Teacher Math
A bird’s eye view of teacher expectations
For as long as I’ve been an educator, I’ve always been perplexed by the incongruence of the time teachers are paid to work versus the actual day to day expectations. In the following examples, I will outline a typical school day, including the instruction an elementary teacher is responsible for and their administrative duties outside of the classroom.
A typical school day for students is around 6 hours. Teachers are contracted to work a few additional minutes before and after school. For example, in my home district teachers are contracted for 7 hours and 11 minutes each day and the students' school day is 6 hours and 11 minutes. I will not include those buffer minutes, or the hundreds of unpaid hours teachers work each year, in this example.
During the 6 hour school day, students get 1 hour for lunch/recess, and 1 hour for special instruction like art, music, physical education, library, and STEM. This leaves a teacher with 4 hours of instructional time with students. These 4 hours are solely for instruction and do not include required administrative tasks.
We are going to make two huge assumptions here:
Teachers do not complete any administrative tasks during their unpaid lunch period.
Teachers use their preparation period only for administrative tasks.
Now that we have a rough idea of how much time teachers have to teach each day, let’s look at what they are required to teach.
The [Nevada] State Board of Education prescribes the following courses of study for elementary schools (NAC 389.195).
Subjects taught by the main teacher of record:
Reading
Language
Social studies
Mathematics
Science
Health
Computer education and technology
Subjects taught by an educator with a specialist license:
Visual arts
Music theory and practice
Physical education
Dance theory and practice
Theater
Media arts
A regular elementary classroom teacher must teach 6 different subjects to their students. Ideally instruction should be interdisciplinary, but in reality much of the instructional day is siloed into discrete topics.
Let's dig into those discrete topics and see what individual concepts a third teacher is required to teach every year.
In 180 days of instruction, a third grade teacher is required to teach, to mastery, 235 individual standards, practices, and concepts.
Are you tired yet? Remember those administrative tasks I mentioned earlier? Here is a rough outline.
Grading and Assessment - Evaluating student work, providing feedback, and recording grades.
Lesson Planning - Creating detailed lesson plans, interpreting curricula, and preparing instructional materials.
Attendance and Record-Keeping - Taking attendance, maintaining student records, and managing classroom documentation.
Communication - Corresponding with parents, guardians, and school administration through emails, phone calls, texts, and meetings.
Professional Development - Participating in workshops, training sessions, and continuing education courses.
Supervision - Monitoring students during lunch/recess, before and after school, and other non-classroom activities.
Committee Work - Serving on school committees, such as curriculum development, school improvement, or event planning.
Administrative Meetings - Attending staff meetings, departmental meetings, and parent-teacher conferences.
Resource Management - Ordering and managing classroom supplies and instructional materials.
Student Support - Providing extra help to students, including tutoring, mentoring, and advising.
Testing Coordination - Organizing and administering standardized tests and other
assessments.
Reporting - Preparing reports on student progress and other educational metrics for school administration and parents.
We often hear educators say there simply isn’t enough time, and this is what they mean.
Here is an updated timeline.
At this point, you might be thinking this sample teacher only works 35 hours per week, ‘must be nice.’ The truth is most teachers work 52 hours per week. That’s 17 hours of unpaid labor per week. I regularly arrived at school by 6:00 am, worked over the weekends, and often enlisted my husband to assist with various tasks. You might also be thinking “well that's okay, they only work 180 days of the year.” This is true teachers do not get paid for the work they do over the summer, outside of summer school. Those enduring administrative tasks like professional development, lesson planning, committee work, and resource management get chipped away at over the summer, unpaid.
I’d also like to point out the other unpredictable things that happen during the school day that detract from a teacher’s main job function:
Drills - Hard lockdown, soft lockdown, fire drills, and active shooter drills
Student behavior - Too many to list
Assemblies - Also, too many too list
Illness - Yep, too many too list
Cleaning - So much cleaning
Clearly, teachers have a limited amount of time with their students and even less time to prepare for that instruction. While there are some school leaders who recognise this excess and work to take things off of teachers’ plates, often the tone seems to be “just get it done,” or “get off the bus if this isn’t for you.”
Ultimately, this isn’t an argument for arbitrarily increasing a teacher’s pay, rather this is an effort to demonstrate how much teachers are expected to do within the time they are paid. Realistically, the only fair alternative is to pay teachers for all of the hours worked, at their hourly rate of pay, just like everyone else. Makes you wonder why there are around 40,000 open teaching positions in the US today.
🔗All That and a Bag of Chips
Delight № 34 - Being gifted a fancy new headband.
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Delight № 36 - Blowing up a brand new pool floatie.
🔗Read This
A Brief History of Seven Killings: A Novel by Marlon James
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