Teachers Win Fight For More Planning Time
By Mary Ellen Flannery
Milwaukee’s elementary and middle school teachers won a 50 percent increase in planning time, after an energetic campaign by theMilwaukee Teachers’ Education Associationthreatened to turn out hundreds of frustrated and fed-up teachers and students at a school board meeting this week.The improvement means teachers will have three hours a week, up from a mere two, for the hundreds of tasks that must be addressed during their planning time: Calling parents, developing lesson plans, reviewing student assessments, writing individualized education plans, collaborating with grade-level colleagues, grading student work, meeting with individual students and/or parents, and more. Much more! Without adequate planning time, MTEA teachers reported working 12- to 14-hour days to meet the needs of their students and communities.
Three hours still isn’t enough—and MTEA knows high school teachers also need more time, especially to meet individually with students with specific instructional needs. The union’s efforts to improve teaching and learning will not let up at all. But the change from two to three hours is a “step forward,” said Kelley Dawson Salas, MTEA’s communications specialist, and shows clearly the great power of educators when they