CALVERT COUNTY, Md. – Recent negotiations between the Calvert County Public School District (CCPS) and the Calvert Education Association (CEA) have caused an uproar across the county.
The Calvert Education Association is the bargaining representative for all certified teachers in CCPS. They negotiate salary, work hours, benefits, and working conditions.
CEA has urged CCPS to raise the bar on many proposals after a new document was released showing what the school district is doing for educators.
One is working hours. CEA proposed a 7.5-hour work day and working no additional hours. CCPS responded by saying teachers will work 8.5 hours a day and an additional 190 hours that are unpaid. Salary steps will only happen every four years. CEA proposed salary steps every year.
CEA also wants teachers to have more planning time. CCPS plans to reduce it.
Other topics include health care costs, teacher protections, recruitment of new teachers, and personal/sick leave. CEA proposed more personal/sick leave for teachers. But CCPS plans to allow less leave and be more stringent on how teachers use those days.
Teachers are voicing their frustration, saying this will ultimately hurt the students and leave schools understaffed.
Heather Hammett has been at Beach Elementary for 16 years and with CCPS for 20 years. She says the offer from the Board of Education shows they don’t respect those on the front line.
“People are already leaving in droves. This is going to cause more folks to leave, which is going to increase the shortage of staff we already have. There is no good incentive to work for CCPS. Folks are going to choose to work in surrounding counties due to better offers. People used to move here because of the schools. When the quality of education goes down, so will the value of homes. In reality, this is going to affect the whole community, not just the educators. I hope parents are just as concerned as educators,” says Hammett.
The BayNet reached out to CCPS and received this response from Chief of Communications, Rene Daniels.
“I can confirm that Calvert County Public Schools is currently in the early stages of collective bargaining/negotiations for a successor agreement between the Board of Education of Calvert County and the Calvert Education Association.”
Several people have shared the negotiations online and say this is an insult to teachers. Now they are hoping that parents will take action by emailing the Board of Education, County Commissioners, and Superintendents and to show up to BOE meetings.
The BayNet will continue to follow this story and bring any updates.
Contact our news desk at news@thebaynet.com
Can’t wait to read all the anti-public education, anti-teacher comments…
You were absolutely correct. These other comments are pitiful.
Stay woke, stay broke
Ask Desantis how that’s going. 🐭
Salaried does not mean ‘paid by the hour’. When one is paid a salary, one does what is necessary to finish the day’s work. Teachers are no different. If it takes 9 hours a day to finish, their salary covers that extra time. Teachers have just become too lazy and coddled for far too long. They should be damn thankful they have a job.
If that was the case, then why have an hourly requirement? If a millennial can get a 8hr boomer job done in 2hrs, why make them start there the additional 6hrs?
Given how few people are going into the teaching career field, you should be lucky there’s still enough teachers.
We appear hourly, however we are required to complete “x” amount of hours a year. When we take leave we enter hours. Our leave us calculated in hours. Lastly, on our pay it states hourly wage. Sure sounds like an hourly employee.
If the parents would raise their children to be respectful of their elders and stop thinking their children are always right, teachers wouldn’t have problem doing as teacher of yester year. They aren’t lazy; the parents are. Seeing school as a babysitting service. Try doing the job a teacher then see if you sympathize with them.
This is sponsored by a union rep?
Certainly sounds like it from the tone. The days of unbiased reporting seem long gone.
Of course the teachers want increased benefits across the board. Less hours, more pay, more leave, increased job security, etc. I don’t blame CCPS one bit for their proposal. It’s GIVE & TAKE. Not TAKE & TAKE.
Hey – nobody likes paying more for gas, food, or services either but we have to because they are necessities. Good teachers are also necessary. If teachers can’t depend on being able to keeping pace with the cost of living, the good ones will simply choose to do something else. Who wouldn’t? Then who will we be left with?
These teachers deserve to a raise. The school system already has a shortage of teachers and subs. Teachers are having to give up their planning periods to provide coverage and not to mention dealing with horrible behaviors, while trying to teach those who want to learn.
Anybody want to talk about CCPS standing in the state and falling test scores?
Dear Those Who Haven’t a Clue,
Part 1
PLEASE VISIT ANY SCHOOL before making such derogatory comments!
Part 2 (my comments kept being deleted so I plan to post in parts)
We are paid for 7 hours a day; 190 days a year. Those 190 days are our Day 1 in August to our Day 190 in June. However, our earned payment is dispersed back to us over 365 days. As you see, we do not receive paid holidays or any additional payment nor even our 35 hours of pay each week.
I thought the new Superintendent of CCPS was going to help, see what happens when they hire a liberal from Chicago.
Part 3
We have 30 minutes for lunch, most of us work during part, if not all of this time.
We are allotted 45 minutes of paid planning, which doesn’t permit for 10% of our obligations to be completed. The remaining 90% is completed on our time – nights, weekends, and holiday breaks.
What kind of psychopath would try to force people to work 190 unpaid hours, sounds super illegal to me if it isn’t it should be. No teacher should be treated like a charity worker they already barely make enough. Whoever’s in charge of CCPS is trying to pretend to be a slavemaster absolutely despicable treatment of human beings