LRSD teachers, superintendent at odds over day

On-campus hours contested

Little Rock School District administrators and teacher leaders disagree on the hours teachers should be at work on their campuses, be it 7.5 hours plus a duty-free, 30-minute lunch or the current practice of just over six hours.

Superintendent Jermall Wright said last week that the dispute developed when teachers last month filed a multi-point grievance alleging violations of district policies by school leaders. Five of the nine reported violations dealt with work time on campus, Wright said.

Teachers contended they are not receiving their required individual planning minutes, he said. They also said they were being required to report to work 30 minutes before student arrival and leave no sooner than 30 minutes after students are dismissed — contrary to language in the district’s personnel policy manual.

Another complaint said elementary teachers are being required to attend professional learning community meetings, which is teacher collaboration time, for more than 60 minutes a week. And teachers aren’t being provided 30-minute, duty-free lunch time and 15-minute paid break.

“When I looked at the violations … and then I looked at the teacher workday, which is currently 6 hours and 15 minutes for elementary and six hours and 20 minutes for secondary [teachers], there is absolutely no way possible within that time that you can provide teachers with everything that is required in terms of individual planning time and anything related to professional development and professional learning

communities, faculty meetings, whatever,” Wright told School Board members who have been drawn into the dispute.

“It’s just not possible,” he added.

The district’s personnel policy manual authorizes an eight-hour work day counting the 30-minute lunch, but then it also has what Wright called a “very restrictive clause” that enables elementary teachers to report to work five minutes before student arrival and leave five minutes after student dismissal. Middle and high school teachers can report 10 minutes before student arrival and leave five minutes after student dismissal.

He said the clause was unique among school systems in Arkansas and elsewhere.

“You can’t provide teachers with their individual planning minutes as required every single day and have time for other things that are needed” such as training and teacher collaboration meetings, the superintendent said of the clause.

Wright, who has been the district’s superintendent since July, said he would like the “restrictive” language to be eliminated.

“Our proposal is not to do anything different than what is already outlined in the policy manual on what should be the available work day for staff,” he said, adding that teachers won’t be required to be on campus 7.5 hours every day.

He said he believes school leaders and teachers at some of the district’s campuses have already worked out the time issues on their own, while other schools may have people who are adhering to or exercising the policy manual clause and “are out the door.” Those schools and their principals are left without flexibility to accomplish certain tasks, he said.

LaKeitha Austin, chairman of the district’s Personnel Policies Committee for certified staff, told the board members that teachers share the concerns of the board, administrators and parents about declines in student achievement.

But Austin also listed all the different kinds of meetings required of teachers — grade level, subject area, academy planning, technology and parent meetings — that erode teacher planning time. She said there is a talent drain of educators in the district in recent years.

She urged that all stakeholders work together to address the issues. She asked that the board delay action on the issue of the teacher workday until district administrators and the Personnel Policy Committee can come together to develop solutions on the length of the work day and the grievance issues.

“We want to demonstrate to our community that people of good will can come together to find solutions that work for the benefit of all,” she said.

Kimberly Crutchfield, a teacher at Central High, told the board that an extended workday will take away from the educator’s time with their own children and ailing parents. She said teachers at her school are at work well above and beyond 7.5 hours, and that teachers work on school matters while at home, “because we want these students of Little Rock to be great, to be successful.”

“When you push us and you say we are hourly wage workers — that is offensive. We will work above and beyond what we are called to do, but when you force us to do so, it is an insult,” Crutchfield said.

Kelsey Bailey, the district’s chief deputy for operations, said the 65 hours noted on the twice-a-month teacher paychecks is an indication that the employees are fulltime employees and eligible for health care benefits under the federal Affordable Care Act, and not necessarily the hours worked for pay.

Bailey said salary and benefits are based on 7.5 hours a day for certified employees. Other district employees are eight-hour employees, he said.

School board member Ali Noland questioned whether the change requested by Wright will require additional pay to the teachers for additional work time.

Noland noted that state law requires teachers to have 200 minutes of planning time per week, in no less than 40-minute increments, during the instructional day. The law also states that the school day cannot be lengthened to accommodate the planning time without compensation to teachers.

Wright disagreed that additional pay would be required as the planning time would be included in the instructional day. Faculty meetings and teacher collaborations could be done after school, allowing the individual planning time to be provided as required by state law.

Noland said the 7.5-hour requirement hasn’t been required or expected by teachers and so feels like a burden to the employees without additional compensation.

She warned that teachers who are parents will incur child care costs for the longer time the teachers are on campus.

The School Board took no action on the issue last week, but it could come up again as soon as the board’s 5:30 p.m. meeting on Thursday.

Board President Greg Adams called the issue really important, particularly in light of the district’s letter grade ratings from the state that were announced last week. About two dozen of the district’s schools received state letter grades of F’s and D’s.

“I’m persuaded that if our personnel policy manual says people can’t work longer than 7.5 hours per day, then it is appropriate to ask people to work that long,” Adams said. “The fact that we haven’t done that kind of boggles me. As a board member, I can’t go to the community and defend that. I can’t go to the community and say ‘we have so much work to do. Our guidelines say we can ask people to work 7.5 hours a day but we aren’t going to do that. We are going to ask them to work an hour less and hope they will do otherwise.’”

Wright, the superintendent, said he wasn’t challenging the overall amount of time and effort teachers take to do their jobs at school and at their homes.

“There is not a person up here who does not know how much time teachers work beyond the school day,” Wright told the School Board and teachers. “I can never forget all the time, all the preparation, all the meetings and all the things that are on the backs of our teachers to do every single day. ”