We walk into the meeting to see some extra faces in the room. The email said we needed to meet for ten minutes to go over next week’s testing procedures and then we would be able to work with our content teams. Twenty minutes pass and we are still discussing changes to the plan that wasn’t fully formed before the meeting. We start previewing possible videos to use in an assembly. Side conversations begin to break out as people strive to use part of the hour for productive discussion. The hour ends with several loose ends still undecided and no time to meet with content teams. I wish our time was respected.
Two weeks later meetings are cancelled so “we can do grades” - a task that all teachers are expected to complete during prep time. I wish collaboration was respected.
Two weeks after that we spent an entire hour confirming that data entered into a spreadsheet was accurate. It was. We won’t act on the data until the next week. I wish I was respected.
As part of my participation in the teacher's cabinet I am writing a memo and giving a presentation on Use of Time. I am lucky to be on a 9th grade team where I have an amazing amount of common planning time. However, it is not used effectively. Part of the goal of the teacher's cabinet is to show that teachers have ideas and should have a voice. I wish my voice counted more when determining how to spend my common planning time.
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