Happy hour tonight, for me, was at our teachers' union meeting. We discussed the best way to get our message across to legislators (Seemingly, they prefer hand written letters.) We talked about how many people were furloughed in July (60) and how many people were asked back, due to others' retirements or others' leaving for jobs with other schools. In all we are down 15 teachers from last year. Our contract is not due up for another 2 years, so there was not a lot to discuss about the contract. Then we discussed teaching.
Many of us have been given much larger caseloads of children to see. Fifteen teachers may not seem like a lot, but when you work with children with disabilities, it takes more time to provide quality services. These are not children who "get it" on the first take. We Speech Therapists have at least an additional 10-15 more students on our workload. Vision Specialists are traveling miles and miles between 3 counties. Special Education teachers have more students in their rooms, of if they are itinerant-have more places to be with larger workloads. So far, we all have workloads that are within legal limits, but we are pushing it. There is less time for planning and less time to work with families. There is less time to collect data and to look over data to plan accordingly.
But nothing can be done at this time, as we are still legal.
After the meeting, we had refreshments! Mine was Yuengling Light Lager. How about you? This is an open thread, please feel free to join in and let us know how your day has been. Do you have a favorite beverage you enjoy after a stressful meeting? Is that beverage different than when you are kicking back and relaxed?
I bet Matt Damon would have enjoyed a beer with us tonight!