2. In light of budget constraints, why are teaching loads being reduced in the high school social studies and foreign language departments, from 20 hours per week to 16 hours-that is, from five periods to four periods a day?

Following the lead of other communities with whom we compete for teachers, we improved the amount of time LHS math teachers have to spend with each student. Two years ago the teaching load for LHS math teachers was lowered to 4 periods per day. We immediately saw several benefits. First, we retained and attracted excellent teachers in the department. In addition, a "math help room" was set up, staffed by math teachers who had a free period. Now students can get individual help at any time during the school day. This help room adds substantial value to students' study halls. We now seek to extend this kind of program to social studies and foreign language by the addition of 5 FTEs.

Looking only at the number of in-class hours is not a fair way of assessing teaching loads. How much time a teacher spends in the classroom is only a portion of what a teacher does to educate our children. Currently at LHS, history and foreign language teachers teach 5 periods a day, and educate around 125 students. To be effective, they need to assign homework, short and long essays, and even an extensive research project. Each student needs feedback on their written work, so the teacher has 125 assignments or papers to correct. The best corrections are those with lots of comments from a teacher. But how thorough can these comments be if the teacher is responsible for 125 papers? In addition, system-wide, approximately 18% of students have individualized plans addressing their special needs. This translates to 22 of the 125 students for whom teachers must make mandatory accommodations, and perhaps even modify the curriculum. He must also attend meetings where these education plans are developed and reviewed for these students. And finally, the teacher is required to communicate daily about his class with various SPED liaisons.

If you ask any teacher how many hours they work while school is in session, you will be told between 10 and 12 hours daily. This is no exaggeration. Many communities have recognized how beneficial it is to lower the teaching load for their teachers from five to four classes a day (and teach 100 students instead of 125).

Lowering the LHS teaching load in social studies and foreign language will bring these two departments in line with teaching loads of comparable communities, and provide more individual attention to each student. The teachers will not work any less hard, they will get to spend more time on each student - and our kids will benefit from this extra attention.

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