Op-Ed: Woburn Teachers Deserve A Fair Contract

Image: Patch file.

The following was emailed to Woburn Patch:

Dear Woburn Residents,

My name is Brian Skeffington and I am a math teacher at Woburn Memorial High School, a position that I hold in very high regard. I am writing this letter to provide some insight from a teacher’s perspective into the current contract negotiations between the City of Woburn and its teachers (negotiations are also going on with WPD and WFD). Please keep in mind that the purpose of this letter is not to point fingers at any single individual or group of people – its purpose is strictly informational.

To begin, as a lifelong member of the Woburn community (and an extremely proud one at that), I have certain expectations that I place on this city and its people. I grew up believing that Woburn people are a different breed in the best possible way – we stick together through good times and bad and we support each other across all aspects of our community. Many, if not all of us, also have a sense of Tanner Pride that is difficult to explain to outsiders. Having said this, my colleagues and I take the job of educating your children as one that comes with enormous responsibilities. We are entrusted not only to teach your kids certain skills, concepts, or ideas related to our content areas, but also to help them grow as young adults and prepare them for the real world.

From the outside, this job may seem easy to some. However, as policymakers continue to increase demands on educators – implementing Common Core standards that require us to cover more topics and in greater depth, introducing new standardized tests (PARCC), requiring new certifications (SEI Endorsement along with our normal continuing education PDPs), and starting a new evaluation system loaded with additional paperwork – we are often left feeling like there are not enough hours in the day. We often do most, if not all, of our true prep work outside of normal school hours, hence, outside of our contractual obligations. Let me explain what this means for a high school teacher like me.

Our contract, which expired as of last year, states that we arrive at least five minutes before the start of school, which is 7:30 a.m. I typically arrive between 7:00 a.m. and 7:15 a.m. (depending on the chaos of 2-year-old and 9-month-old boys). Each day consists of seven periods that are 48 minutes each, with three minutes between periods. All teachers, except department heads, teach five classes per day, while the other two periods consist of a duty period (study, hall monitor, Learning Center, lunch duty, etc.) and a free period. We are required to stay after school one day per week for 30 minutes, otherwise we can leave five minutes after the final bell, which is at 1:51 p.m. These are the minimum requirements placed upon us by our contract, which, again, is expired as of now.

This year, I have a total of 108 students in my five classes. Even if I were only to give one graded assignment per week for each class and I used all of my prep periods that week to grade those assignments (5*48=240 minutes), I would have about 2 minutes per assignment.

First off, this would not allow me to constructively grade the assignments, nor would it leave me any time to actually come up with new lessons, ideas, activities, etc. for my classes to try to do my job to the best of my ability. Therefore, I spend a lot of time after school and at night trying to accomplish these tasks, as do many other teachers.

My point is this – teachers spend a lot of time outside of our contractual obligations in order to provide your students with a quality education and support them in everything they do. Whether that involves staying for extra help, writing college recommendations, attending extracurricular events, volunteering to chaperone dances, correcting assignments on our own time, or any number of other things that go into our profession, we do these things because we love our jobs. If we are not able to come to terms on a contract very soon, we will not be able to continue doing these “extra” things. If you hear people talking about “work to rule”, that is what it means – we do the absolute bare minimum that we are required to do contractually.

This is awful for the teachers, worse for the kids, and is not something we want to do but if that is what it takes to get the point across then it might come to that. Let’s face it; we are not in this profession to get rich. Many of us work two or three part-time jobs throughout the course of a year to make ends meet for our own families. We are not looking for much financially, but the pay structures proposed so far do not even cover the cost of inflation – i.e. we would lose money in coming years. Furthermore, the proposals we have seen so far seek to increase our portion of healthcare coverage, which is a big deal for many of us, as it would be for many of you with families. The bottom line is that we do not feel the current proposal reflects any value for the extra work that we put into your children. In my opinion, education is not just a line item – it is an investment in the children of Woburn and the community as a whole.

I asked our negotiating team if I could write this letter to make sure the residents of Woburn understand where we are coming from. I hope you do not view us as greedy or think we are looking for pity from anyone, we just want you to know the facts. Personally, I love my job. I left a lucrative career and came back to Woburn specifically to try to make a difference in the community and the lives of the kids here. I enjoyed wonderful experiences in the Woburn Public School system and I want to provide your children with those same types of experiences.

However, it is extremely disappointing to hear people talk about how important education is for a community, then not back it up with their actions. All we ask is that if you truly value the education of your children, please make every effort to get involved and back us up.

Sincerely,

Brian Skeffington
Math Teacher, WMHS
WMHS Graduate, 2001