Teachers are at the end of their rope.

[Fuzz]

What about "sucking"? Where does a kid who sucks fall in that spectrum? Because I gotta say, several fo my classmates wouldn't fit those 4 categories. Not by a long shot.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

What about "sucking"? Where does a kid who sucks fall in that spectrum? Because I gotta say, several fo my classmates wouldn't fit those 4 categories. Not by a long shot.

I think it can be a rather flexible ranking system.

Emerging as a loser

Developing as a loser

Showing proficiency as a loser

Extending beyond the preconceived boundaries of what we think a loser to be

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Non-Instructional days are just that. Time required to be in the school working on board-driven initiatives or Principal-assigned duties. It counts as assigned time and is rarely used for self-directed teacher preparation.

Teachers are rarely given time to actively prepare for instruction and when they are, it's minimal. The most common example being Friday afternoons; kids are dismissed at say 12:15, teachers have lunch till 12:45, have a staff meeting and work on some sort of board- or Principal-directed task. They're "required" to be in the building till 3 pm so at 2:15 or 2:30 when that other work is done, they might be "given" 30 or 45 minutes of "prep time". Who really wants to sit there and get down to serious work at 2:30 on Friday?

95+% of teacher planning time is outside of assigned time. It is expected of teachers to do this work on their personal time. Same thing with marking, writing report cards, or completing other paperwork-type tasks. I can count on one hand the number of Non-Instructional days I've had where I can choose what to work on or prepare.

Thanks, very illuminating. Can you give some examples of those board/principal directed tasks?

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Wonder what Alberta teachers think of the new rules for public elementary schools in BC. Students will no longer get letter grades:

“It’s definitely time for a change (as) letter grades were a vestige of industrial society,” Brar told Global News.

“It’s a strength-based perspective where everyone is on the spectrum.”

The change has garnered a lot of attention online, with parents reacting to the news that only students in grades 10, 11 and 12 will receive letter grades and percentages.

Instead of letter grades, students will be assessed as “emerging, developing, proficient and extending.”

I challenge anyone to explain the difference between emerging and developing.

And extending? What the hell?

I'm not so sure about their actual words, but I think letter grades and percentages don't mean much, they're dependent on how hard the tests/assignments are and how hard they are marked. The same student could get a 90% from one teacher and a 70% from another for the same class, since exams aren't standardized. Grade inflation has been a real problem for a long time, with some schools handing out A's left and right while at others they are hard to get. Really what does matter is if they have achieved or exceeded the goals of the curriculum.


They probably still need to use percentages in high school due to university admission, but even that is really affected by the disparity in grading between schools/classes/teachers aside from diploma exams.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Wonder what Alberta teachers think of the new rules for public elementary schools in BC. Students will no longer get letter grades:

“It’s definitely time for a change (as) letter grades were a vestige of industrial society,” Brar told Global News.

“It’s a strength-based perspective where everyone is on the spectrum.”

The change has garnered a lot of attention online, with parents reacting to the news that only students in grades 10, 11 and 12 will receive letter grades and percentages.

Instead of letter grades, students will be assessed as “emerging, developing, proficient and extending.”

I challenge anyone to explain the difference between emerging and developing.

And extending? What the hell?

That just sounds like what Alberta uses for K-6 just being slightly less negative at the bottom.

Exceeds expectations, above expectations, meets expectations and not yet meeting expectations. It’s still a 4 letter grade system.

Without looking it up I’d suspect emerging is along the lines of The student exhibits the initial skills to perform this task but has not demonstrated the skills to do the entire task. Essentially they are behind grade level but show the initial signs of getting it.

Then developing is the student has demonstrated the skills to perform the task but is still learning to apply the skills independently.

Proficiently is being able to perform the task at grade level.
Extending is being able to apply the knowledge of the skill learned to a wide variety of different problems.

It’s also still letter grades. EM, DE, Pr, Ex as the space in the report card likely will only take a few digits.

I always laugh when people get mad at this type of thing as 4 categories of development level is far better than communicating % if your goal is to understand how your child is doing.

Now in terms of knowing my kid is better than your kid the percents come in handy.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by indes

I'm in O&G and tons of people at the large plants "retire" with full pension then work a turnaround or two a year as a contractor and end up making probably 70% of their old yearly wage.

Nothing like listening to a 65 year old guy complain about his old age benefits being cut because he made over 170k with his pension and 3 months of contract work.

Definitely not exclusive to teachers, I imagine lots of careers end up with "consulting" roles after retirement.

Right, but you gotta nail those teachers because **** them and their hard work to teach and enlighten our next generation of kids. THE GET SUMMMMERSSSS OFFFFF!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Being a teacher is a great job for a parent, as having the same time off calendar as your kids saves thousands a year in child care (not to mention the time you get to spend with them). Then there’s being virtually immune to layoffs. And retiring 5+ years earlier than average with a guaranteed pension for life is a massive benefit.

It’s not an easy job, but it’s a very good job. Especially for people who value security. Which is why there’s no shortage of teacher program graduates.

My mom was a teacher. Can confirm Cliff is talking out of his ass again.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by rubecube

My mom was a teacher. Can confirm Cliff is talking out of his ass again.

Which part?

[Arsenal14]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Wonder what Alberta teachers think of the new rules for public elementary schools in BC. Students will no longer get letter grades:

“It’s definitely time for a change (as) letter grades were a vestige of industrial society,” Brar told Global News.

“It’s a strength-based perspective where everyone is on the spectrum.”

The change has garnered a lot of attention online, with parents reacting to the news that only students in grades 10, 11 and 12 will receive letter grades and percentages.

Instead of letter grades, students will be assessed as “emerging, developing, proficient and extending.”

I challenge anyone to explain the difference between emerging and developing.

And extending? What the hell?

Pretty sure we already have that - my wife is a junior high teacher in the CBE and I'm fairly certain it's a 1-4 scale here. 1 is below grade level, 2 is sometimes meeting grade level, 3 is consistently at grade level and 4 is above.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by rubecube

My mom was a teacher. Can confirm Cliff is talking out of his ass again.

My wife's a teacher and I have kids. What's incorrect about his post exactly?

[GGG]

I wish people would stop complaining about pensions. They have a 10% match. If you saved 20% of your money you to can retire on the same timeline as teachers. Their pension is so good because they save a large % of their salary from day 1. They don’t have the option to borrow from retirement to but a house or just cash out rrsps to pay debt or just cut contributing for a few years because they have kids. They are an example of forced savings.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Arsenal14

Pretty sure we already have that - my wife is a junior high teacher in the CBE and I'm fairly certain it's a 1-4 scale here. 1 is below grade level, 2 is sometimes meeting grade level, 3 is consistently at grade level and 4 is above.

You can tell when somebody has been out of the school system for a long time or doesn’t have kids when this all comes as a shock to them.

It’s also not like you don’t have parent-teachers interviews or comments on report cards / powerschool. Any reasonably engaged parent knows how their kid is doing without needing a percentage or letter grade. What are kids even going to do with a letter grade in grade 9?

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

My wife's a teacher and I have kids. What's incorrect about his post exactly?

Do you think any of what he described are worthwhile perks? First assuming the kids and parent are even at the same school, this perk is useful only until the kids are old enough to stay home by themselves. So it’s not like 12 years of saving money on daycare.


Having the same holiday schedule aligned to the most expensive travel seasons aren’t a perk either. After the kids have completed school, there isn’t even a benefit to having that time off. What are you going to do for 2 months? Take a seasonal job?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Wormius

You can tell when somebody has been out of the school system for a long time or doesn’t have kids when this all comes as a shock to them.

It’s also not like you don’t have parent-teachers interviews or comments on report cards / powerschool. Any reasonably engaged parent knows how their kid is doing without needing a percentage or letter grade. What are kids even going to do with a letter grade in grade 9?

I don't know, I think that the 1-4 system is fine for elementary, but in junior high it should be a percentage. I don't think that the 1-4 scale provides enough granularity to get a good sense of how things are going academically. And sure, you have comments, but with reports cards just a couple main times a year those are only so useful anyway.

The worst is the PT conferences though. You have like 10 minutes a couple times a year...which is pretty brutal.

I do think things get a little better in high school with Powerschool and being able to see a lot more of what's happening with kids through the semesters. But, unsurprisingly, you're hoping that the teachers are keeping that up to date as the weeks progress. I have no idea what's involved in that, but if there aren't updates, you're basically flying blind there.

[Coach]

I don't really get how there's a difference. It's all semantics. These words will get abbreviated and they'll all become letter grades anyways.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by GGG

I wish people would stop complaining about pensions. They have a 10% match. If you saved 20% of your money you to can retire on the same timeline as teachers. Their pension is so good because they save a large % of their salary from day 1. They don’t have the option to borrow from retirement to but a house or just cash out rrsps to pay debt or just cut contributing for a few years because they have kids. They are an example of forced savings.

in an earlier post you stated most other people (you talking oil and gas I assume?) had similar pension pay.

Disagree. 10%? I've seen as high as 7% which was really good but I don't think I've seen as high as 10%. Unless you are including bonus, long-term comp? I'm sure there are a couple companies out there that might offer 10% but it wouldn't be the norm in my experience.

Your point about saving money stands though, for sure. It's a good point. Can anyone actually detail what the teachers pension actually is? I had heard it was average of your 5 highest earning years for life after retirement, but I'm not sure that's true and am too lazy to go research if there's a teacher here that can just confirm / deny.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Coach

I don't really get how there's a difference. It's all semantics. These words will get abbreviated and they'll all become letter grades anyways.

Was thinking the same thing. So they replaced an existing grading scale.....with a new grading scale? What's the difference?

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by GGG

I wish people would stop complaining about pensions. They have a 10% match. If you saved 20% of your money you to can retire on the same timeline as teachers. Their pension is so good because they save a large % of their salary from day 1. They don’t have the option to borrow from retirement to but a house or just cash out rrsps to pay debt or just cut contributing for a few years because they have kids. They are an example of forced savings.

Who’s complaining in this thread about the pensions ? Stating they they have a very good pension is accurate and a benefit of the job .

10% match is fantastic .

But I think it is important for people to understand it’s 10% matching not fully government funded

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Do you think any of what he described are worthwhile perks? First assuming the kids and parent are even at the same school, this perk is useful only until the kids are old enough to stay home by themselves. So it’s not like 12 years of saving money on daycare.


Having the same holiday schedule aligned to the most expensive travel seasons aren’t a perk either. After the kids have completed school, there isn’t even a benefit to having that time off. What are you going to do for 2 months? Take a seasonal job?

It's kind of cool to have one parent off during the summer. When the kids are younger they can be with them, take them to day camps etc. It seems like a nice little perq.

[DFO]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

in an earlier post you stated most other people (you talking oil and gas I assume?) had similar pension pay.

Disagree. 10%? I've seen as high as 7% which was really good but I don't think I've seen as high as 10%. Unless you are including bonus, long-term comp? I'm sure there are a couple companies out there that might offer 10% but it wouldn't be the norm in my experience.

Your point about saving money stands though, for sure. It's a good point. Can anyone actually detail what the teachers pension actually is? I had heard it was average of your 5 highest earning years for life after retirement, but I'm not sure that's true and am too lazy to go research if there's a teacher here that can just confirm / deny.

My last O&G shop did a 15% match to employee’s 10% max.