How will schools be able to go back in September? (Continued)

s1ippy

Lillyfae wrote: »

If there are 500 children in a school one year and 400 the next there should be flexibility with regard to moving teachers to a school where there were 400 students last year and 500 the next. It's supply and demand. The children are the most important people in the school, not the teachers.

I mean, if teachers had control over that of course they'd want to do it efficiently. But they're not in control of that, the department decides how teachers are hired. Any excuse to insult them though.

Didn't you know the salary when you went in?.

I was in the group of graduates in 2012, having started in 2009. Following a decision in 2011, newly qualified teachers were entitled to 1/3 less pay. So no, that cohort of teachers didn't know the salary going in and have been fighting it ever since to no satisfaction.

History Queen

Lillyfae wrote: »

If there are 500 children in a school one year and 400 the next there should be flexibility with regard to moving teachers to a school where there were 400 students last year and 500 the next. It's supply and demand. The children are the most important people in the school, not the teachers.



Didn't you know the salary when you went in? Of course people who have seniority to you are earning more. Is it fair? Not always, no. But we're all being screwed over by the generation that went before us, that was the essence of the global economic crisis. If school buildings aren't fit for purpose and there is a shortage of funds for even the most basic of resources in schools, the taxpayer is going to find it hard to justify a salary increase for a public sector worker who's starting salary is already massively overinflated at €36,000+. Fight for adequate resources first and I guarantee you'll find more public support for pay parity.

You don't understand the situation you are talking about. Causualisation is not about teachers moving schools. It is about jobs being broken up in to 2/3 different low hours positions instead of 1 full time job. When I went to college to train to be a teacher the payscale was different to the one I was put on when I came out. Many teachers were in this position.

Equality of pay is about every teacher withsay 5 years teaching expetience being paid the same. Teachers pre 2011 are on a higher rate of pay than teachers post 2011 even with the same amount of experience.

Lillyfae

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Funny I've read other studies which show that over tens spread it the same as adults.. interesting times ahead but the one thing I hope for is that if and when the sh1t hits the fans in schools that the department step up the mark and don't leave individual schools hung out to dry.

This is the us vs them I'm having trouble with. The school is "the Department"!

History Queen

Lillyfae wrote: »

This is the us vs them I'm having trouble with. The school is "the Department"!

the school isn't the Department

wirelessdude01

Lillyfae wrote: »

This is the us vs them I'm having trouble with. The school is "the Department"!

You have it wrong. Schools answer to the department when it suits them. The fear being in these circumstances that the department will wash their hands as they seem the 'plan' to be sufficient in their eyes.

wirelessdude01

Lillyfae wrote: »

This is the us vs them I'm having trouble with. The school is "the Department"!

You have it wrong. Schools answer to the department when it suits them. The fear being in these circumstances that the department will wash their hands as they seem the 'plan' to be sufficient in their eyes.

Alrigghtythen

Lillyfae wrote: »

This is the us vs them I'm having trouble with. The school is "the Department"!

They dont co operate with each other

Smacruairi

History Queen wrote: »

the school isn't the Department

Teachers are employed by the board of management. The department is the paymaster.... But they also demand you follow their circulars and edicts, rather than the BOM local instructions. If I understand that point and you don't, surely my opinion about school affairs should be weighted higher. But no.. Lazy stupid teachers money holidays strikes private sector gubbermint banks fakenews

Blondini

Lillyfae wrote: »

This is the us vs them I'm having trouble with. The school is "the Department"!

How do I put this politely ... hmmm...

You're talking through your hole.

History Queen

Smacruairi wrote: »

Teachers are employed by the board of management. The department is the paymaster.... But they also demand you follow their circulars and edicts, rather than the BOM local instructions. If I understand that point and you don't, surely my opinion about school affairs should be weighted higher. But no.. Lazy stupid teachers money holidays strikes private sector gubbermint banks fakenews

I'm assuming you meant to quote Lilyfae rather than me? I agree with you.

Smacruairi

History Queen wrote: »

I'm assuming you meant to quote Lilyfae rather than me? I agree with you.

Yeah was just easier to reply to the one above me 😂 also forgot to add unions the church Irish and anecdote of being told they will amount to nothing to my list of cliches

Lillyfae

Smacruairi wrote: »

Teachers are employed by the board of management.

Who appoints the Board of Management?

DubLad69

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

36,953 starting salary just ain't enough. Its up from 30702 in 2012.

Well, no its not enough. People who have at a minimum of a Level 8 BA degree and then a 2 year full time masters degree are generally not willing to work for €37k.

For example in the area that I done my initial degree in, the starting salary was about €45,000- €50,000 and a hell of a lot more if you also got a Masters. Now I know not all careers offer this starting pay. But it does show why many potential teachers wouldn't be willing to go get a masters when they could be getting paid a lot more without one.

This might initially explain why there is a lack of teachers in some subject areas.

Then there is the issue of cost of living. As we all know it is super expensive to live in Dublin. The reason that this is a problem is because teachers get paid the same regardless if they are loving in super cheap Mayo or expensive Dublin. Well, you might say that you don't get paid extra for working in Dublin in your private paid job. When in reality you do, it might not be specifically said that you are paid more because its Dublin, but you can be sure that the average accountant in Dublin is going to be getting paid more than the average accountant in Mayo.

This makes the teacher shortage crisis a lot worse in Dublin, as teachers are leaving Dubin for a job down the country as soon as they get the opportunity. It is quite common for Dublin schools to have hired a teacher During the summer only to then find out that they are actually not coming as they found a job somewhere cheaper. Or leaving after their first year in the school.

Then there is the issue of staff moral. Its awfully demoralising when you go to work and know that you will be never allowed to earn as much as the people who started before you. They pay scales just don't match. For example, say Teacher A started teaching in 2010, she had a masters, she worked in teaching for 1 year, then took 10 years off and is starting to work again this year. She just worked 1 day per year as a teacher to keep on the old pay scale. Pre 2011 teachers also had only 1 year of teacher training/practice. When she went back to teachering today with 2 years and 10 days experience.

Techer B. Qualified last year. Has the same level of qualifications. They now have 3 years of experience and they are paid a total of €38,466. So they are paid 6,364 less. With the same qualifications and more teaching experience.

Then the next issue is that schools don't have full contracts to give a lot of the time. They might only have 12 hours avaliable in construction studies and 14 hours in Accounting and Business. People can go on for years on these contracts before getting anything full time. That would mean that you are expecting people with Masters qualifications to work part time jobs that wouldn't even cover rent in Dublin. These people have no choice but to leave teaching or Dublin.

There is currently a teacher shortage, and generally speaking if people are not willing to or able to work for the price that you are willing to pay, then you need to increase the pay in order to attract them.

The issue is only going to get worse, it would have been quite common in the past for children of teachers to become teachers, but now it is common for teachers to be getting their children to avoid teaching at all costs as they will get much better pay elsewhere.

This is an issue for years, and we were in the middle of balloting for strike action when the schools were closed down.

wirelessdude01

Lillyfae wrote: »

Who appoints the Board of Management?

The patron.

DubLad69

Lillyfae wrote: »

Who appoints the Board of Management?

The trustees of the school appoint 4 people, parents of the school appoint 2, and teachers appoint 2 people.

Smacruairi

Lillyfae wrote: »

Who appoints the Board of Management?

The board and patron agrees a new chair, then there are teacher nominees, patron nominees, parent nominees. This composition varies slightly from etb to voluntary etc. The principal is Secretary to the board and has no voting power. The chair normally breaks a tie. So in effect its 5 external ppl, 2 teaching staff. The dept can dissolve a board if it can be proven it's acting the maggot.

But the inspectorate for teaching staff is the DES. so you notice the pattern. The des want their say and won't pay you if you don't do things their way, but don't want any of the liabilities that come with running the school.

Their plan matches this. Token money thrown, no firm solutions, and when parents start comparing schools who will be trying to do things as honestly as they can to mitigate risks, they'll want all the bells and whistles of every other school minus the compromises.

And then you have people who don't care about schools or education and who suggest classrooms with no kids, who suggests tents that can host broadband and dishwashers, who suggest pubs as locations for use, and that unqualified randomers who are garda vetted are supervising

s1ippy

Smacruairi wrote: »

Teachers are employed by the board of management. The department is the paymaster...

https://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/Teacher-Allocations/Teacher-Allocations-Primary.html
They also decide the number of teachers given to schools each year. If you were hired last year on the foot of high enrolment but then your school loses a load of sixth class at the end of the year and doesn't take in enough juniors to make up the difference, your job is gone if you are last in.

They can't just transfer that teacher to a school up the road because they could be completely unqualified to teach in that school (they could be following a programme which requires them to do a long course that the places are limited for, teaching special needs children therefore would need extra specialist training to be able to work there, to name but a few reasons). Like any industry they have to be able to stand over their hiring process.

But like, it would make a way more sense just to have a list of teachers who are in rotation. They kind of tried to do that with the panel, but it doesn't work for a litany of reasons.

Lillyfae

Smacruairi wrote: »

The dept can dissolve a board if it can be proven it's acting the maggot.

But the inspectorate for teaching staff is the DES. so you notice the pattern. The des want their say and won't pay you if you don't do things their way, but don't want any of the liabilities that come with running the school.

So the DoE vetos everything? Then the DoE are the BoM and the school. Log everything to a T and there will be no mistake as to where liability lies. I am with you, not against you- push it back up the chain of command if it's unworkable!!

Smacruairi

Lillyfae wrote: »

So the DoE vetos everything? Then the DoE are the BoM and the school. Log everything to a T and there will be no mistake as to where liability lies. I am with you, not against you- push it back up the chain of command if it's unworkable!!

We have. They don't care. We wrote to the DES to say this is unworkable, no response. The jmb and asti said do your best and we will try to assist. What would make a difference though would be students and parents helping to highlight the issues as opposed to allowing a guy bladder on about tents.

Most parents and students understand. Most people in real life are grand. But for some reason twitter and social media is dictating policy at the moment, and the 5% of people who use that are complete loolahs like Alrighty who just muddy the water for the DES advantage.

Lillyfae

DubLad69 wrote: »

Then there is the issue of cost of living. As we all know it is super expensive to live in Dublin. The reason that this is a problem is because teachers get paid the same regardless if they are loving in super cheap Mayo or expensive Dublin. Well, you might say that you don't get paid extra for working in Dublin in your private paid job. When in reality you do, it might not be specifically said that you are paid more because its Dublin, but you can be sure that the average accountant in Dublin is going to be getting paid more than the average accountant in Mayo.

This makes the teacher shortage crisis a lot worse in Dublin, as teachers are leaving Dubin for a job down the country as soon as they get the opportunity. It is quite common for Dublin schools to have hired a teacher During the summer only to then find out that they are actually not coming as they found a job somewhere cheaper. Or leaving after their first year in the school.

Yes, certainly in all aspects of the public sector this needs to be looked at.

DubLad69 wrote: »

Then there is the issue of staff moral. Its awfully demoralising when you go to work and know that you will be never allowed to earn as much as the people who started before you. They pay scales just don't match. For example, say Teacher A started teaching in 2010, she had a masters, she worked in teaching for 1 year, then took 10 years off and is starting to work again this year. She just worked 1 day per year as a teacher to keep on the old pay scale. Pre 2011 teachers also had only 1 year of teacher training/practice. When she went back to teachering today with 2 years and 10 days experience.

Techer B. Qualified last year. Has the same level of qualifications. They now have 3 years of experience and they are paid a total of €38,466. So they are paid 6,364 less. With the same qualifications and more teaching experience.

This is horrifically unfair. The actual teaching experience one has, and how effectively they perform their job should be the only things that count. But this was agreed to by someone.

Lillyfae

Smacruairi wrote: »

We have. They don't care. We wrote to the DES to say this is unworkable, no response. The jmb and asti said do your best and we will try to assist. What would make a difference though would be students and parents helping to highlight the issues as opposed to allowing a guy bladder on about tents.

The ASTI need to get their priorities straight then. No answer is not good enough, and it's certainly not the time to be moving on to the next topic. Children's education is the priority right now.

Smacruairi

Lillyfae wrote: »

The ASTI need to get their priorities straight then. No answer is not good enough, and it's certainly not the time to be moving on to the next topic. Children's education is the priority right now.

We agree so. But just type union and asti into twitter and witness the ignorant, baseless bile you will encounter. Sure just scan back through this thread. The asti have been accused of looking to have the leaving cancelled to looking for pay increases to looking to keep schools closed indefinitely.

So what can you do? When ignorant glib answers are given, argue them down. Know that schools and boms are working in the background, obviously, for the betterment of conditions. Teachers aren't superheroes,we aren't special, we just want to work, get paid, enjoy work like everyone else.

Lillyfae

Smacruairi wrote: »

We agree so. But just type union and asti into twitter and witness the ignorant, baseless bile you will encounter. Sure just scan back through this thread. The asti have been accused of looking to have the leaving cancelled to looking for pay increases to looking to keep schools closed indefinitely.

So what can you do? When ignorant glib answers are given, argue them down. Know that schools and boms are working in the background, obviously, for the betterment of conditions. Teachers aren't superheroes,we aren't special, we just want to work, get paid, enjoy work like everyone else.

With all due respect though, you're arguing in the wrong direction. There has been an escalation of really aggressive posts here from both sides, and little coherence in the argument. Like I said before, the problem was money and then it wasn't, then the problem was masks weren't allowed by the principal. The problem was the guidelines wouldn't suit every school but why should the school have to arrange things to suit their situation. And if anyone suggests anything, they're attacked for teacher bashing! Not just the outlandish suggestions, every suggestion!

Smacruairi

Lillyfae wrote: »

With all due respect though, you're arguing in the wrong direction. There has been an escalation of really aggressive posts here from both sides, and little coherence in the argument. Like I said before, the problem was money and then it wasn't, then the problem was masks weren't allowed by the principal. The problem was the guidelines wouldn't suit every school but why should the school have to arrange things to suit their situation. And if anyone suggests anything, they're attacked for teacher bashing! Not just the outlandish suggestions, every suggestion!

With all due respect, the original argument was good guidelines vs nonsense guidelines. It only seems so scattered because for an actual teacher you could see clearly how ill conceived they were. For the untrained we had to highlight every single aspect down to the last letter as we were just perceived as lazy and intransigent. You may think that it was 50 diff issues, we can see its just the one or 2 base ones. Lack of social distancing, no centralised remote platform, and inadequate funding for (non existent) subs. Everything else stems from those 3.

Any aggression you've seen is frustration. If you look back on my own posts for example you can see I've posted variations of the same message to about 8 diff posters (fringey is ever present however). But they don't learn or agree, they just sulk off and wait to come back with another stick. Gets tiring. But if you just let the myth abound the echo chamber gathers momentum and our social media obsessed govt delighted with their Richard Bruton clicks just use that to railroad home their agenda regardless.

Alrigghtythen

Budget 2020 10.2 billion allocated for eduction
22 april 2020 10 million funding for ICT in schools
23 July 2020 375 million funding for schools reopening
57 million to pay for the extra day in the leap year in 2020

Budget 2019 education funding increases from 360 million to 11.1 billion - record investment in education

Lillyfae

Smacruairi wrote: »

Any aggression you've seen is frustration. If you look back on my own posts for example you can see I've posted variations of the same message to about 8 diff posters (fringey is ever present however). But they don't learn or agree, they just sulk off and wait to come back with another stick. Gets tiring. But if you just let the myth abound the echo chamber gathers momentum and our social media obsessed govt delighted with their Richard Bruton clicks just use that to railroad home their agenda regardless.

It does work both ways though, there are a few on here who I'd balk at the idea of them anywhere near my children with the constant one line retorts and superiority complex and who are similarly frequent posters. You have to wade through the complete sawdust-like filler nonsense to get to the factual posts, hence my frustration.

What's constantly missed on my part is that I do actually agree with proper funding of schools and platforms for blended learning to occur- with blended learning, put half the (non vulnerable) teachers in school with the (non vulnerable) students, centralise the online learning for the rest etc etc etc.

I don't now agree that the schools should go back in September. I haven't changed my mind on the basis of the guidelines being inadequate or being proven wrong by shouty arm wavers, it's more to do with the fact that there is in no way enough time to implement measures to safeguard against the rising reproductive rate at this stage. The guidelines might have been adequate a couple of months ago when the r number was nice and low but not now.

wirelessdude01

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Budget 2020 10.2 billion allocated for eduction
22 april 2020 10 million funding for ICT in schools
23 July 2020 375 million funding for schools reopening
57 million to pay for the extra day in the leap year in 2020

What's your point? That the government like to make big announcements is very true. The substance of them is debatable though.

wirelessdude01

Lillyfae wrote: »

I don't now agree that the schools should go back in September. I haven't changed my mind on the basis of the guidelines being inadequate or being proven wrong by shouty arm wavers, it's more to do with the fact that there is in no way enough time to implement measures to safeguard against the rising reproductive rate at this stage. The guidelines might have been adequate a couple of months ago when the r number was nice and low but not now.

Most teachers would agree that the guidelines are quite low on actual, practical information. The guidelines are based on things following a very straight line. We all know this is fairy tale, head in the sand stuff. None of us want a return to online(personally hated it but put my best foot forward). Having said that we are all aware that there is a high chance that at some either us or a school we know of will have to do it for a short while. Govt should have been proactive for this possibility.

Alrigghtythen

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Most teachers would agree that the guidelines are quite low on actual, practical information. The guidelines are based on things following a very straight line. We all know this is fairy tale, head in the sand stuff. None of us want a return to online(personally hated it but put my best foot forward). Having said that we are all aware that there is a high chance that at some either us or a school we know of will have to do it for a short while. Govt should have been proactive for this possibility.

Blended Learning/alternative provision:
It is recognised that for students vulnerable to the disease, attendance at school may not be possible. The Department also recognises that given the potential for an upturn in the disease (and/or a second wave) that ‘stay-at-home’ may have to be re-introduced (at a school, region or national level). Therefore a blended learning approach (online / in school) will necessarily be a feature of the approach to planning to reopen schools and will have to provide the necessary agility to respond very quickly to changed circumstances at a local, regional or
national level.

This agility and responsiveness will also have to enable a tailored and graduated approach at, individual school level; a town level, a county level, a regional level and a national level.To a greater or lesser extent, schools may be required to provide both in-school and remote
learning support during the coming school year. This approach to learning which combines face-to-face and remote learning experiences is known as blended learning. Digital technologies play a significant role in supporting teachers and students in a blended learning
environment.


Resources and webinar training have been provided to schools by the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) and Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) in the use of digital technology to support learning.

In that context the Department together with the NCCA is working towards:
1. Identifying an appropriate blended learning models for individual school contexts
2. Adapting the delivery of the overall curriculum in the context of a blended learning
environment
3. Providing specific advice on particular curriculum subjects and programmes
4. Maximising the use of digital technologies to support a blended learning approach
5. Supporting and enhancing the role of parents/guardians and other partnerships

Ongoing actions

The Department will continue to engage with the NCCA and the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) to ensure the development of further learning resources to support schools and teachers in developing CPD to support the particular challenges of
teaching that are best suited to online schooling and blended learning.

downthemiddle

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Budget 2020 10.2 billion allocated for eduction
22 april 2020 10 million funding for ICT in schools
23 July 2020 375 million funding for schools reopening
57 million to pay for the extra day in the leap year in 2020

Budget 2019 education funding increases from 360 million to 11.1 billion - record investment in education

How much was allocated for marquees out the back?