To paraphrase The West Wing
’s Toby Ziegler, sometimes it seems the Morgan Hill School
District never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
To paraphrase The West Wing’s Toby Ziegler, sometimes it seems the Morgan Hill School District never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
This time, the missed opportunity was wrapped up in a proposal to reduce middle school minutes. With ninth-graders leaving Britton and Martin Murphy middle schools to head to Sobrato and Live Oak high schools next fall, the school district had a rare chance to use reduced classroom time to build teacher collaboration and in-service time into middle school teachers’ contracts.
Teachers will tell you that students suffer from their instructors’ lack of time to talk with peers, to collaborate across campuses and grade levels, and to keep up with the latest in education.
So, with ninth-graders leaving middle school campuses and taking their high-school-length day with them, we suggested that the school district and the teachers union take advantage of this unique opportunity to establish regular teacher collaboration and training time in their contract.
Teachers, despite their claims that such time is sorely needed and invaluable to improving student education, didn’t seize the opportunity to create such time when it was presented.
Instead, the teachers union president complained before the school board that since no other teachers have such mandatory staff development requirements, the middle school teachers shouldn’t be forced to do so.
To the teachers, we can only say that actions speak louder than words.
Trustees, in yet another stunning display of fiscal mismanagement, caved to the teachers. They gave away more than 9,000 minutes of instructional time per year – roughly 50 minutes per school day – and got exactly nothing in return. They didn’t negotiate reduced pay for a reduced work day. They didn’t get in-service time or teacher collaboration time added to the contract.
The teachers union president said teachers at the middle schools would consider a trust agreement, which is created at the site and is in effect for that site only. The trust agreement could mandate regular collaborative time. If both Britton and Martin Murphy staffers will back up their stated eagerness for this time by creating such agreements, it will be a step in the right direction.
But a trust agreement, as a site-only agreement, cannot mandate time spent working with staff from other sites, such as sixth grade teachers or ninth grade teachers, in order to help students make a smooth transition from elementary to middle and then from middle to high.
Is it any wonder that parents and taxpayers have lost faith in the MHUSD administration and trustees?
A golden opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of teacher collaboration and in service time has been lost. A rare chance to create a contract that includes compensation for that time at no additional cost has been wasted.
It would have been a start to having additional paid in-service and teacher collaboration time in place at all schools.
It reminds us of Thomas Edison’s wry observation: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Unfortunately, our students will be the poorer because of this lost opportunity.
