APS, teachers union still seeking the right fix for bell-to-bell

District has worked out some stopgaps that might not be perfect solutions

More time, more problems. After state lawmakers last year approved legislation raising the minimum amount of instructional time schools must spend with students, Albuquerque Public Schools moved most of its schools to seven-hour school days.

But that move meant some Albuquerque teachers would lose additional paid time for such tasks as bus duty because they were still on seven-hour contract days.

Having so-called bell-to-bell schedules was a significant concern for some educators last year, and those concerns have seeped into this year.

“The current bell-to-bell schedule is unsuitable for elementary education,” one teacher said at a recent school board meeting. “It neglects the needs of our students and doesn’t prioritize their learning.”

To help remedy that problem, the district and the Albuquerque Teachers Federation last year worked out supervision stipends so teachers could still be paid for duty time ahead of the 2023-2024 school year.

And for the coming school year, APS added additional instructional days into its academic calendar to help provide 15-minute duty periods for teachers.

Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein, though, told the Journal that wasn’t a perfect fix.

“I would like, and I think the district would like, to be able to have the funding to extend the teacher day by at least a half an hour. But we don’t have that funding,” she said. “So it’s a step in the right direction. It’s not perfect.”

APS Chief of Schools Channell Segura added that the supervision stipends were difficult for teachers because they created more paperwork for staff, which is part of why the district sought to work on the problem by adding instructional days.

While she seemed to welcome more state dollars for longer contract days so teachers can have extra time for such things as supervision and collaboration with peers, Segura acknowledged that “the state’s not going to just give Albuquerque more money

to fund a teacher contract than any other district, when other districts have figured out how to build it in their contract day.”

“There’s variation in teacher contract time, which is making some districts have to do things like what we’re having to do to find the time to cover things that maybe other districts already have in place,” she said.

A significant amount of money has been set aside for more instructional time, including an additional $20 million this legislative session for the state’s K-12 Plus program, which financially incentivizes schools to hold additional class time beyond 180 days under a normal school week and beyond 155 days under a four-day school week.

State Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said there’s enough flexibility in funding from the state Legislature for districts to figure out issues like this, adding the bell-to-bell issue seems to be an issue only APS is facing.

“I don’t quite understand why APS seems so different from everyone else,” she said.