Does your school require you to give students extra help outside of class? Do you give up prep time, lunch time, or your before/after school time to tutor students even though it's not paid? My school only requires us to come in 10 minutes before the school day and stay 10 minutes after school. I'm not sure what my extra help schedule is going to be yet. I'm thinking of just saying 40 minutes a day after school, maybe on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
we are not required to have extra help and cannot offer it after school due to a special program and our new two day meetings. however, some teachers will offer it in the am. I personally offer it during lunch if i have those off periods or try and find another time in the students schedule
I do before school daily for 30 minutes, and after school by appointment. (Most kids wait until the morning of the test....) I never give up lunch or prep. We have 9 periods a day. 5 are teaching, 1 is lunch, 1 is prep, 1 is duty, and 1 is called "tutorial". We have a tutorial center in our school, and there is a teacher there from every department every period each day so students (from any teacher) can visit during study halls and lunch periods. If no kids are there, I use the period as an extra prep. Now some kids don't like visiting other teachers that they don't have, but the help is available. I frequently get kids who are not in my classes. Now for classes like AP Stat/AP Calc, it's possible that the teacher available a particular period may not be helpful, but for classes like alg 1, geo, alg 2, pre-calc, most of the math teachers can help that period.
We are required to stay 20 minutes per day if we're not coaching. As a math teacher, it's rare that I ever stay for less than 50 minutes or so. I'm also around before school. The only times I'm not around for almost an hour after school are when one of my kids is either sick or has an orthodontist appointment. The kids also have my school email in case they're seriously stuck. They know not to use it for small questions, but if something is really bothering them I'm OK answering questions that way.
Once the year really gets going, I'm expecting my school phone to ring late into the evening. I'll answer it until I'm too tired.
I offer extra help on Wednesday afternoons. I am willing to meet with students at other times if Wednesdays don't work for their family.
I stay back 90 minutes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. After Drama Club gets going, that'll be cut down to 2 days a week. Those days are whatever days, but I also hold 3-4 advertised Review or Remediation Sessions a month.
My previous school did not require us to come in before/after school to tutor. Most teachers did have at least two days a week that they would come early/stay late to help students. We did have a period built into the beginning of the day that students could come in for help, but it was inside teachers contract hours. I did work with a teacher a few years ago that would come in early for students, bring in students during her lunch period for help, and would stay late for students.
No, not required. Tutoring at each grade level is paid. I would never work through lunch. It's sacred.
It's not required for us, but I have done it. I have brought students in during my planning time most often. Many of our students have to ride the busses, so they are limited to when they can arrive or leave. No way I could work through lunch. It's only 20 minutes anyway, and with the lunch schedule it would have to be on of the kids in that class, too. I have stayed after school for students who don't have internet access to be able to use the computers, and I've stayed for kids who wanted extra help. I don't stay after for kids who refuse to work in class and then expect me to give up my free time for them to make it up.
At my previous school, I opened up my Special Ed resource room several recesses a week for any grade 6-8 students to come in to work independently on homework or assignments. I was able for help if it was needed. I wasn't able to do it last year because of job action, but hope to start it again at my new school.
It's not required but I run a Lunch Bunch daily in order to get in some small group instruction and work on some IEP goals that are tough to hit upon in the classroom. I ask every child to come one day a week. If any gen ed students want to come for extra help I let them come if they choose.
I encourage my students to seek help after school (or before school or during mutual free periods). There isn't any requirement to do this, but I want to provide my students with as much support as possible. What I tell the kids (and their parents if they ask) is that I will find a time that works for them if they can't stay after school. As a coincidental effect, this negates any excuse a student can have for not seeking extra help. I have only had two students ever seek after school help at my current school. It was a regular (and welcome) occurrence at the school where I student taught.
We're not required, but I think we're expected to do what we can to help our students succeed, but not with extremes. Our lunch is not duty free, we're all supposed to supervise students. Today I spent my lunch in my classroom with a few students who wanted to make up classwork. I will also do the same for the next couple of days for them to make up tests (quite a few were absent). We're technically supposed to stay until 3 pm, but our P is not strict on that. To her, working at home or at school is the same thing, as long as we're prepared. So staying after school to help a student isn't really extra work, I'm technically paid for it. Our students all leave after school through, because they're trying to make sure they catch their rides, otherwise it's miles of walking home. So it's lunch. I don't mind.
We're not required to do it but I often help out at lunch. Before school and after school get tricky with busses but I've done it as well.
Your tutoring is paid? So do you get compensated if a student stays after school or are there teachers who sign up for a paid tutoring job? That sounds really nice. I would also love to have an intervention period like another poster mentioned. I would not want to give up my lunch for the most part! I'm going to change my days to Tuesday and Thursday since we have meetings on a lot of Wednesdays.
They don't require it, but I choose to tutor for free as many of our parents don't have much $$$. When I taught in a wealthy school, I made a lot of $$$ in tutoring students. I am okay in finances so I choose to tutor for free. I know if I asked these parents for $$ for tutoring, they would decline tutoring as they can't afford it.
Yes, either teachers in a grade rotate days or one or two teachers take it all. It's $25 an hour. Just two hours a week per grade.
It is required for us, though a few of us are working to contract this year. I am available every morning, and on one afternoon a week. I am available other times by appointment.
Our school requires that we are active in something extracurricular. For me, that means doing RTI/Credit Recovery tutoring three times a week for an hour, and I also hold one one hour session a week for my own kids, because no one else teaches their subject here. The kids also have two academic coaching hours built into their schedule.
Extra help time outside of contracted student contact time in most elementary schools is not expected and nearly impossible to schedule. Young kids simply don't have the independence or stamina to come early or stay late for extra help....lunchtime for teachers is lunch and recess for kids, and the half hour contracted time before kids arrive in my school is pretty much booked with educators in committee meetings, intervention service referral conferences with sped teams, collaborative planning, PLCs, etc. I pull strugglers during independent work times within my content teaching.
How does your intervention period work? Do students have a free period and just decide if they want to meet a teacher or do teachers have assigned students? Also, is this in place of a study hall?
Orangetea, the period is from 12:08-12:39. Each Wednesday teachers submit a list of kids they'd like to see. Each department has a priority day where those teachers are guaranteed to get the first ten kids they request. The other days we request more to make sure we hit our number needed for our room. If kids are not requested, then they have options such as intramurals, quiet study hall, group study hall, library, and computers. We also have meetings taking place such as NHS, book club, FCCLA, game clubs, etc... Many of our kids still have study hall.
That makes complete sense to me. The 7 year olds you teach don't have the independence or the means to call mom and tell her they'll be on the late bus because of extra help. Likewise, in the 38 minutes I have with each class-- that's on a good day, when there are full periods-- there simply isn't time to pull those strugglers out for long enough to do much good. They've got to come after school, so I've got to be available just about every afternoon.
That sounds like a good idea. czacza- I agree--I don't really see extra help as necessary in elementary. I have 50 minute periods, but it's just not long enough to pull struggling students, like Alice said.
Firstly, my school requires us to stay after school twice per week for 20 minutes and for a full period once a week. That being said, most of stay until at least 3:00, when we could leave technically at 2:42. I personally stay until 3 on both days, but if no one show up by 2:45 I'm out of there and my kids know it I wrote a good post titled "Teacher or Martyr" which addresses these kind of things. Teachers are wonderful and giving people, but they default to "Yes" when asked for anything. You have a family and other things in your life that you need to attend to or would be happier doing. Go to the gym, spend time with friends, or take in a movie. If you don't take care of yourself this job will consume you. So my point is that you should draw a line and don't cross it. Tell your students and parents that you stay after school for help once a week and hold office hours during lunch once a week. Make each 20-30 minutes and tell any kids that are still there that you need to go when the time is up. Good luck and let me know if you need anything, Bill
I tutored my own students after school 2-3 days a week my first two years of teaching (2nd grade). Now that I have two young children of my own that spend a long day in daycare, I don't tutor. I did start a class blog to keep parents in the loop about what we're doing each week and how they can help. They seem really receptive to the blog.
I understand what you're saying, but I've come to realize that I can't do my job well if I'm not available to my students. That's how all of my teachers were, and that's how I want to be. Staying 45 minutes late a few days a week isn't great, but it's what quite a few of my students need in order to succeed. They need the individual time in order to succeed. If it starts stressing me out too much or affecting my family, it's obviously time for a change. I do think it's important to draw a line though, but I think the line is different for everyone. I do not give extra help to students who don't work hard in class...and those students rarely show up anyways. I don't stay longer than 45 minutes. I'm also not available before school, and I don't meet students during my planning/lunch unless they definitely can't make it after school. It's funny though, because I remember in high school, my classmates and I really didn't appreciate what my teachers did. We took it for granted that they'd be available everyday after school or during planning periods. (And most of the teachers were!!) We also expected our exams back very quickly...I remember one of my friends was mad at her math teacher because she went out one night instead of grading papers. I wonder if this is the mentality all students have today, because we truly didn't realize how much teachers had to do.
As far as the grading, that is my non-negotiable. Whether it's a project, test, quiz, exam, whatever, I have never taken more than 1 night to grade anything. (Yes, even for 120 students). I always got angry when my teachers took forever to grade, and so, I refuse to put grading on the back burner. Some of my colleagues take 2 weeks to grade a math test, and that makes no sense to me.
At my private school, we are required to provide extra help for students, but it can't morph itself into actually tutoring our own students (that would be unfair). I have some say in when I can provide extra help, but the more time I can give the happier our parents are. (I had a parent complain last year that I couldn't meet with her child for extra help within 24 hours of her emailing me that her child needed help- I explained that I had other students already scheduled and a field trip to prep for, but she was still annoyed ) I provide extra help M-F 7:45 until homeroom (which cuts into my morning prep time), at recess M-F, and after school from 3 to 3:30 M-F. I don't actually see students during all of those times, but I'm available. I will cancel a time if a meeting or duty pops up (sometimes I have recess duty to do instead).
