Report Cards: Can Teachers Be Trusted to Do the Right Thing? (From the General Secretary)
In the last round of collective bargaining ETFO negotiated a professional activity day that teachers would use to complete report cards. How teachers use that day has become an issue that exemplifies yet again that some boards do not respect the professionalism of elementary teachers.
The completion of report cards requires access to computers and to the report card software. Teachers have for some years suffered the frustrations of trying to fill out electronic report cards using inadequate computer systems. In some boards computer systems are incapable of handling the load: if all teachers were to attempt to access the reporting system at the same time, the system would crash. In other boards there are not enough computers in schools for all teachers to have access to them at the same time. Some boards have solved these system issues by allowing teachers to complete their report cards on their home computers thus relieving the stress on the system, relieving teacher frustration, and improving their effectiveness. This seems like intelligent problem solving behaviour on the part of some administrators.
How then to explain the decision of some boards to force teachers to come into the school to complete report cards on their reporting and assessment PA day? Previously teachers in some boards across the province had provisions in their collective agreements for reporting days. On those days classrooms were staffed by OTs and teachers worked at home to complete report cards. Those same boards are now requiring teachers to come into school to do this work. The reasons vary. One director has indicated that the public does not like to see empty parking lots at schools. Another has decided that teachers filling out report cards need to be supervised by principals. However, other boards, among them the largest boards in the province, believe teachers don’t need someone looking over their shoulder and can be trusted to fulfill their responsibilities even when they are not physically at school.
ETFO has worked hard to emphasize that elementary schools are professional worksites. Teachers need to be treated as professionals. This reporting situation is symptomatic of the need for change in the mindsets of some administrators in the elementary system. At ETFO we know that teachers accept responsibility for their students in the broadest sense. They accept the responsibilities that come with their professional obligations. Treating teachers with the respect they deserve can only serve to enhance the whole school climate.
By now you will have completed your first report card. You will have a sense of how seriously your board took its obligation to have the hardware and software in place to support your work on report cards. You will also have a measure of the degree to which your board recognizes the professionalism of elementary teachers.