Province short teachers to mark diploma exams.....

[WinnipegFan]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/al...749/story.html



This is an issue for any of you with grade twelve students. Some of the alternatives are seriously scary. For example:

Only multiple choice for the ELA exam
Mandating teachers to mark - this sounds like a quick fix but will result in chaos
Outsourcing the marking - they did htis once then had to hire the teachers back to remark them. They used university students and paid them MORE than they did the teachers and then had to pay the teacehrs anyways.

[undercoverbrother]

I assume teachers are paid extra for marking?

[WinnipegFan]

They are given an honorarium. In exchange for 8 hours of marking they were paid 200 dollars previously, so not a huge amount especially given that they have to travel and stay in hotels and are given all of 100 dollars for food and accommodations.

Now they cut the pay in half, so they are asked to mark for 8 hours and paid 100 dollars. This is the insult, so when a teacher goes and get s a coffee at Tim Horton's generally the kid making the coffee whose exam the teacher may be marking is being paid more than the teacher hourly that day.

The argument is that they are still paid their salary. However, at night in their hotel rooms they still do the job they are paid their salary for, as they are gone during the exam break when most teacher supervise and exam or do marking and prep work. The teachers in Edmonton do this at night, so the argument is bunk.

[photon]

I don't quite understand, is the $100 during "regular working days" for doing something during regular work hours (i.e. they're marking instead of teaching)? That seems more than fair, if my job takes me out of town my company pays me travel expenses and food and such, but they don't give me a temporary raise.

Or are they doing this marking on days when they teach then are supposed to mark until they fall asleep? Then that's unreasonable, should be paid overtime for the hours.

$200 a day for weekends or holidays seems a bare minimum, should be time and a half.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by photon

I don't quite understand, is the $100 during "regular working days" for doing something during regular work hours (i.e. they're marking instead of teaching)? That seems more than fair, if my job takes me out of town my company pays me travel expenses and food and such, but they don't give me a temporary raise.

Or are they doing this marking on days when they teach then are supposed to mark until they fall asleep? Then that's unreasonable, should be paid overtime for the hours.

$200 a day for weekends or holidays seems a bare minimum, should be time and a half.

Teachers are salary positions, if I'm not mistaken, so there is no such thing as overtime or time and half.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Teachers are salary positions, if I'm not mistaken, so there is no such thing as overtime or time and half.

I know salary positions that have overtime worked into the compensation package.


I don't think you can blanket say that salary positions don't have OT.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I know salary positions that have overtime worked into the compensation package.


I don't think you can blanket say that salary positions don't have OT.

It is a very rare situation to have salary positions with overtime compensation. Typically the only "compensation" I've heard of or experienced is straight time off in lieu of overtime worked.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

It is a very rare situation to have salary positions with overtime compensation. Typically the only "compensation" I've heard of or experienced is straight time off in lieu of overtime worked.

Ok well I have heard of, and worked under a salary package that allowed OT (@ 1 1/2 time).


My point is, that everything is negotiable.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

It is a very rare situation to have salary positions with overtime compensation. Typically the only "compensation" I've heard of or experienced is straight time off in lieu of overtime worked.

This is what I'm familiar with. Though the time in lieu can be paid out if not used at the time of leaving the company (just like vacation).

[Locke]

Originally Posted by photon

I don't quite understand, is the $100 during "regular working days" for doing something during regular work hours (i.e. they're marking instead of teaching)? That seems more than fair, if my job takes me out of town my company pays me travel expenses and food and such, but they don't give me a temporary raise.

Or are they doing this marking on days when they teach then are supposed to mark until they fall asleep? Then that's unreasonable, should be paid overtime for the hours.

$200 a day for weekends or holidays seems a bare minimum, should be time and a half.

Teacher salaries are for all 12 months, so they'd be being paid their normal salary as well as an honorarium for doing 'extra work' for marking the exams and to cover travel costs, etc.

So the example of the Tim Horton's kid being paid more per hour on an exam marking day is total nonsense.

[photon]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Teachers are salary positions, if I'm not mistaken, so there is no such thing as overtime or time and half.

Definitely is such a thing, though legally who gets it and who doesn't seems very stupid:
http://work.alberta.ca/employment-st...rtime-pay.html
http://work.alberta.ca/documents/Ove...ertime-Pay.pdf

I've had salaried positions where I earned overtime for doing extra work (even though I don't think they were obligated to legally).

If it's a very rarely type thing, then expecting some overtime is reasonable, but if it's because my employer doesn't have enough employees or hasn't otherwise accounted for variability in work required, then they better do something to compensate me if I'm going to be putting in extra hours as a frequent expectation.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Ok well I have heard of, and worked under a salary package that allowed OT (@ 1 1/2 time).


My point is, that everything is negotiable.

I am pretty sure it wasn't negotiated into the teachers contract though

[photon]

Originally Posted by Locke

Teacher salaries are for all 12 months, so they'd be being paid their normal salary as well as an honorarium for doing 'extra work' for marking the exams and to cover travel costs, etc.

Ok but that doesn't answer the question, are they marking the papers during time they'd normally be teaching? Or does this marking go on during the summer vacation? (Yes it's been that long since school lol)?

If the marking goes on during summer vacation, then yeah being paid extra to come in sounds fair, if I take a week of my vacation time an then my boss asks me to come in I either get that vacation day some other time, or I get paid for it.

Since it doesn't sound like it's part of the contract then expecting them to come in to volunteer to do it isn't reasonable, enticing volunteers like this seems reasonable.

Reducing it to see if they can get away with it sounds reasonable too. If there were enough volunteers then that's fine. Sounds like they just overestimated how many would be willing to do it at $100, should have gone with $150.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I am pretty sure it wasn't negotiated into the teachers contract though

You might be right, I don't know in the teacher's case.

My point was you can't apply blanket statements like "no OT for salary positions", they exist. I have worked in one, and I see Photon has as well.

[peter12]

Another darkly hilarious instance of the pitfalls of a centrally planned education system.

I also have a salaried position for the legislated 2080 hours one is supposed to work in a year. Anything that I work over that (which for about 5 months the year is double) is overtime or bankable at 1.5x.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by peter12

Another darkly hilarious instance of the pitfalls of a centrally planned education system.

I also have a salaried position for the legislated 2080 hours one is supposed to work in a year. Anything that I work over that (which for about 5 months the year is double) is overtime or bankable at 1.5x.

How is this a result of a centrally planned education system? They don't need to pay teachers to mark exams if they are doing it for a city board rather than for the province?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Rathji

How is this a result of a centrally planned education system? They don't need to pay teachers to mark exams if they are doing it for a city board rather than for the province?

Fixed price.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by peter12

Fixed price.

You are going to have to explain that to me, because I am missing your point.

Are you saying that you could pay less per day for a teacher in some location, like a small town, to mark the tests for that location and that somehow it would save money compared to the costs that are incurred in another location, like a big city?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think he means all private schools with no centralization at all.

Or allow boards to mark their own exams separate from Edmonton based on their own capacity and budgetary needs.

Yes, I do support an all-private system.

[WinnipegFan]

Originally Posted by photon

I don't quite understand, is the $100 during "regular working days" for doing something during regular work hours (i.e. they're marking instead of teaching)? That seems more than fair, if my job takes me out of town my company pays me travel expenses and food and such, but they don't give me a temporary raise.

Or are they doing this marking on days when they teach then are supposed to mark until they fall asleep? Then that's unreasonable, should be paid overtime for the hours.

$200 a day for weekends or holidays seems a bare minimum, should be time and a half.

We are salary employees with the CBE. This is a seperate position where we temporarily work for Alberta Education. We do this non-stop (weekdays and weekends) until it is finished. The salary job with the CBE we have to do at night in our hotels most of us for many hours trying to compelte our marking of our in school exams, during the day we mark the provinces exams. This is why we are given an honorarium. No where in our initial contract for our salaried position is it included that we will mark all the exams in the province. This is why it is an insult when we do both jobs at the same time to cut our pay in half.