If I have to waste my life at one more pointless meeting at school I am going to go insane!!!! We have meetings for the sake of having a meeting, they waste everyone's time. I can't take it. We have meetings to plan future meetings, to learn about technology that will never be available to us, to read articles about what we will be doing, to cut and glue papers, the list goes on and on. Isn't the point of school to teach kids??? Why don't we make time to plan lessons and grade, you know meaningful tasks. I am so mad right now, thanks for letting me vent.

[Daphne333]

This was a 4 day week. I had a meeting Tuesday morning during work time. Wednesday afternoon for staff development. And I have one tomorrow morning for a committee meeting. And we will do absolutely NOTHING important tomorrow. Just waste my time and everyone else.

I HATE &@&@&# meetings.

[bonnybelle]

Seven meeting so far in January and one more on the calendar. We only taught 21 days this month. Do the math. Minimum of two hours each! That's two eight hour days!

[AX Pendergast]

Have you checked with your union? Ours has fairly explicit language regarding meetings that staff are required to attend. 3 per month: one staff, one PLC, and one department. Any other meetings must have prior approval of a majority of the staff.

[Marriedin79]

You are LUCKY!

[TheTrunch]

What would all of the overpaid administrators do if they didn't have meetings to plan. It really is the extreme in foolishness to think their meetings affect the children in any positive way.

[catapult]

you should be happy you dont have meetings like I do-- about 2 per week... 1 to discuss all the teachers goals for the coming week and to describe how the week went... this takes about 1.5 hours- every single week!!! and there is always another reason to make us stay late- sometimes its a speaker... sometimes its about paperwork... sometimes its just for the sake of wasting everyones time!

[AX Pendergast]

...just organized. Our union takes a big role in what happens in the schools, and we have a large membership with lots of buy-in. We're active, and we work with the district rather than against it.

For example:
* Any teacher who has worked at least 10 years in the district, and has had a rating of "effective" on their previous evaluation, is entitled to a five-year window before their next formal evaluation (normally it's a two-year window).

* If the district wants to introduce a new procedure/program/district-wide strategy designed to improve student performance, then they have to remove some other program as an off-set. Which is why we haven't rolled out RTI district-wide yet.

* After 2 years of probationary status, a teacher earns tenure.

* Being disciplined? Even level one formal warnings are allowed to be challenged before any permanent documentation is placed in an employee file.