Maria MacLaughlin, CEA Rep, Ettrick ES School Board Address December 9, 2014 My name is Maria MacLaughlin. Among my regular contributions to CCPS…. I am a fourth grade Lead Teacher at one of the hardest working schools in which I have ever been a part. That school, I am proud to say, is Ettrick Elementary School, home of the “Trojans” which attests to our time on task. Any good teacher knows that an Anticipatory Set is a major part of a lesson. Here is mine: (Put lesson plan book up.) In Math, we have been told that multistep problems should be included in daily plans to increase “Rigor” and “Relevance”. Here is a problem for you: If a teacher logs in at 8:30 AM to do lesson plans as the Amtrak Train is pulling out of the Ettrick Train Station (on a Saturday) and the train arrives in Newport, Rhode Island at 9:30 PM where she logs out until the next morning at 8:30 and remains logged in until the train arrives at Ettrick at 10:00 PM, how many minutes did the teacher work on lesson plans and still not finish? This is how my husband and I figured out how many hours I have been spending on lesson plans—and that was last year—before additional mandates for: CCPS Lesson Plan Templates, Kagan Strategies, Interactive Achievement, SMART goals, Dreambox documentation and the list goes on. The pink binder in front of me represents the lesson plans I spent the summer writing in order to assist my team, all of whom are new to my school. The green binder represents ½ of a semester from last year. So, as a teacher leader and advocate, what other issues have been called to my attention by other teachers? TIME ISSUES: DRA issues. It takes 15 clicks per student to input information. In the past we could input an entire class in 20 minutes (1 minute per child). Now it takes over an hour. It does not save, so, once you send it, it’s gone. …Unfair treatment of employees with health benefit funding…No time to teach due to “initiatives.”.. We may have some days of Duty-Free lunch, but they are far from “Duty Free”. On any given day you can come to our school and see teachers in their classrooms working through lunch in order to be prepared for the afternoon. As a cancer survivor I take exception to this, and I am one of those teachers, working along with my team at lunch to make Ettrick a better place for our students. …. PLC meetings, and other requirements mandated by CCPS ... the lack of adequate technology for our large number of students. Do we have morale problems? You bet. We all do. Why? We have not had an increase in take home pay since around 2008. Some of us who have been here long enough remember the “frozen” pay scale which now is made to appear as a “raise” which in reality is a “replacement”. Respect all of us who are at the bottom of the Food Chain. Respect our expertise. Allow differentiation in your own decision-making. I would like to, again, suggest a possible solution of a 70% teacher vote on new initiatives and programs. Even a moratorium of anything new through January 2016 would be an improvement. Personally, completing my terminal degree is on hold due to time constraints. My 19 year old business, which was recently rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, is now run by employees since I have no time to cultivate it. I know, from being a successful wife, mother, teacher advocate, business woman, that “Top Down” Management does not work. In short, adding “new programs” makes as much sense as honking a horn to steer a car. To sum it up, I recently put a poster outside my room that expresses it all: Due to the increase in workload, the light at the end of the tunnel has permanently been switched off. Thank you for listening!
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 20:12:28 +0000