Forty percent of Fairfax County teachers said on a teachers union survey that they’re doing “not nearly enough” when it comes to “fostering a love of learning in students.” The school board has consistently agreed that its teachers are overworked, but this is the first time the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers has confronted the board with a statistical breakdown of how teachers’ increasing hours and responsibilities affect students.
More than 80 percent of teachers agreed “very much” that “FCPS requires an extraordinary amount of time before and after ‘contract hours.'”
Almost half of employees said they were spending “not nearly enough” time “developing higher-order thinking skills in students” and “pursuing topics that students find relevant and/or engaging,” alongside the 40 percent who said they’re not teaching their kids to love learning.
“That is troubling,” said board member Sandra Evans. “Are we at a point where [teachers] feel there are so many standards to meet and tests to give that they can’t do their best?”
The school board has supported its teachers, naming pay raises their top budget priority; Fairfax teachers’ salaries have been frozen for the past two years.
But when the union’s members met last month to brainstorm solutions to their bloated work hours, Greenburg said teachers were concerned that the school board — while supportive — would not understand their recommendations.
For instance, Greenburg said teachers are frustrated with Professional Learning Communities, required weekly meetings for departments to share lesson plans. “Outwardly, it seems like a reasonably productive way of using planning time, but we’ve got to this point where this planning time is mandated — you have to sit in this meeting even if you have nothing to talk about,” he said. “Everybody in that room is thinking of the 50 other things they really need to be doing.”
Tina Hone, a board member and former public school teacher, said the school board is not willing to relax the meetings’ mandatory status. “This is where the rubber hits the road with me and the association,” she said. “It’s crucial that the experienced teachers come to help the newbies, even if they have nothing to say.”
More than 2,000 employees in the 4,000-member union responded to the survey. In addition to teachers, the union represents instructional assistants, secretaries, librarians, security personnel, counselors, social workers and psychologists.
The union plans to present a full list of recommendations at the Feb. 24 school board meeting.
