schedules

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schedules
By Cathy-Dee

Good question!

I shuddered at Carolyn's 7:30 arrival time!!!!

I teach in Northern Alberta.

I have to be at school by 8:30 a.m., though we are encouraged to be at school by about 8:25 if possible. Kid's are allowed
into the school at 8:35 p.m. and classes start at 8:50.
We have a 14 minutes recess in the morning. 28 minutes at lunchtime (following a 20 minute lunch time) and then an afternoon recess of 14 minutes.
Most teachers supervise at least 1 recess (or half of lunch recess) a day. We all supervise in our classroom during the 20 minute lunch period.
We are fortunate this year in that

we have three 40 minute prep periods scheduled each week.

School ends at 3:22 p.m. and teachers can leave once the busses have left (usually close to 3:30 p.m.). Most of the teachers work until 4:00, but not all, several do leave at 3:30 most days.

Other than our regular work at home (marking, etc.,) we do not have to put in too much extra time after school hours. We have the occasional special events like our Christmas concert or cross-country race where teachers are expected to attend. Except for 2-3 events where all staff have to attend, most of the other events are optional or planned by a teacher. For example our grade 4 teacher is planning to have a table at the local Christmas craft sale later this month as a fund-raising opportunity for her students. This was something she thought of and decided to do.

Last year we had early dismissal once per month so we could have a staff meeting. This year we have more P.D. days so they cancelled early dismissal. We were supposed to have our meetings on the P.D. Days, but since we are often doing courses, etc., that hasn't worked out. So at least once per month and sometimes even once per week we have short meetings after school. Usually not later than 4:30 p.m and usually in our school no more than 2 a month. I know a couple of schools in our division that seem to be having 2 meetings a week.

We now have 10 P.D Days scheduled during the year. We also have 3 days off in February as we have our teacher's convention at that time and one of the 3 days is a travel day as we have a 7 to 10 hour drive to get to our Convention location.

We also have a few committees that require some extra time, I'm on the P.D. Committee so I have at least one meeting per month plus a couple of months with extra planning or work to do for the committee.

We always get time off in-lieu of our evenings for parent-teacher interviews. So if we stay for two evenings, we'll get a day off later.