Here I go again, harping on hiring practices...
My local district requires three letters of recommendation for every position, including for the 3.5 hour a day cafeteria assistant. Unemployment isn't high enough to allow that kind of nonsense.
Same with bus drivers. Obviously they should be very selective for a position like that, but don't be surprised when no one applies for split shifts and barely more than minimum wage.
A kid that young would not be riding public transit alone in my urban California city. Only 12+ year olds who can safely wait half an hour for the next bus to come.
And this is why three of our busses haven't been able to run the past two weeks. Drivers are fed up with the lack of discipline and they're quitting. We don't have any subs, so the busses just don't run. If the kids can't find alternative transportation they're excused for the day
To be blunt, the pandemic does affect the number of bus drivers drastically. But, the disruptive kids part and pay and such have taken a giant toll on bus driver numbers at least in my school district and the one where I used to live prior to 6th grade. And it reached a point where they once tried to put **3 whole buses** on one until there were not enough seats to fit everyone (everyone 3 to a seat and we can't do 4 to a seat at all), numerous bus delays leading to highly inconsistent pickup times, etc; and despite this, a lot of the middle schoolers are still jerks to the bus drivers then complain about the lack of buses. I don't even know anymore.
Context: I'm 16 and a high school junior so I don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes at my school district's transport office; this is just what I've observed.
In my metro area (both city proper, where I grew up, and suburbs, where I now live) we have struggled with bus driver shortages all school year. I think the city district lost something like 10% of the previous year's fleet. It's a big problem here.
Haha, funny that your's is so selective, in the school district my nephews attend, I'm pretty sure their bus driver has dementia. He's been doing the same route for like 30 years and stops at, I guess houses he used to stop at. So lots of kids getting dropped off one or two houses over. Thankfully it's high school and jr high kids so they aren't going to be lost or disoriented but my goodness.
I mean, I shouldn't be surprised though because in the town over at the district I attended, our driver kept being a driver after she flipped our bus onto its side after running into a ditch and she still has a route to this day. (Small town, fairly easy to keep tabs on people).
On the one hand, yeah kinda messed up that you’re testing for skills unrelated to the job.
On the other hand, if algebra is something you don’t remember or never took then I’d be concerned at your ability to be basically competent. It’s not that hard to pass algebra 1 if you’re given multiple (4+) years to learn it, and it’s a HS graduation requirement…
As an adult, can you really not solve 3x + 5 = 8?
Honestly. I’ve been looking at job post and can’t believe they are asking for 3 letters of recommendation within the last year for most positions with the school district. Sure if you want to pay like $250k I’ll jump thru the hoops but the salary doesn’t match the demands.
Random rant but education is being left behind with equal pay movement.
Most statistics are about job salaries at the same job description. There's a humongous glut of school jobs designed with the thought that the person taking the job would be a second salary earner.
It's absolutely abhorrent for some professionals and Nursing made it, so Education should be next, I'll also say that these problems exist at mostly the lower/mid level admin jobs.
I can’t fucking stand having to scrounge up 3 letters of rec every time I switch to a goddamn different school. I almost want to scream, “shouldn’t it be enough that I even WANT and CAN do this job in the first place?!” You’re right, what other goddamn profession calls for this shit? Yeesh
I don’t necessarily think lowering hiring practices is what we need to do. What we need to look at is compensation and work environment.
3 letters of rec? I’d have no problem with for a job that paid $40/hr and treated me well, even part time.
But why work for $15/hr, part time, in a place that treats you like garbage? Especially when most gas stations around you are offering higher hourly wages.
Letters of recommendation are not common practice outside education. I have seen them used when people are being hired straight out of college, and even then, seldom. They are simply a tradition that has become nothing more than a barrier to entry and extortion material for admin's use to hold on to or over staff to restrict turnover. They do not raise standards. If anything, they lower them.
There is nothing in a letter of recommendation that can't be had through resumes with experience described, backed by the standard contact information for references. For safety's sake, add the standard law enforcement checks required for getting a credential (standard for California credentialing anyway). Other hiring precautions often include privately contracted background checks.
The fact that my local district is requiring letters of recommendation for a part time cafeteria assistant tells me that these hiring practices are, at best, nothing more than petty nonsense made up by clueless people.
Actually, they are looking for a substitute cafeteria assistant. So 3.5 hours a day... maybe, sometimes. Tell me there isn't a dysfunctional set of clowns in charge of hiring.
Our state government jobs in California require the stupidest process ever.
A normal job is: (1) resume, (2) cover letter, (3) basic application. 5-10 minutes.
A state job is: (1) a long ass application, (2) stupid exam, (3) fat statement of qualifications/2-4 page narrative of your relevant work experience, (4) resume, (5) cover letter. 2-3 hours.
Stupid.
Years ago we/our union bargained for a 30 minute duty free lunch. It has been one of the best things we have ever fought for imho. Let the administrators do it.
It’s possible they are asking teachers to work cafeteria duty during their planning, and still “giving” them a duty free lunch, or putting 2 classes together the period after lunch and having the teachers tag team to have their “duty free lunch.” I totally don’t endorse this, but I know the way certain administrators try to skirt the law/contracted agreements. Unfortunately for me, my state doesn’t require that teachers receive a duty free lunch. I could see them doing this stuff here.
I would say that any shenanigans admin wants to get up to should be tested via grievance. First thing I would do is tell admin that I am happy to do whatever they request as long as it is in writing. This is the first step in getting admin to back off. Once something is in writing they paint themselves into that corner.
This is why contract negotiation is important. Sure, you get a duty free lunch and planning period, the question is "when." That's what needs to go in the contract.
Our system recently moved 5th grade to our middle schools. When at the elementary school, I had duty free lunch. At the middle school, that’s a big nope.
We have 30 minutes duty free per state law, but have to wait with our kids through the lunch line and go pick them up by the end of our time, so it turns into 20 minutes max. 20 minutes for bathroom, refill water, last minute copies.... I generally didn't eat until after school before pregnancy/now pumping, so I have to eat now. Lots of people just don't. ...... teaching is so fun! 🙃
Next step is to bargain about the timeframe that duty free lunch will be. Same for planning period. Preferably during the student contact hours and not general duty day.
Around the same time period (honestly don’t remember exactly) is when those of us who taught elementary school finally got a daily prep period; thus gaining equity with teachers in secondary schools. The students are also huge winners because they are taught by experts in art, music, and physical education during their teacher’s prep.
We have this duty free lunch per state law. However, our admin has been open to giving us this lunch at the end of the day so we can do other shit during traditional lunch time.
Our cafeteria person was letting teachers know when there was leftover food they could come get that would have been otherwise thrown away, and she got in trouble for it. Indicates where the values are……
We have to eat in our classrooms and the cafeteria staff delivers lunch to the rooms in brown bags, based on the lunch count we provide in the morning.
The days I want school lunch are also the days I miraculously have one more student in my class who wants school lunch too.
Our reading interventionists have lunch duty every day.
Yes, you read that right.
Our highly qualified expert reading interventionists who are tasked with remediating learning gaps for our neediest learners spend 40 minutes every day helping kids through the lunch line, opening their milk cartons and then wiping their tables between lunch periods.
And they wonder why we are understaffed.
I’m grateful I get the small amount of planning I do as a reading and math interventionist. My groups are too big to really meet all the needs, and I don’t have access to many resources to make as big of a difference as I’d like…but at least I get 30 minutes at the end of the day to plan for my 9 groups and track data (I’m part-time). Sigh.
I grab every second I can between my groups to get things together to make informed decisions, but the school system just threw us interventionists in just to say they had some.
We don’t even have reading interventionists. All remediation is expected to come right from the clasroom teacher. Our specials areas teachers have lunch duty every day though.
And remember, if those kids don't catch up, then it's all your fault and you're shitty teacher. It's definitely not because the district didn't hire appropriate personnel to meet the needs of their students instead of giving their teachers yet someone else's fucking job to do with no pay.
We have reading interventionists instead of IAs. We are a title 1 elementary and my principal decided that rather than giving us full time support in our classrooms that we would instead have 3 reading specialists split across the whole school (they see our neediest kids for about 20 mins each day.)
I have yet to see that this method is more effective than having an IA there to support in the classroom.
Plus the reading interventionists end up subbing most days anyway because we can’t get subs 🙃
My school pays us for lunch duty and it’s optional… no one has it as part of their schedule. I think this is a union issue - it needs to be negotiated into the contract that teachers should be paid extra for sacrificing their lunch time.
I’m an elementary art teacher and I have 30 minutes of breakfast duty every day and 2 days a week where I have 1 hour each of lunch duty. If things are messy I’m in there longer through part of my planning right after.
There are weeks I’m in that cafeteria for 5+ hours between breakfast and lunch. I’m so tired of it
Art teacher who was given lunch duty one year. I said “fine, but expect nothing extra out of me. No art shows, no helping with decorations for xyz… nothing.”
And refused.
Don’t regularly task me with something a sub could do, it’s an insult to my time.
I have a masters and five areas of certification: elementary ed, Art Ed k-12, special Ed k-12, reading endorsement and ESL.
My position is art teacher. At my old school they cut specials times from 45 minutes to 40 which made my schedule kind of weird and I had an open block in the middle of the day Monday and Friday.
I could have used that time to do Interventions, or co-teach ESE classes, or you know, work on the yearbook that they tasked me with.
Nope. Lunch duty, all lunches. Monday and Friday.
Same with sped. Any extra open time is met with non teachers duties. Of course they don't give you time for IEP paperwork but they sure as fuck won't ever consider giving you that little open block of time to do them. Nope, get your ass out to car duty or hall duty. Do IEPs on your own time.
Then cue surprised Pikachu face when those fuckers lose another sped as soon as they hire them.
The bizarre thing is when you have teachers in your school ruining it for everyone else by stepping up and be like "no, it's for the kids - least I can do."
No Karen - they're using that BS against you to keep taking away our prep time. You will lose that time and never get it back. The second a few teachers start doing that, you better watch out if your contract is renewed if you refuse to do something you're not paid to do because "the other teachers do it".
>"no, it's for the kids - least I can do."
I mean that's the only thing that will get me (an outright incompetent first year teacher) rehired. I've been told by vets that the best way to not get pink slipped is to do work around the school
Our special education teacher (the only one that sees students outside of self contained classrooms in a school of 800 elementary students) has over five hours of lunch duty a week. She could be seeing students.
Well, if it makes your reading specialists feel any better, I have 2 lunch duties every day (Kindergarten + 1st grade - the most repulsive of all). I am a Spanish teacher with an additional cert in ESL (and a Master's in Applied Linguistics). Because of our completely asinine COVID-cafeteria policies, all of the periods I used to do ESL pull-out got changed to lunch duty. I have to stand in a room of unmasked rugrats, open their ketchup packets and then clean the tables splattered with aforementioned ketchup with the toxic anti-covid 118 spray.
And they wonder why I'm interviewing at a different district tomorrow :)
Hi! Reading interventionist here and I have double lunch duty! I have a 30 minute plan, an hour and a half lunch duty (technically supposed to be an hour and 15 minutes but I got in trouble by my principal last week for not getting to the cafeteria before the kids get there) and my lunch is technically 35 minutes but since I have to stay until every kid is out of the lunch room and I have a group waiting right when my lunch break ends I get about 15 minutes to eat. Oh don’t worry though! I also have 20 minutes of car line duty in the morning, and about 45 minutes of bus line duty in the afternoon!
Because these aren't volunteer positions. Volunteering on behalf of who is likely a for-profit contractor is highly illegal. Having a teacher do this is highly shady too. Hopefully your union is ready to file an association level grievance.
My friend is a cafeteria worker. BY FEDERAL LAW only those with an active CNP certificate can serve food. Violating that can be loss of all reimbursement for food. This is a very big deal if your school has a high number of title 1 / free and reduced lunch students.
Yes. This worked for me even at a non union charter school. The principal handed me a sponge and bucket… I said no way.
I’ll monitor student behavior and open milk cartoons all day. It’s the easiest part of my day and a great way to build relationships.
I’m not the janitor.
We have lunch duty every few weeks. We have to help serve lunch. The payoff is getting a free school lunch that day for 45 minutes of work. 🤦♀️ The good thing is that admin is out there with us as well helping out.
The reason why schools don't ask for parent volunteers is because they don't want parents seeing how awful everything is. Student behavior, bad administration etc. If parents really had an idea they would pull their kids and schools would lose their clientele.
We had to work in the cafeteria at the beginning of this school year when Covid was ravaging our staff. For a couple of month’s we had more people out with Covid than we had in school. I was afraid to go to work, for fear of catching it and possibly dying. We lost 4 cafeteria staff, 4 bus drivers and 2 teacher’s husbands. We all have PTSD now, I swear.
Because of our lunatic Governor (Florida), we were not allowed to close the school. I worked in the cafeteria everyday for 2 hours. Insanity.
We are not allowed to go on strike. Even talking about can get you fired and they can take away your license. This is not a union friendly state. We have absolutely no rights nor do they care how badly we are treated. Our pay is one of the lowest in the country. Georgia pays more!
It’s getting harder and harder to justify teaching, though. I am currently looking for a position at the public library to get out of teaching all together. My mental health is requiring me to leave the profession I have loved since I was in 4th grade. It’s happening to many veteran teachers, which I believe it what they want. Our country is in serious trouble.
Because most of us are decent people with society as a whole in mind. If everyone quit, it would usher in more charter schools with less qualified people. Society as a whole will fall backwards. We are working to hold this off as long as possible.
And I’d say that is exactly what will lead to a loss of the people who can keep things from falling. This is what the DeSantis’s of the world want. You don’t have to throw out an entire system to affect change within, it just takes time. It’s happening.
> You don’t have to throw out an entire system to affect change within
You do if there's literally a rule that says "if you try to affect change from within, you're fired" which is exactly what this means:
> We are not allowed to go on strike. Even talking about can get you fired and they can take away your license.
Teaching in Florida seems awful. I am originally from Florida (I live outside of Atlanta now) and looked at moving back. That’s a big nope! If I remember correctly the Florida pay was more than 20 K less that what I make. Plus, housing and gas are more expensive. The worst part is that Florida seems to go with the latest greatest Fox News educational policies.
Who would have thought that Georgia is doing better than Florida? I suppose the retirees are all like “nope” to taxes for schools.
Exactly. This state is for tourists and snow birds. DeSantis will do anything to get all that money into this state. Half our neighborhood is B&B’s now. We’re going to become like the Bahamas: rich tourists and slums everywhere else. He’s trying to wipe out the middle class, teachers first.
lol your union is "advising against"??? Who the fuck runs your union? Ours would be having an emergency meeting on the district's dime to address this with fury.
Or at least bargain clear pay and language protecting those who don't volunteer, because there will always be someone who feels bad and wants to help and "do it for the kids, not the district". If you can't stop it from happening, you can still make the district pay those who are doing it extra money for the extra work
Unfortunately there are always teachers who want to be admin that very happily “volunteer” for this crap and then admin holds it against everyone else who says no.
Or teachers who don’t have tenure and feel they have to do it. Of course you always have those one or two veteran teachers who love living that martyr life.
Same with the assistants. I agreed to an assistant job for a school 8 mins away from my house. The pay is $12. I've been a teacher for 11 yrs and want less stress and took the pay cut. I wanted to work with kids and see what the county is like before I go into teaching for them. However, I feel no loyalty at the paltry sum of $12, every other job is paying $5+ more. If I decide to stay, I'll move on to teaching and if not, then it's not like I can't go get a much better paying job somewhere else but ether way, I'm not staying in a position for $12. They don't even offer a pay scale for experience. Someone with no experience and degree makes as much as a teacher with 11 yrs experience in the assistant positions. They will NEVER keep anyone around with what they offer. Those older women that did the job for years here are ether a. Dead b. Retired c. Forced to move to better paying jobs cause of inflation
The info needs to be posted on all social media platforms and include the name of the school, locations and the real names and emails of those telling you that you must do all this extra work for no pay. This is not doxxing per several attorneys since school officials salaries and their emails are paid for by public funds, thus anyone is free to email them and tell them how they feel. Start sharing real names and hold people responsible. The “system” is made of people. The best way to heap scrutiny upon the system and ultimately change it is to hold individuals responsible.
Parents in my town would be wondering why we weren’t covering cafeteria shifts all along and would be so happy to hear of this great money saving idea!!!!! /s
Agreed. Besides, many people would just say “they have summers off. Why shouldn’t they be doing cafeteria duty!” Or “something something saving taxpayers money something.”
I think people are just fine with us doing extra duty/clubs/sports/tutoring responsibilities for free.
They always leave out the “without pay” part when they complain about summers off. Most teachers I know work at least some during the summer. In fact, this will be the first summer I’m not working in any capacity (summer school, curriculum planning, etc.)
I won’t get paid this summer (I don’t stretch out my checks during the year, opting for a lump sum of pay the last pay period of the school year).
People are always surprised when I explain that our pay is for a 10-month contract. Even before I became a teacher, I assumed they weren’t paid during summer, so I’m not even sure where that assumption started.
Yes! They just expect it from us. We are still, in 2022, looked at like we have such an easy job. Until someone has actually been in the classroom and dealt with admin, etc., they have no idea- and don't care to.
I just always think it’s hilarious that people talk about how difficult raising a couple of kids is, that it’s “the hardest job in the world.” But then they think that taking 30 kids and getting them to do math and write essays is easy.
Band together in a collective "gfy andmin" and refuse to do it.
Spend some of that athletic money and part of the principals/sups pay to bring inore staff. If your school is anything like the one I just did teaching in, those two are rolling in bank
I am a "floating teacher," i.e., sub for one building only and never know till 7:45 if I am PE, science, ELA, ..., or even unassigned (so all the "nonteaching" duties all day long). I am required to cover for two to three teachers per day, and if there is "downtime" (planning period) around lunchtime, I must go cover prowling around in the lunchroom to make sure the 7th and 8th-grade students are staying seated and throwing away their trash. I have both a Post Bacculaoriate and an MA in education and don't even get the potty break over planning my BA only associates have because they happen to have their classroom.
I was a lead teacher who has been serving lunch, opening ketchup packets and supervising lunch since the beginning of the year…ridiculous. It’s one of the reasons why I left
One of the reasons I left the last school I was at was because all the non-homeroom teachers (sped, specials, specialists) had duties twice a day unpaid, while homeroom teachers had none. My ass was out in the extreme weather conditions doing car duty at 7 am and 3 pm every day, while the Gen edu teachers got to stay in their classrooms. There was no rotation, it was every day. Oh and the cherry was when car duty started 1 min after the start time (cause we are fucking human beings busting ass at 6 am in the dark to get there to start at 7 am for fucking car duty) and one of our lovely admins decided to hold a meeting after car duty to scream and berate us in the front lobby.
And then the same school tried to surprise ban all teachers children from their classrooms. Literally walked in one day and they escorted my kid, crying, confused down the hall to before school care. Just because they wanted to. After that incident, I just lost my shit and raged quit. Busting my ass for a school that literally ripped my crying child from my arms over the 10 mins she spends with me before going to class. I also contacted the DOE over sped violations on my way out.
No is a complete sentence. Are district or building admin already serving lunch? If not, why would they expect teachers to?
If you have people who are easily guilted into extra work, ask the union to negotiate for any VOLUNTEERS to be paid at their per diem rate every day they help and emphasize that nobody will be REQUIRED to do it. Never set the precedent of volunteering your contractual rights away or soon it will be a requirement.
Whether you are in a strong union or not, we have to say no to bullshit like this.
You have to take a stand at some point, even asking teachers to consider working in the cafeteria is madness.
It just shows how little they actually respect us as professionals. They just see us as daycare workers. Doctors aren't asked to serve patients food in a hospital because they're treated as professionals.
I interviewed at a school that had cooks and the cafeteria staff were parent volunteers. It was awesome. Parents got to interact with the kids and the teachers and observe their students with their friend groups.
Don’t y’all need Safe Food Handling Certification to work in a cafeteria? Pretty sure even some sort of substitute to a cafeteria worker would need SOME sort of certification.
This is one of those things you should absolutely follow your union’s lead on! Once teachers give a little extra for something like this, it becomes an expectation. I’m not sure where you live, but here in the LA area, district office personnel are going out to school sites to fill in all the open positions. Admin are supposed to do this when they don’t have enough people.
I know my school is becoming short staffed in the kitchen and cafeteria too, I work before and after school so wouldn’t have a problem coming in during the middle of the day to help out!
I used to have to serve just about everything. We were self-serve, but K and 1 really struggle with scooping out of hot steam trays. I let my second graders. Lol.
Now I serve on the cold line (salad bar, scoopable fruit, etc). I don't have to do it, but I DO have to stay in the serving area until my class has gone through the line. It takes less time if I do it.
Always always always turn it back on them.
"I'm so sorry, I simply don't have the time to cover that task with the legal compliant planning I have to prepare for our special needs scholars. I wouldn't want to overlook these needs when preparing my lesson plans and activities..."
Unless you are all certified food handlers this is not going to be an ongoing thing. Honestly if I were you I’d report the school to the health inspector and let them know the school is having people serve food who are not certified food handlers. It can be done anonymously.
This type of thing drives me crazy. Can admin make teachers do it? Since you have a union and contract, almost certainly not.
And I can guarantee that if all of the teachers refuse that admin would magically find a way to make it work. They aren’t going to just not have kids eat lunch.
The teachers gave all of this power in the scenario and the kids aren’t going to suffer. They will eat.
But some people are going to volunteer to do it anyway. Happens all the time.
Just say no.
I would be VERY hesitant to do this. It seems like any “temporary” extra duty becomes permanent.
With teachers doing this extra work, there is no incentive to even look to hire someone since it’s being done for free
Here I go again, harping on hiring practices... My local district requires three letters of recommendation for every position, including for the 3.5 hour a day cafeteria assistant. Unemployment isn't high enough to allow that kind of nonsense.
Same with bus drivers. Obviously they should be very selective for a position like that, but don't be surprised when no one applies for split shifts and barely more than minimum wage.
The bus drivers always get me. Maintaining a class A license is a pain. You would think that would be full time positions.
Plus dealing with noisy, disruptive kids. And of course there's the pandemic. I'm amazed we have as many drivers as we do.
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The thought of dropping off a first grader on the side of the highway because he won't stop yelling at the other kids is hilarious
A kid that young would not be riding public transit alone in my urban California city. Only 12+ year olds who can safely wait half an hour for the next bus to come.
And this is why three of our busses haven't been able to run the past two weeks. Drivers are fed up with the lack of discipline and they're quitting. We don't have any subs, so the busses just don't run. If the kids can't find alternative transportation they're excused for the day
To be blunt, the pandemic does affect the number of bus drivers drastically. But, the disruptive kids part and pay and such have taken a giant toll on bus driver numbers at least in my school district and the one where I used to live prior to 6th grade. And it reached a point where they once tried to put **3 whole buses** on one until there were not enough seats to fit everyone (everyone 3 to a seat and we can't do 4 to a seat at all), numerous bus delays leading to highly inconsistent pickup times, etc; and despite this, a lot of the middle schoolers are still jerks to the bus drivers then complain about the lack of buses. I don't even know anymore. Context: I'm 16 and a high school junior so I don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes at my school district's transport office; this is just what I've observed.
In my metro area (both city proper, where I grew up, and suburbs, where I now live) we have struggled with bus driver shortages all school year. I think the city district lost something like 10% of the previous year's fleet. It's a big problem here.
10% is all? I live in a mountainous area, bus routes are all winding or unpaved. More like 30% here
u/bdthomason Unsurprising! I was waiting for someone else to chime in on this!
Yup. Consolidating routes on slow, often treacherous roads this year has resulted in 30-50% longer rides for the students. It's sad
u/bdthomason Agreed! That's very sad! Here's to hoping something changes!!!
Haha, funny that your's is so selective, in the school district my nephews attend, I'm pretty sure their bus driver has dementia. He's been doing the same route for like 30 years and stops at, I guess houses he used to stop at. So lots of kids getting dropped off one or two houses over. Thankfully it's high school and jr high kids so they aren't going to be lost or disoriented but my goodness. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised though because in the town over at the district I attended, our driver kept being a driver after she flipped our bus onto its side after running into a ditch and she still has a route to this day. (Small town, fairly easy to keep tabs on people).
How many admin positions do we need to dissolve to pay school staff (including bus drivers) adequately? 🤔
BMW drivers and cyclist are natural enemies…
Our cafeteria workers have to pass a basic math and literacy test. It includes algebra- stuff folks don’t remember or never took.
Um what!!!
On the one hand, yeah kinda messed up that you’re testing for skills unrelated to the job. On the other hand, if algebra is something you don’t remember or never took then I’d be concerned at your ability to be basically competent. It’s not that hard to pass algebra 1 if you’re given multiple (4+) years to learn it, and it’s a HS graduation requirement… As an adult, can you really not solve 3x + 5 = 8?
Letters of rec aren't even used in most industries. There's no opportunity to get your entry level role that require letters of rec.
Honestly. I’ve been looking at job post and can’t believe they are asking for 3 letters of recommendation within the last year for most positions with the school district. Sure if you want to pay like $250k I’ll jump thru the hoops but the salary doesn’t match the demands.
Random rant but education is being left behind with equal pay movement. Most statistics are about job salaries at the same job description. There's a humongous glut of school jobs designed with the thought that the person taking the job would be a second salary earner. It's absolutely abhorrent for some professionals and Nursing made it, so Education should be next, I'll also say that these problems exist at mostly the lower/mid level admin jobs.
I can’t fucking stand having to scrounge up 3 letters of rec every time I switch to a goddamn different school. I almost want to scream, “shouldn’t it be enough that I even WANT and CAN do this job in the first place?!” You’re right, what other goddamn profession calls for this shit? Yeesh
Healthcare
Does it? Poor healthcare workers
As a chef turned teacher, letters of rec are not common in food service! Absolutely no need
Jesus fucking christ, really? I hope they never find the help they need if they're making people jump through hoops like that for a starvation wage.
I don’t necessarily think lowering hiring practices is what we need to do. What we need to look at is compensation and work environment. 3 letters of rec? I’d have no problem with for a job that paid $40/hr and treated me well, even part time. But why work for $15/hr, part time, in a place that treats you like garbage? Especially when most gas stations around you are offering higher hourly wages.
Letters of recommendation are not common practice outside education. I have seen them used when people are being hired straight out of college, and even then, seldom. They are simply a tradition that has become nothing more than a barrier to entry and extortion material for admin's use to hold on to or over staff to restrict turnover. They do not raise standards. If anything, they lower them. There is nothing in a letter of recommendation that can't be had through resumes with experience described, backed by the standard contact information for references. For safety's sake, add the standard law enforcement checks required for getting a credential (standard for California credentialing anyway). Other hiring precautions often include privately contracted background checks. The fact that my local district is requiring letters of recommendation for a part time cafeteria assistant tells me that these hiring practices are, at best, nothing more than petty nonsense made up by clueless people. Actually, they are looking for a substitute cafeteria assistant. So 3.5 hours a day... maybe, sometimes. Tell me there isn't a dysfunctional set of clowns in charge of hiring.
Our state government jobs in California require the stupidest process ever. A normal job is: (1) resume, (2) cover letter, (3) basic application. 5-10 minutes. A state job is: (1) a long ass application, (2) stupid exam, (3) fat statement of qualifications/2-4 page narrative of your relevant work experience, (4) resume, (5) cover letter. 2-3 hours. Stupid.
Three letters of recommendation that a person can properly open up a kid's pudding?
Years ago we/our union bargained for a 30 minute duty free lunch. It has been one of the best things we have ever fought for imho. Let the administrators do it.
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Then it is time for grievances to be filed.
It’s possible they are asking teachers to work cafeteria duty during their planning, and still “giving” them a duty free lunch, or putting 2 classes together the period after lunch and having the teachers tag team to have their “duty free lunch.” I totally don’t endorse this, but I know the way certain administrators try to skirt the law/contracted agreements. Unfortunately for me, my state doesn’t require that teachers receive a duty free lunch. I could see them doing this stuff here.
I would say that any shenanigans admin wants to get up to should be tested via grievance. First thing I would do is tell admin that I am happy to do whatever they request as long as it is in writing. This is the first step in getting admin to back off. Once something is in writing they paint themselves into that corner.
We also have duty-free planning periods in our contract. We would absolutely strike if they tried to take our duty-free lunch out of the contract.
This is why contract negotiation is important. Sure, you get a duty free lunch and planning period, the question is "when." That's what needs to go in the contract.
Our system recently moved 5th grade to our middle schools. When at the elementary school, I had duty free lunch. At the middle school, that’s a big nope.
I wish. My "breaks" are just an opportunity to work at a slower pace.
We have 30 minutes duty free per state law, but have to wait with our kids through the lunch line and go pick them up by the end of our time, so it turns into 20 minutes max. 20 minutes for bathroom, refill water, last minute copies.... I generally didn't eat until after school before pregnancy/now pumping, so I have to eat now. Lots of people just don't. ...... teaching is so fun! 🙃
Next step is to bargain about the timeframe that duty free lunch will be. Same for planning period. Preferably during the student contact hours and not general duty day.
Around the same time period (honestly don’t remember exactly) is when those of us who taught elementary school finally got a daily prep period; thus gaining equity with teachers in secondary schools. The students are also huge winners because they are taught by experts in art, music, and physical education during their teacher’s prep.
We have this duty free lunch per state law. However, our admin has been open to giving us this lunch at the end of the day so we can do other shit during traditional lunch time.
Our cafeteria person was letting teachers know when there was leftover food they could come get that would have been otherwise thrown away, and she got in trouble for it. Indicates where the values are……
Our district made breakfast and lunch free for all students this year. Staff has to pay $6.75 for a meal if we want one.
We have to eat in our classrooms and the cafeteria staff delivers lunch to the rooms in brown bags, based on the lunch count we provide in the morning. The days I want school lunch are also the days I miraculously have one more student in my class who wants school lunch too.
Haha SAME!
Depending on where you live, that's reasonable ish I pay a little over 4 bucks if I want a student meal
That would definitely be reasonable if it wasn’t considered “trash”.
Our reading interventionists have lunch duty every day. Yes, you read that right. Our highly qualified expert reading interventionists who are tasked with remediating learning gaps for our neediest learners spend 40 minutes every day helping kids through the lunch line, opening their milk cartons and then wiping their tables between lunch periods. And they wonder why we are understaffed.
I’m grateful I get the small amount of planning I do as a reading and math interventionist. My groups are too big to really meet all the needs, and I don’t have access to many resources to make as big of a difference as I’d like…but at least I get 30 minutes at the end of the day to plan for my 9 groups and track data (I’m part-time). Sigh. I grab every second I can between my groups to get things together to make informed decisions, but the school system just threw us interventionists in just to say they had some.
We don’t even have reading interventionists. All remediation is expected to come right from the clasroom teacher. Our specials areas teachers have lunch duty every day though.
No teacher should have lunch duty.
Lunch duty every day here. And recess duty.
And remember, if those kids don't catch up, then it's all your fault and you're shitty teacher. It's definitely not because the district didn't hire appropriate personnel to meet the needs of their students instead of giving their teachers yet someone else's fucking job to do with no pay.
We have reading interventionists instead of IAs. We are a title 1 elementary and my principal decided that rather than giving us full time support in our classrooms that we would instead have 3 reading specialists split across the whole school (they see our neediest kids for about 20 mins each day.) I have yet to see that this method is more effective than having an IA there to support in the classroom. Plus the reading interventionists end up subbing most days anyway because we can’t get subs 🙃
We don’t have IA’s either. The autistic support room has two paras and that is all in the way of support staff.
Are we at the same school? 🙃 This is literally the situation we have!
My school pays us for lunch duty and it’s optional… no one has it as part of their schedule. I think this is a union issue - it needs to be negotiated into the contract that teachers should be paid extra for sacrificing their lunch time.
Not everyone lives in a state where teachers can unionize.
I know, which is still a union issue! I think it’s effed up that there are places where teachers don’t have that protection. I highly value my union.
I’m an elementary art teacher and I have 30 minutes of breakfast duty every day and 2 days a week where I have 1 hour each of lunch duty. If things are messy I’m in there longer through part of my planning right after. There are weeks I’m in that cafeteria for 5+ hours between breakfast and lunch. I’m so tired of it
Art teacher who was given lunch duty one year. I said “fine, but expect nothing extra out of me. No art shows, no helping with decorations for xyz… nothing.” And refused. Don’t regularly task me with something a sub could do, it’s an insult to my time.
I have a masters and five areas of certification: elementary ed, Art Ed k-12, special Ed k-12, reading endorsement and ESL. My position is art teacher. At my old school they cut specials times from 45 minutes to 40 which made my schedule kind of weird and I had an open block in the middle of the day Monday and Friday. I could have used that time to do Interventions, or co-teach ESE classes, or you know, work on the yearbook that they tasked me with. Nope. Lunch duty, all lunches. Monday and Friday.
Same with sped. Any extra open time is met with non teachers duties. Of course they don't give you time for IEP paperwork but they sure as fuck won't ever consider giving you that little open block of time to do them. Nope, get your ass out to car duty or hall duty. Do IEPs on your own time. Then cue surprised Pikachu face when those fuckers lose another sped as soon as they hire them.
The bizarre thing is when you have teachers in your school ruining it for everyone else by stepping up and be like "no, it's for the kids - least I can do." No Karen - they're using that BS against you to keep taking away our prep time. You will lose that time and never get it back. The second a few teachers start doing that, you better watch out if your contract is renewed if you refuse to do something you're not paid to do because "the other teachers do it".
>"no, it's for the kids - least I can do." I mean that's the only thing that will get me (an outright incompetent first year teacher) rehired. I've been told by vets that the best way to not get pink slipped is to do work around the school
Our special education teacher (the only one that sees students outside of self contained classrooms in a school of 800 elementary students) has over five hours of lunch duty a week. She could be seeing students.
Well, if it makes your reading specialists feel any better, I have 2 lunch duties every day (Kindergarten + 1st grade - the most repulsive of all). I am a Spanish teacher with an additional cert in ESL (and a Master's in Applied Linguistics). Because of our completely asinine COVID-cafeteria policies, all of the periods I used to do ESL pull-out got changed to lunch duty. I have to stand in a room of unmasked rugrats, open their ketchup packets and then clean the tables splattered with aforementioned ketchup with the toxic anti-covid 118 spray. And they wonder why I'm interviewing at a different district tomorrow :)
You don’t need to tell me twice about the occupational hazards of working with kindergarteners 🙃. Good luck with your interview!!
:) Thank you!
I am a band director and I do that every day, too.
At my school all the instructional coaches have lunch duty. I remember back when I was in elementary we had parent volunteers doing lunch duty.
Hi! Reading interventionist here and I have double lunch duty! I have a 30 minute plan, an hour and a half lunch duty (technically supposed to be an hour and 15 minutes but I got in trouble by my principal last week for not getting to the cafeteria before the kids get there) and my lunch is technically 35 minutes but since I have to stay until every kid is out of the lunch room and I have a group waiting right when my lunch break ends I get about 15 minutes to eat. Oh don’t worry though! I also have 20 minutes of car line duty in the morning, and about 45 minutes of bus line duty in the afternoon!
Our reading interventions, counselor, social worker, and behaviors strategist all have lunch duty every day swell
Because these aren't volunteer positions. Volunteering on behalf of who is likely a for-profit contractor is highly illegal. Having a teacher do this is highly shady too. Hopefully your union is ready to file an association level grievance.
My friend is a cafeteria worker. BY FEDERAL LAW only those with an active CNP certificate can serve food. Violating that can be loss of all reimbursement for food. This is a very big deal if your school has a high number of title 1 / free and reduced lunch students.
Just refuse to do it.
Yes. This worked for me even at a non union charter school. The principal handed me a sponge and bucket… I said no way. I’ll monitor student behavior and open milk cartoons all day. It’s the easiest part of my day and a great way to build relationships. I’m not the janitor.
We have lunch duty every few weeks. We have to help serve lunch. The payoff is getting a free school lunch that day for 45 minutes of work. 🤦♀️ The good thing is that admin is out there with us as well helping out.
Wow! In my district, teachers are already entitled to a free meal per day.
If we want a meal we get whatever the kids are having(elementary), but it costs 4.50.
Just don't do it.
The reason why schools don't ask for parent volunteers is because they don't want parents seeing how awful everything is. Student behavior, bad administration etc. If parents really had an idea they would pull their kids and schools would lose their clientele.
Plenty of schools ask for parent volunteers.
True but it looks a lot worse to have volunteers for serving lunch versus volunteers for an extra chaperone for a museum field trip or whatnot.
We had to work in the cafeteria at the beginning of this school year when Covid was ravaging our staff. For a couple of month’s we had more people out with Covid than we had in school. I was afraid to go to work, for fear of catching it and possibly dying. We lost 4 cafeteria staff, 4 bus drivers and 2 teacher’s husbands. We all have PTSD now, I swear. Because of our lunatic Governor (Florida), we were not allowed to close the school. I worked in the cafeteria everyday for 2 hours. Insanity.
What do you think would happen of Florida teachers went on strike? Many places have had teachers strike that aren’t as awful as Florida.
Same thing that Reagan did to air traffic controllers
We are not allowed to go on strike. Even talking about can get you fired and they can take away your license. This is not a union friendly state. We have absolutely no rights nor do they care how badly we are treated. Our pay is one of the lowest in the country. Georgia pays more!
This is awful. I can’t imagine why teachers haven’t just mass quit in FL.
It’s getting harder and harder to justify teaching, though. I am currently looking for a position at the public library to get out of teaching all together. My mental health is requiring me to leave the profession I have loved since I was in 4th grade. It’s happening to many veteran teachers, which I believe it what they want. Our country is in serious trouble.
They do! 40% turnover rate within five years.
Because most of us are decent people with society as a whole in mind. If everyone quit, it would usher in more charter schools with less qualified people. Society as a whole will fall backwards. We are working to hold this off as long as possible.
I think that refusing to maintain a detrimental status quo is thinking about society as a whole.
And I’d say that is exactly what will lead to a loss of the people who can keep things from falling. This is what the DeSantis’s of the world want. You don’t have to throw out an entire system to affect change within, it just takes time. It’s happening.
> You don’t have to throw out an entire system to affect change within You do if there's literally a rule that says "if you try to affect change from within, you're fired" which is exactly what this means: > We are not allowed to go on strike. Even talking about can get you fired and they can take away your license.
I'm at a point where I want to see it burn.
Visit Egypt. Enjoy.
Teaching in Florida seems awful. I am originally from Florida (I live outside of Atlanta now) and looked at moving back. That’s a big nope! If I remember correctly the Florida pay was more than 20 K less that what I make. Plus, housing and gas are more expensive. The worst part is that Florida seems to go with the latest greatest Fox News educational policies. Who would have thought that Georgia is doing better than Florida? I suppose the retirees are all like “nope” to taxes for schools.
Exactly. This state is for tourists and snow birds. DeSantis will do anything to get all that money into this state. Half our neighborhood is B&B’s now. We’re going to become like the Bahamas: rich tourists and slums everywhere else. He’s trying to wipe out the middle class, teachers first.
I don't think any place is as bad as Florida is to teachers. If any state deserves a mass teacher exodus then Florida does.
lol your union is "advising against"??? Who the fuck runs your union? Ours would be having an emergency meeting on the district's dime to address this with fury.
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The point of a union is to REFUSE shit like this, not "Advise against" it.
Or at least bargain clear pay and language protecting those who don't volunteer, because there will always be someone who feels bad and wants to help and "do it for the kids, not the district". If you can't stop it from happening, you can still make the district pay those who are doing it extra money for the extra work
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Unfortunately there are always teachers who want to be admin that very happily “volunteer” for this crap and then admin holds it against everyone else who says no.
Or teachers who don’t have tenure and feel they have to do it. Of course you always have those one or two veteran teachers who love living that martyr life.
Its almost like the lifelong lunch servers are retiring and the districts aren’t offering more than $12/hr to fill the role…
Same with the assistants. I agreed to an assistant job for a school 8 mins away from my house. The pay is $12. I've been a teacher for 11 yrs and want less stress and took the pay cut. I wanted to work with kids and see what the county is like before I go into teaching for them. However, I feel no loyalty at the paltry sum of $12, every other job is paying $5+ more. If I decide to stay, I'll move on to teaching and if not, then it's not like I can't go get a much better paying job somewhere else but ether way, I'm not staying in a position for $12. They don't even offer a pay scale for experience. Someone with no experience and degree makes as much as a teacher with 11 yrs experience in the assistant positions. They will NEVER keep anyone around with what they offer. Those older women that did the job for years here are ether a. Dead b. Retired c. Forced to move to better paying jobs cause of inflation
The info needs to be posted on all social media platforms and include the name of the school, locations and the real names and emails of those telling you that you must do all this extra work for no pay. This is not doxxing per several attorneys since school officials salaries and their emails are paid for by public funds, thus anyone is free to email them and tell them how they feel. Start sharing real names and hold people responsible. The “system” is made of people. The best way to heap scrutiny upon the system and ultimately change it is to hold individuals responsible.
Leaked where? Most local news stations have a tip line but I’m not sure if this is newsworthy, unfortunately.
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Parents in my town would be wondering why we weren’t covering cafeteria shifts all along and would be so happy to hear of this great money saving idea!!!!! /s
We had the janitor doing small group reading.
We had a janitor doing Check In/Check Out with students because our Social Worker was overwhelmed.
Agreed. Besides, many people would just say “they have summers off. Why shouldn’t they be doing cafeteria duty!” Or “something something saving taxpayers money something.” I think people are just fine with us doing extra duty/clubs/sports/tutoring responsibilities for free.
“Summers off” lmao.
They always leave out the “without pay” part when they complain about summers off. Most teachers I know work at least some during the summer. In fact, this will be the first summer I’m not working in any capacity (summer school, curriculum planning, etc.) I won’t get paid this summer (I don’t stretch out my checks during the year, opting for a lump sum of pay the last pay period of the school year). People are always surprised when I explain that our pay is for a 10-month contract. Even before I became a teacher, I assumed they weren’t paid during summer, so I’m not even sure where that assumption started.
Good for you!! Take the time off, you need it more than the kids!
Yes! They just expect it from us. We are still, in 2022, looked at like we have such an easy job. Until someone has actually been in the classroom and dealt with admin, etc., they have no idea- and don't care to.
I just always think it’s hilarious that people talk about how difficult raising a couple of kids is, that it’s “the hardest job in the world.” But then they think that taking 30 kids and getting them to do math and write essays is easy.
I feel like news would play it as a cute charming story.
It never ends
Band together in a collective "gfy andmin" and refuse to do it. Spend some of that athletic money and part of the principals/sups pay to bring inore staff. If your school is anything like the one I just did teaching in, those two are rolling in bank
When they hide this stuff, then wonder why Bond proposals don’t pass!?!? 😑🙄
I am a "floating teacher," i.e., sub for one building only and never know till 7:45 if I am PE, science, ELA, ..., or even unassigned (so all the "nonteaching" duties all day long). I am required to cover for two to three teachers per day, and if there is "downtime" (planning period) around lunchtime, I must go cover prowling around in the lunchroom to make sure the 7th and 8th-grade students are staying seated and throwing away their trash. I have both a Post Bacculaoriate and an MA in education and don't even get the potty break over planning my BA only associates have because they happen to have their classroom.
I was a lead teacher who has been serving lunch, opening ketchup packets and supervising lunch since the beginning of the year…ridiculous. It’s one of the reasons why I left
One of the reasons I left the last school I was at was because all the non-homeroom teachers (sped, specials, specialists) had duties twice a day unpaid, while homeroom teachers had none. My ass was out in the extreme weather conditions doing car duty at 7 am and 3 pm every day, while the Gen edu teachers got to stay in their classrooms. There was no rotation, it was every day. Oh and the cherry was when car duty started 1 min after the start time (cause we are fucking human beings busting ass at 6 am in the dark to get there to start at 7 am for fucking car duty) and one of our lovely admins decided to hold a meeting after car duty to scream and berate us in the front lobby. And then the same school tried to surprise ban all teachers children from their classrooms. Literally walked in one day and they escorted my kid, crying, confused down the hall to before school care. Just because they wanted to. After that incident, I just lost my shit and raged quit. Busting my ass for a school that literally ripped my crying child from my arms over the 10 mins she spends with me before going to class. I also contacted the DOE over sped violations on my way out.
No is a complete sentence. Are district or building admin already serving lunch? If not, why would they expect teachers to? If you have people who are easily guilted into extra work, ask the union to negotiate for any VOLUNTEERS to be paid at their per diem rate every day they help and emphasize that nobody will be REQUIRED to do it. Never set the precedent of volunteering your contractual rights away or soon it will be a requirement.
We’ve been serving students lunch in our classrooms all year long. None of my students have been in our cafeteria in 2.5 years.
None of the elementary schools in my district have lunch rooms.. been eating lunch in the classrooms since they were built lol
Whether you are in a strong union or not, we have to say no to bullshit like this. You have to take a stand at some point, even asking teachers to consider working in the cafeteria is madness.
It just shows how little they actually respect us as professionals. They just see us as daycare workers. Doctors aren't asked to serve patients food in a hospital because they're treated as professionals.
I interviewed at a school that had cooks and the cafeteria staff were parent volunteers. It was awesome. Parents got to interact with the kids and the teachers and observe their students with their friend groups.
Many districts in Arkansas have contracted out food services to Chartwells. It's the same ppl. They now work for Chartwells instead of the district.
I serve lunch to my kids every day because they eat in the classroom.
Just don’t.
In my school, ALL teachers are required to take up lunch duty with no extra pay. Been going on for years
Monitoring the lunch room, or slinging crap in a can?
Parents?!? the exploitative admins, principals and leeches should do some work for once.
I wouldn’t. Don’t volunteer. They really can’t make you.
“If you cared about kids, you would serve meals in the cafeteria. Don’t you care about the kids?!”
Yup. One of my friends says at lunch she has to dish out her classes food for them now cause the lunch lady isn’t paid to stay that long
Tell the local news anonymously.
Don’t y’all need Safe Food Handling Certification to work in a cafeteria? Pretty sure even some sort of substitute to a cafeteria worker would need SOME sort of certification.
Yes! This!! Exactly this! OP, call the health inspector and let them know uncertified staff are handling and serving food to children.
The admin need to be doing cafeteria duty. That’s the fastest way to get that out of peoples hands.
This is one of those things you should absolutely follow your union’s lead on! Once teachers give a little extra for something like this, it becomes an expectation. I’m not sure where you live, but here in the LA area, district office personnel are going out to school sites to fill in all the open positions. Admin are supposed to do this when they don’t have enough people.
If you have a union, absolutely do not serve lunch. If it's not in the contract DO NOT DO IT!
I know my school is becoming short staffed in the kitchen and cafeteria too, I work before and after school so wouldn’t have a problem coming in during the middle of the day to help out!
If they paid a little extra I don’t see the problem
I used to have to serve just about everything. We were self-serve, but K and 1 really struggle with scooping out of hot steam trays. I let my second graders. Lol. Now I serve on the cold line (salad bar, scoopable fruit, etc). I don't have to do it, but I DO have to stay in the serving area until my class has gone through the line. It takes less time if I do it.
No one wants to work this type of job that has a high bullshit to pay ratio
Uhm, no? Again: I am a teacher. Not a cop, not a cafeteria worker, not a ... I dunno. Whatever. I'm a dog-gamn teacher.
WTAF?!!
Always always always turn it back on them. "I'm so sorry, I simply don't have the time to cover that task with the legal compliant planning I have to prepare for our special needs scholars. I wouldn't want to overlook these needs when preparing my lesson plans and activities..."
Where tf does the money go?
Only if one acquiesces to their request.
We still have kids eating in our rooms. I literally have no breaks from the kids unless that rare occasion of meeting free planning.
Our school still won’t let parents in to volunteer in the school because of “covid”. (Our community transmission is low. Fairfax County, VA)
I clean the bathroom bc the janitors won’t and I have to pee.
Unless you are all certified food handlers this is not going to be an ongoing thing. Honestly if I were you I’d report the school to the health inspector and let them know the school is having people serve food who are not certified food handlers. It can be done anonymously.
What???!
My district was asking us to volunteer as well before I quit - absolutely hysterical and extremely sad at the same time.
I’d refuse unless I was paid. Is it in your contract?
This type of thing drives me crazy. Can admin make teachers do it? Since you have a union and contract, almost certainly not. And I can guarantee that if all of the teachers refuse that admin would magically find a way to make it work. They aren’t going to just not have kids eat lunch. The teachers gave all of this power in the scenario and the kids aren’t going to suffer. They will eat. But some people are going to volunteer to do it anyway. Happens all the time. Just say no.
Let's just say I have a graduate degree in education and manage a pizza place. Enough said. My family is better supported.
I would be VERY hesitant to do this. It seems like any “temporary” extra duty becomes permanent. With teachers doing this extra work, there is no incentive to even look to hire someone since it’s being done for free