Episode 29: Article 8-Instruction: Part 3

Krista and Jeri continue their conversation on Article 7: Instruction. Focus is on grading, coveting classes, classroom visitors, and working with paras.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello, and welcome to REA Union Voices. I'm Krista and I'm Jerry. And we're the president and vice president of the Richland Education Association. And um, we are back after our nick of time event.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

That was fun. It was fun. It was really fun. And I'm I got her email and I'm gonna let her know that I'd like to stay involved. Oh, I don't know that I've gotten one. Did you fill it something out? No, she we were just talking to each other, and I said she's trying to get a group to come over to be responsible here in Troy Cities. And so I said, Oh, that's something I'd like to participate in. And so she gave me her um cool. Yeah, so I can share that. Oh, good, good.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, no, it sounds like the way they do this is the people from I think Western Washington, because I think this is affiliated with like the University of Washington. I may be wrong. Oh, I don't know. But it's a group in Western Washington. Um so what they like to do is come into communities, or at least this is my understanding, yeah, come into communities and then train community volunteers, people like Jerry, who can be the ones to start organizing it. But it was amazing seeing the number of doctors and nurses and just different people who all the equipment they brought over. Yes, and it was a learning experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

It was, it was really good. And they had for their first time out, they had at least half of the people that they normally get on the other on the west side. Yeah. So that was a really good turnout for Tri Cities for his first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, oh, I think so too. And um I got to see former students, that was amazing. Yeah, yeah, we had quite a few people come visit our booth to get our pencils. Pencils and our little pencils. Yeah, and our little squeezy hearts. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. You know, we had our office administrator's son came and helped, and he was within the age range to actually go and experience it. So that was exciting. But now we'll go ahead and get back into article seven, which is all about instruction. And I think where we had left off, we had talked about um we did talk about yeah, I think we talked about elementary specialists and multiple preparations and some of that fun stuff. And so now the next thing is just grading and promotion. And what I would say, hopefully people are listening to this because this has come up all the time. The language actually says the decision of the classroom teachers may be changed by the principal only after consultation with the teacher, providing the teacher is reasonably available.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Nobody is supposed to go and change your students' grades.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

No, no, a parent doesn't get to call a principal and be like, oh, my child deserves this, and they're like, Okay, I'll change it. They can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, absolutely. And I would think, I mean, I would hope it happens that like if the teacher isn't reasonably available, let's say it's during the summer and the teacher isn't answering or is out of the country, or you know, who knows what they're doing. Um, but if a parent did have a concern, I would still hope that the principal would review any additional evidence, or it it's not just gonna be somebody's word for it.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, yeah. Or they can always wait and you know, see if they can talk to the teacher. Yeah, you know, it's not like they can always go back and change it.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, absolutely. So that's that's important. And oh covering classes.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Let me tell you. We did not have a enough subs for SBA testing for us to get our breaks. And so um myself and I don't there was a couple other teachers just said we'll forego our breaks. Oh so we got paid for a half hour because we covered our own breaks. But then I this last week, last two weeks, I have covered, I think, three times for teachers that are you know that don't have subs.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah, no, that's so I'm really glad for that language. Well, yeah, and our language, we don't get uh our hourly per diem for covering. That is something that I think we probably need to work towards. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

For some reason I thought we'd have to.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah, no, it's um 0.13% of the BA. And what that means is if you look at the first salary cell on our salary schedule, you multiply that by 0.13, and um, and it comes out to be something like 80, I think it's like $85 or something. Better than what we used to get. Yeah, with the with our luckily with our increases to the salary schedule that we've experienced, because we didn't get any increases for yeah, like more than 10 years. Um, yeah, the amount, it, you know, it's not a bad amount of money, but I think most teachers probably would rather have their planning time than the additional pay.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

I actually had one other time they called me and I'm like, I can't. Yeah. I can't call make the next, make the next call.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, and I'm sure there are probably some contracts out there, it's not ours, where you know they have to ask you. Um I do think a lot of our principals are really good about seeking volunteers or creating that rotational schedule. So it's not always the same person, but it you can be assigned to go and cover in Richland.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Right. If they need you, they need you. There has to be an adult in there. Yeah. Or cert, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, and then the next one, just because these are all three things that I think come up quite often. Classroom visitation. This is when you have anybody who just wants to come and visit the school. And I think where it becomes a problem is when, and I'm just gonna put it out there where somebody, maybe it's a a parent or a guardian, maybe is concerned about something that might be happening in your classroom, and they do have the ability to come and visit. Um, but there are certain rules around that, and this language in our contract does speak to the school board policy. Um but the big thing is the office staff and the administrator shouldn't just let people come wandering in and be able to go look in classrooms or right.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

They can't just pop in.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, they can't come in and say, um, we need to go see Jerry's class today. It's like, well, no, let's make an appointment and you know, we're gonna give Jerry 24 hours notice. Right. And even though it doesn't say it here, my advice would be if you're concerned about somebody coming to your classroom, I think most of the time it's classroom helpers or people who, you know, have everybody's best interest at heart. But if you're concerned, talk to your principal because um the principal can come as well. Right. Have somebody else, have another adult in there. Yeah. All right. So, Jerry, do you have a paraeducator this year? I do not. Because I remember last year you did.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yes, I lost her. She's doing the teacher program. She's still a para at our building, but I was super excited because she got into the para-teaching program at WC Tor Cities.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Oh, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

So I'm excited for her, sad for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah. And we do have language though in our contract about certificated employees' responsibility responsibilities regarding paraeducators. And, you know, what what can you say, Jerry? Is there anything that stands out to you when you've had a para?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Um, just that I direct their work. You know, they kind of I work with them and you know, say, this is what we I need you to do. You know, the kind you kind of direct what they need to do in class and it can change. And then I just give input to their supervisor. I don't, I don't evaluate my para. Right. Their supervisor will say, Hey, you know, and they'll kind of shoot me an email or something. And actually there's little checks like do they show up on time? Do they, you know, work well with kids, do they take initiative? And then I send it off and then they get their evaluation. And but it's not me evaluating them, it's whoever they work with. So a lot of paras work with different teachers. Yeah. So I only had my para for one hour.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Right. And that's always been my experience as well. I mean, this is coming from two gen ed teachers, general education. And so we've normally had, yeah, in elementary, I've sometimes had like a para that comes in the morning maybe to support math, and then a para who comes in the afternoon to support English language arts, but it was the same. I'd get an email from my principal or a little form, you know, here's the para that you're working with. Um, can you fill this out? Yeah. Um, the other big thing too, um, the fact that it is the principal or one of the assistant principals who is the direct supervisor of a para, um, I think, you know, hopefully you've developed a good relationship with your para so that you can have, you know, crucial conversations. Um, but if, and what I mean by that, you know, it's maybe stating what you need. Yeah. Yeah. If the para is coming, you know, a little bit late every day, you know, maybe seek to find out why it might be that their schedule um is back to back.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yes, I had that.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

You know, um, I I always look at it this way. As hard as it is, I think for like us as teachers to either have another conversation with another teacher if they've done something that bothers us, or to talk to a para. It's a lot easier to just go to the principal. But think about it. Do you want, would you rather me come and say, Jerry, you said this and it bothered me, rather than the principal coming in saying, Jerry, Krista came and told me that you said this.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

You know, so so sometimes principals will direct you back to the para to go address a concern directly with them.

unknown 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

I think it's probably a good practice, but you are not their supervisor. And I think it's important to know that for certain things, the principal should be stepping in. If it's a major issue, if the person is consistently late every single day, you know, and you find out they're hanging out right, you know, an extra five minutes on the playground talking to their friend or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Right. Or it could be a scheduling thing that somebody didn't catch. So I mean, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

But yeah, and and I think though, you know, I I paras are so necessary.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Oh my gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

You know, the work they do. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Uh sometimes it's just crowd control. It's having sorry, I teach middle school. No, it yeah. It's having another adult body in there to just help you help just help you teach.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah. Well, and I just remember when I was teaching second grade over at Orchard and we did a like a working with words communities thing where we had all five of our classes broken up. And in order to create situations where the um the students who were needing intensive intervention, we only had maybe 10 or 12 students in those classes. So we had two teachers doing that. I ended up with like the highly capable students, the ones who were, but I had like 30 or 35 of them in my room. And so the we've sent a para to the the smaller groups, yeah, to the small group with the intensive needs, and then I got a para essentially for that reason. It's like I need somebody to help me manage 35 precocious second graders. So yeah, so we are thankful to our paras. We are, but I think um we'll probably stop there. Oh, wait, let's go ahead and talk about student teachers.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Oh, yeah. That's a yeah. You don't get assigned one. No, you have to agree to having one. Have a friend right now who's trying to decide whether to or not. Um, when possible, such assignments shall be discussed with the employee at least two weeks in advance of the student teacher's arrival.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

And an employee shall have at least two years of satisfactory teaching experience before being assigned a student teacher.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Well, yeah, we don't want oh, you're brand new, you're gonna get the student teacher, and you're going, what?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I am, I feel like I am a student teacher.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, so they do want you to have some, you know, uh some experience.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah, for sure. And again, it is voluntary. So you know, and and typically I think the principal will just send. Yep. They'll often just forward the email that comes from any of the programs. Hey, anybody interested? And then after a while, they might they might come and talk to a we're really trying to place this person.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah, yeah, especially if like they're they're focused on a certain subject.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah. Then they're like, I can imagine that in the secondary, you know. I want to be a middle school um PE teacher, you know, they want to go and yeah, be with that person. Yeah, we're in elementary.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

It's kind of we've both had successful student teacher experiences.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I've had, did I have three? Oh, I was one and done. Mine was amazing, and I quit.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

I no, I think I had four different student teachers, and my last student teacher, I had her, she works at your school.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

She does, she's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I had her during COVID. Oh gosh. Oh my gosh. And she had just taken over the classroom, and it was probably maybe into like the second week of her, you know, when she was doing her little stint. And then we got sent home.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

And you know, and she ended up graduating. I think they kind of just graduated the student teachers, but I was very happy because she did get a job in Kennewick that year, and I think worked in Kinnewick for a year and then was like a building sub for another year, and then got the continuing.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

She does a great job. She's doing a CTE program. Yeah, she's yeah, she's doing amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, well, student taught kind of in a second grade class or she ended up in middle school. Yeah, yeah, no, and then my other three, yeah. My other one from Richland is a special education teacher. She did that duel where you get the she had the KA endorsement and the special ed. And boy, I think this is like her ninth or tenth year. That one's a funny story though, because I remember um oh, I can't remember the guy's name. Ty Beaver, remember him? And he worked for us. Yes, yes, so he worked at the Tri-City Herald and he was doing a uh an article about student teachers. And I remember he came and he talked to um Kaylee and me, my student teacher. I'll just use her first name. And um, when he wrote the the thing up at the end, it was cute. We had a cute picture of us, and then the the way it ended was my little quote. It's like, oh yeah, you know, Calvin said, Oh yeah, I love having student teachers, you know. What they'll say is they'll they'll give her notes saying, You're my favorite teacher, Calvin said while laughing or whatever. You know, and then I'm like, oh. But that's true, you know, that's true when you're working with little kids. But yes. All right. Well, we will say goodbye, but remember what do we always say at the end, Jerry? In union, there is strength.