Artifact 1

Running Head: ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

Elementary Prep Time in West Bloomfield School District:

When Insufficient Planning Time is No Longer Acceptable
Thomas R. DeGrand
Oakland University
School Community Development
EA 748
Christine Abbott, Ph.D.
June 15, 2015

ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

Elementary Prep Time in West Bloomfield School District:
When Insufficient Planning Time is No Longer Acceptable
Statement of the Problem
Your newborn baby has woken up at 3:00 a.m. for what feels like ten years running.
Youre tired, frustrated, and desperately in need of some sleep. You rock your baby for twenty
minutes and finally feel he is ready to go back in his crib. You get up slowly, tiptoe to the crib,
gently place him down, cover him with a blanket, and then turn around and tiptoe towards the
door. As you head out of the room and slowly shut the door, you begin to pray that he will go
back to sleep. You walk to your room, lay your head on the pillow fully expecting to hear your
crying bundle of joy, but nothingpure silence! You take a deep breath, close your eyes, and
enjoy the next few hours of pure relaxation. This feeling that Ive just described is what it feels
like to walk your students to a special knowing you have the next hour to relax and grade the
endless piles of papers, respond to the infinite number of parent emails, and if youre
luckyplan!
The problem in West Bloomfield School District is that elementary teachers currently
have in our contract, and have had for at least 15 years, three days with an hour prep, a fourth
day with a 30-minute prep, and a fifth day with no prep. Our district, in collaboration with our
education association leadership team, has felt it was fair to the elementary teachers and the
elementary students to have a day that they never attended a special subject area. In the
meantime, the high school teachers over the past 17 years have received a 93-minute prep five
days per week! I have found this to be inexcusable; therefore, I sought out a position on the
association bargaining team to ensure this does not continue. The purpose of this paper is to

ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

analyze this problem in our district and to present a plan of action to help solve this longstanding
issue.
Stakeholders/Constituents Involved
Due to the fact that prep time is a contractual item, the primary stakeholders involved in
the decision making are the district administration bargaining team, education association
bargaining team, and school board. All three units represent three of the main components of a
school district: administration, teachers, and community. Though they are the primary
stakeholders involved, it is ultimately the teachers union that must ratify a tentative agreement
that was negotiated by those three parties. As you can see, the number of constituents involved
in the creation, and solution, of this problem of insufficient elementary prep time is plentiful.
What about the students? Personally speaking, I feel they are the most important
stakeholders involved, yet they are not mentioned above. All decisions made in our district must
always go back to what is best for kids, and those three units should be representing the students
at all times. I would argue that what we currently are doing for elementary prep time is not best
for kids, in more ways than one. We simply are not representing their needs very well. I will
describe this in more detail below. It is the students, though, that ultimately have felt, and will
continue to feel, the negative effects of our past and current situation.
Analysis of Present Situation
Seventeen years ago, West Bloomfield School District chose to move to block scheduling
at the high school as a marketing tactic. By doing so, they were able to offer a wide array of
classes to fit the interests and needs of students. There is no question that block scheduling
allows for this; however, it comes with a price. Running a larger variety of classes causes a need
for more specialized teachers. This, in turn, results in some classes with half the number of

ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

students that it could hold. This is not a very efficient system to have for a school district that is
in a state that is not sufficiently funding public education. As a result of this, and many other
factors, our district has reached a negative fund balance and is trying to keep itself above water
through years and years of cuts and freezes. The effects of this always trickle down to the
students. One would think that a district in this type of situation would cut its Cadillac
scheduling, yet we continue to offer it without the funds to pay for it.
What does this have to do with elementary prep time? Well, one major issue our district
has been dealing with is the division between elementary and secondary teachers. Elementary
teachers feel there is a tremendous inequity in working conditions between the two
levelsrightfully so. What elementary teachers dont realize is that it is not at the fault of the
secondary teachers. As I said earlier, 17 years ago, the West Bloomfield School District School
Board decided to run this schedule at the high school. The intention, as it is still stated in our
current contract, was to give high school teachers a 53 minute daily prep, while the remaining 40
minutes would be used to complete assignments given by the high school administration. After
about 7 years of doing this, the high school administration decided to forego these duties and
allow the teachers to utilize all 93 minutes for prep and planning. The misunderstanding
amongst elementary teachers is that they feel the secondary teachers that were on the bargaining
team bargained for this. That is not the case. Im sure they didnt oppose it, but it certainly
wasnt pursued in negotiations. So whats the problem then?
My problem is that nothing has been done to increase that need for more planning time at
the elementary level. To expect a teacher and his/her students to go through a day without a
single break, outside of a 30-minute lunch, is insane. It does not allow for a learning
environment that is conducive to learning, and it certainly does not allow a teacher sufficient

ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

time to not only plan and prep for upcoming lessons that day, but also take care of the multiple
other duties that come with elementary teaching. A solution was needed, and that is where I
come in. However, our solution created another problem that we are currently in the process of
trying to solve.
Management Plan
For many years, our associations bargaining team lacked any elementary voice.
Personally, I feel this resulted in the continuation of a prep time that most would consider absurd
and unfair. A couple years ago, we finally got a well-respected elementary leader on the
bargaining team with the hopes that a change would be made. No change was made. I am not
able to confirm a reason for this; however, I am guessing it is not due to a lack of effort on his
part. It may have just been a non-negotiable for the district at that time.
Over the past eight years, I have served as our schools union representative. I felt it was
time for me to step into a higher level leadership role within the association in order to bring
about needed change. I have taken on the roles of elementary grievance chair, executive board
member, and bargaining team member. I am the elementary voice for our district. I felt this was
my way to ensure a change was made, and for me, prep time was a non-negotiable. My team felt
the same, especially after hearing it from all elementary buildings as their number one concern.
We went into bargaining with this as a priority. After multiple bargaining sessions, we came to
an agreement that gave elementary teachers a 51-minute continuous daily prep. However, in
doing so, we sacrificed the current 25-minute prep time at the start of each day. With this
agreement, administrators are free to use that as they wish, such as for bus duty, staff meetings,
PLC meetings, etc. When the Letter of Agreement was released to the association, many people
applauded our efforts and this needed change, however, some expressed deep concern over what

ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

will happen during those 25 minutes. It is the bargaining teams mission now to make certain
that a fair and equitable agreement is made and placed in the contract to ensure that time is not
abused by administrators in different buildings. Without such language, there is the likelihood
that there will be some administrators that will use that time at a greater extent than others, and
with this discrepancy between buildings, complaints will ensue. Unfortunately, current
negotiations have been at a standstill due to the fact that our current Deputy Superintendent of
Human Resources will be departing our school district soon. We will be bargaining with him
one more time until June 30th when he leaves, but we dont plan on seeing much movement from
the administrations side until the new Executive Director of Human Resources is hired and
begins July 1st. We are hopeful that the new hire will see the need for sufficient prep time at the
elementary, and will be more willing to place in the contract language that allows for fair and
equitable use of those 25 minutes at the start of each day. If we can bargain language in the
contract that protects our time, elementary teachers will be singing hymns of joy at this
newfound time for them and their students.
For me, this contract negotiation marks the start of bringing about equity between the
elementary and secondary. It is important to note that by no means is the goal to bring the high
school prep time down; rather, it is to bring the elementary prep time up. This is proving to be
difficult, but I truly believe it is possible. If we find that the district is in need of that morning
time due to required duties that will now be done by teachers instead of the paraprofessionals
that have recently been laid off, then a different solution is needed. My idea is simpleif you
need that morning time, then you need to increase our daily prep time from 51 minutes to 62
minutes to ensure we stay at our current 310 weekly minutes. It would keep us at our current

ELEMENTARY PREP TIME IN WEST BLOOMFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT

contractual amount, but it would allow for a daily continuous prepa luxury most elementary
teachers in our district have never experienced.
It is absolutely imperative that through negotiations, one of these two aforementioned
solutions is agreed upon. It is a non-negotiable for me, and I will fight it until the bitter end. The
next couple months will be very telling. We hope to come to an agreement by the end of the
summer in order to have a tentative agreement ready to be placed in front of the association for
ratification prior to the start of the 2015-2016 school year. The only question left is: Will the
baby go to sleep or keep you up all night crying? The teachers and the students need the sleep!