that in the last few years the school board has complained that kids were missing to many school days due to storms and what not, and they were trying to figure out ways to make the time up. Now here is an example of something that could be changed to make those days up. It doesnt seem like a big deal to take one day out of 5, to use as a PD day that is very important for the teachers to have anyway. Instead they close the schools for a day the following week to do it. It’s not like they are hurting for time off or anything.(2 weeks off for Xmas, 1 week for March break , every holiday there is and all of summer break)whats that like 3 months a year, and you people are jumping all over me because I say working 1 day over March break wouldnt be a bad idea. I am not hurting for someone to look after my kids(like someone said) that wasn’t even my point. There was alot of comments in here directed to my OP that didnt have anything to do with what I had actually said. IYPANTS said my Op was short-sighted but your comment had nothing to do with what I had said either, no where in my bitch did I say anything about getting paid for nothing or did I refer to wages at all so who is the short sighted one. Who knows maybe next year I will hear on the news again that the school board is concerned with the amount of days the students are missing and not have a good solution to fix it , and I will get to have a laugh once again.
A few parents are bitching because their kids are having lunch on the gym floor, and yet no one is coming forward to fill the 31 lunch monitor positions at 10 schools in Metro. Go figure.
THat’s pretty funny Cranky !
Especially when one of the most germ laden things tested recently are ….Cell Phones !
I wonder why parents aren’t freaking out about that ?
THE NEW TEACHERS OF TODAY ARE FUCKING LAZY. ALL OF ‘EM. FUCKIN’ TGIF-ers is all they are! It’s not about challenging and encouraging kids anymore; it’s about talking about how many days left until Friday, Survivor pools, and doing the job only for a paycheque and summers off.
I’d be a teacher if it wasn’t for the fact that I hate anyone under 21
Just thought I’d paste an article from the CH. Pretty smack on enlightenment for all those teacher’s are so hard working/understaffed/underpaid advocates. Wake up!!
Save Nova Scotians from Save Grade 2
By CHARLES CIRTWILL
Thu. Mar 18 – 4:54 AM
ENOUGH already. Nova Scotia’s education elites have launched a campaign called Save Grade 2 to fend off supposedly impending cuts to education budgets. They argue that these cuts would cause immeasurable harm to education in Nova Scotia. Of course, they also say that these cuts would come on the heels of years of doing more with less. The problem is, education funding has been going up and up and up.
According to the Department of Education, school board spending went from $725 million in 1996-97 to $1.038 billion in 2006-2007. Statistics Canada verifies this trend, saying our total per-pupil funding has climbed from $5,120 in 1996-97 to $9,409 in 2006-07. Even if you adjust for inflation, because a dollar today doesn’t buy what a dollar bought even 10 years ago, we find that over this same period our real education spending has still increased by almost 50 per cent.
What has also been rising during that time is the cost of regional board management, the number of teachers, the number of system consultants, and the average income of teachers. What has been declining is student enrolment. Again according to Statistics Canada, and looking at ’96-97 to ’06-07, our enrolment has fallen from 163,941 to 138,661 while our number of educators has risen from 9,712 to 9,931. The result is our pupil-teacher ratio has fallen from 17.5 students for every educator to 14.4.
So, more money, more teachers and fewer students, with limited results. One begins to see where the real crisis lies.
I say limited results because the objective evidence we have about the effectiveness of our schools is mixed, at best. National and international tests consistently show our Nova Scotia students well below national averages most of the time. By playing with the numbers and ignoring other provinces or other areas of the world, we can, on occasion, create glimpses of progress. Even our own provincial exams report a dismal history of helping our kids learn.
It is not surprising, then, that private and home schooling have increased by 40 per cent during this time, that university professors and employers alike bemoan the quality of our graduates, or that our adult illiteracy rate is among Canada’s worst.
This brings us nicely back to saving Grade 2, and the final problem with the proposals that have been put forward to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The final problem is that the glossy ads and dire warnings are not meant to save Grade 2; they are meant to scare us into coughing up even more money than we already have.
The Save Grade 2 crowd admitted early on (not right away, but early on) that Grade 2 is indeed not at risk. The warning is just an eye-popping way to get people’s attention. Regrettably, having admitted that they were in it to scare us, they then proceeded to offer further, similarly inflammatory, suggestions about dire consequence if they do not get their way: widespread cuts to teaching positions, increased class sizes or double-grade classes, cuts to the literacy program, cuts to the textbook budgets, school closures, etc.
Why these suggestions and not ideas like eliminating the Nova Scotia School Boards Association itself? The NSSBA spends around $650,000 a year to basically deliver common purchasing services that could easily be delivered by existing staff at the department.
Better still, why are we not having a serious conversation about eliminating the school boards? The boards spent $35.5 million in 2006-2007 on “regional board management” — that’s overhead, not busing or cleaning or teaching, just “managing.”
New Zealand runs an entire country without boards. In fact, we too started down that road in Nova Scotia with every school having its own local School Advisory Council to work with the principal to manage the school. So we built a new level of management and then forgot to eliminate the existing ones — oops.
Not that bold? How about just reducing the number of boards? Between them, Edmonton public and Edmonton Catholic school boards have basically the same number of students as all of Nova Scotia: Two boards instead of eight — I’ll take it.
Especially since it means less administration, fewer people looking over teachers’ shoulders and more money for direct classroom support. Oh, and better, not worse, education for our kids.
Charles Cirtwill is president and CEO of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies ( http://www.AIMS.ca), an independent, non-partisan public policy think tank in Halifax. This year, AIMS will publish its eighth report card on Atlantic Canadian high schools.
Thing *is* kirbul — you don’t actually say all that in your bitch (about snow storms, for example). Your bitch just sounds like you’re complaining about teachers getting a “day off.”
Have you considered THIS (re: your plan to make teachers give up one of their march break days), Kirbul?: teachers would have to all be paid for that one day (their collective agreement states that they work a set number of days per year and that includes PD days, so they would HAVE to be compensated the union would in no way allow the school boards to adjust the terms of their collective agreement in between contracts — a collective agreement is a legally binding contract and it would be ILLEGAL for the school boards to not honour that contract)…and education is being cut enough — having to pay every teacher for an extra day? That’s just nonsense, and I’m pretty sure you’d be back on here complaining about education cuts if that happened.
PK, your last comment makes me wish that the coast had the little thumbs up thinger to like things the way FB does.
I wish kirbul stayed in school long enough to learn about paragraphs! A wall of text isn’t easy to read.
Thanks, Cannatell 🙂
pretty kitty , you proved my point about not reading the bitch. Read it again and you will see that I did indeed comment on snow storms…
yeah that’s nice but please mr/m canna…we come here to run free
In terms of snow storms…many people seem to forget that about 8 years ago ten days were added on to the school year to account for days lost due to snow days (changing teaching days from 185 to 195). If teachers and students would be required to “make these days up” then we would have to go back to the standard 185 day school year, thus having students miss much more time. There was one snow day this year in HRM.
With all the PD days over the years, shouldn’t things be just about perfect in the school system? I don’t know of any other profession that takes so many days for this sort of thing.
hey bro how was cuba/rum?
Ended too soon. Cuban run is yum yum. Did you know Bacardi was Cuban? Saw his grave in Santiago de Cuba and I survived the earthquake there (or was that the rum). LOL. People are great but poor and he senoritas are bella, muy bella.
-With all the PD days over the years, shouldn’t things be just about perfect in the school system?
The problem Tim, is the fuckheads in head office keep coming up with new programs and new ways of doing things, and new forms to fill out and bullshit to shovel. So the PDs are the time when your principals lecture you on it.
That should be mucho bella not muy.
For the teachers here bitching about their working conditions maybe they ought to try to teach in Cuba or some other poor country, then thank their lucky stars they are fucking here.
But working and living conditions are better here than in Libya, Cuba, Cambodia or any other third world country, so it’s not really fair to single out teachers.
All this talk about teachers’ professional days, salaries, summer holidays and so forth miss the point. Such talk is little more than a misguided attempt to assess the value of an activity which cannot be reduced to such material components. In effect, it is the flip side of confounding education with training, of measuring the value of education in terms of its utility or its economic benefit. The value of education lies rather in the acquisition of the ability of thinking coherently and the value of teaching, by extension, lies in the successful cultivation of that ability. To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, teaching is the best job in the world provided there are no more than 18 students in the class and the teacher is in love with his subject.
i don’t think they let kid’s read vonnegut anymore
signed
the underclass
Is Vonnegut on the reading list of the underclass? I doubt it. However, one never knows. These, of course, are difficult questions. But thanks anyway for your thought.
Cheerio!
bon soiree
Merci!
So, really, what the OP is saying is that school is just free day care for working moms…