Last Tuesday’s Meet & Confer: Thank you to all who braved the icy roads on Tuesday to attend Meet & Confer, and to the over 600 of you who had the chance to complete the workload survey. Our speakers, Beth Popalisky, Ryan MacSwain, LeeAnne Clauer, Tom Kobelinski, Sarah Weil, Marti Biegler, Heather Hjelle, Kari Kaehn, Jay Wilkins, and Sheila Davies did a terrific job laying out some concrete ideas for reducing our workload. Key ideas were:
• Increases in workload are outpacing reductions in workload
• Autonomy and individuality decreases workload
• Paperwork can be decreased in many areas
• Workload problems at any level increases workload at every level
• Time to work together is better than other kinds of training
• Everyone needs to let something go – district administration, principals, and teachers
Their statements seemed to help our school board members show a willingness to work toward solutions. Look for an article in our newsletter coming out later this month for a summary of the survey and ideas.
Flexing Time – What Do You Think?: Our Labor Management Committee - a team of representatives from AHEM, school board, and district administration who meet to work on workplace issues – has been focusing so far this year on finding ways for collaborative teams to meet, especially those who are “singletons” at their sites. Out of that discussion, we decided we need to discuss how flex time is being used across the district for PLC’s and other reasons. We are thinking of flex time as when you work outside your duty day in exchange for taking the same amount of time off your duty day down the road. It seems that how this works around the district varies widely. We’d like to know what you think – do you flex your time for something at your site? What have your experiences been with attempts initiated by you or by others to flex your day? How would you like this to work? Should we flex our time at all? Email us at ahem@anoka.k12.mn.us with your thoughts.
