Who creates the yard duty schedule at your site? P or VP? I have been working on it for the past few weeks and it is such a headache. First off, yard duty is a union issue, so we had to vote on the format of the schedule before school ended. The vote was close and the staff ended up liking the version I proposed. There were a total of 3 versions to choose from (two were created by other teachers and one was my own creation). Anyway, I keep counting and recounting to ascertain that everyone has an equal number of yard duty assignments for the year (while making sure that no one is "double booked" during a particular week). I've heard there are other districts where teachers have yard duty every single day. Is this true for any of you? Side note: Teachers do have a 50 minute duty-free lunch each day.
At my school in NC, we had lunch and recess duty every day. They weren't necessarily back-to-back. And we either had morning or afternoon car/bus duty everyday. We also only had 3 planning periods per week. At the school I was just at, we had to have it once a week by contract. Since I was K, we extended our recess from 30 to 15 minutes. Which meant I only had 1 day per week where I was totally exempt from recess duty.
Last year, I had lunch duty every single day! I had 20 minutes duty-free for my own lunch, which was a joke. By the time I used the restroom, and walked down to the teacher's lounge (where the microwave is) it was time for my break to be over. At least I didn't have outdoor duty every day. There's a positive side to everything.
Everyone supervises their own class during recess - around 15-20 minutes. We also have about 20-25 minutes of dismissal duties every day (well, for 5 weeks out of 6).
To clarify my post- two days a week, I was with students from bell to bell with no break. And I had after school bus or car duty. One of the reasons that teaching in Michigan is so much better!
One thing I love about my district is that there are no duties for teachers thanks to our Union and I know that this rare from people who work in nearby districts. Although at my old K-8, the K-5 kids had recess everyday and teachers were expected to watch their class during this time. When we (the MS teachers) took our kids outside, we also were agreeing to watch them. OP, sounds like you are doing this as fair as possible so I guess that's all your staff can ask. When things are Union mandated, I try not to hold them against my Admin. I try.
Since you say they have a duty free lunch, does that mean yard-duty only happens in the morning and after school? (or I guess in the case of Elementary; recess?) Because we have morning and afternoon duty but no lunch duty. We also have department run brunch duties. Anyway, it's generally divvied up by the admin, and it's something like, at the station in front of our hall, duty in the morning is split between me and another teacher, and we just switch off weekly. Because it's just switch off, it's pretty much guaranteed to be pretty even and we can manage it ourselves with very little involvement by admin. It's pretty easy to realize, 'Oh, Mr. M did duty last week. This week it must be my duty.' I think we did it differently the year before where the admin had to pick out specific weeks and times for each teacher and it was a mess. I like the new system much better. Brunch duties are run by our department heads and are not technically required by our admin. We do this because the kids can still get unwieldy in the halls at brunch. We just do this on a specific day each week. (I have to admit, I forgot my brunch duty more than once to the chagrin of my department head; especially when kids would pile into my classroom as soon as the brunch bell rang to hang out and ask questions.)
Our paras do all the lunch/recess duties. Teachers have crosswalk duty before/after school one day per week. It's so nice because at the last school I was teaching sped in I got stuck with duty every single day as a non-classroom teacher. Most days I had both lunch and recess duties. The title teachers, specials teachers, and I had to do every single duty that was during the day. We had no paras for the entire building. I'm honestly not sure if it's the P or AP that creates the schedule. They do most scheduling together so I would assume it's a team effort.
What if you had to go to the bathroom?! I literally would have to not drink anything all day (which would mean I would not be able to eat anything either), and I'd probably still have to go! I'm already worrying about having students for four hours straight in summer school- I'm definitely going to have to skip breakfast so I don't drink anything.
I'm my previous district the elementary schools had lunch/recess aides, so the teachers never have that duty. In the middle and high schools teachers can have that duty, but they get a stipend and it is every day. Teachers in all buildings can have before and after school duty for a stipend. There are only so many positions budgeted for each school.
I feel very fortunate. At my school, if teachers do lunch or recess we get comp. time. I did 10 thirty min recess duties a month and got four days off last year.
We have before and after school duty stations. We have to do six weeks of either one or the other. There is a sign-up sheet at the start of the year, first come, first served. If someone doesn't sign up, they are assigned a duty.
We have four different time slots for yard duty: Before school (7:20-7:40) K-2 recess (9:50-10:10) 3-5 recess (10:15-10:35) After school (2:10-2:20)
You asked another teacher to watch your class during lunch/recess duty. You caught someone walking by in the hall. Worst case, you asked the teacher next door to 'listen' for them. K teachers were in an 'open concept' building, so it was easier for them. 1st were in trailers, so they have to wait for a para to come by. 2nd and 4th had bathrooms in their rooms. 3rd and 5th were at the mercy of others. Luckily, I was directly across the hall from our guidance counselor and she had a bathroom in her office. If I left my door open, I could hear my kids while in her bathroom. Others were not as lucky.
I did not have morning duty until we began having breakfast in our room. Every grade level does lunch duty a little different. In first grade we did it by weeks. In kinder we do it by days. I'm not sure which one I like better. It's was easier to keep up with doing it by days, but we would go nearly a month before having duty again. Afternoon duty we do everyday. We take the pick up kids out and wait for parents.
Even when teachers have recess yard duty, my principal and I take turns "relieving" them so they can run to the restroom. In the event that he and I are both off campus or can't make it out to the yard, we have an instructional aide help cover the playground. This is probably the only profession where people have to methodically plan their bathroom visits!
We have lunch duty ( our duty-free lunch is during recess which is covered by aides). Anyway, our P had each grade level do their own schedule. He required one teacher to be present daily, but it was up to is to figure out how that happened. There are 4 teachers per grade level, so everybody takes one day and once every 4 weeks you have two days. If you are out, you switch with somebody else. Nobody really gripes about the schedule because everyone chose when they would have duty.
At my old school, we had one duty day each week. It consisted of before school, lunch/recess, and after school. Before school we had to be there 30 minutes early and after school usually lasted about 30 minutes. There were two teachers for each duty.
The VP does our schedule. We usually fill out a form indicating our preferences. As per our contract, we have 60 minutes of duty each week. All of our duties are 15 or 20 minutes, so we have duty 3 or 4 times weekly. Most of us have our duty at either morning recess or at the beginning or end of lunch hour (we must have 40 minutes uninterrupted lunch). We did get a draft of our schedule the last day before summer break and were told that if we wanted to make "trades" with other teachers, that was fine, we just needed to let the VP know so that the master schedule can be changed. I don't envy you--it's a brutal task putting one together. Oh, the P and/or VP are out at every recess and before and after school.
We have a 30 minute duty- free lunch. Aides cover recess. We rotate after school bus/ day care van/ detention duty. You typically have one of these duties every three weeks, for the entire week. The principal makes up the schedule. If we have a conflict (out for sick day, meeting, etc) we are expected to find our own sub.
I have morning duty once a week, no lunch duty, recess duty every day, and dismissal duty for all but six weeks of the year.
We have lunchroom/playground supervisors, so teachers never have duty. About 4 times per year we have bus duty.
Teachers only have after school duty (driveway, bus, and pick up gate) which ends up being 4 teachers a week. The morning, recess, and lunch duties are covered by activity supervisors. Our P messed up the duty schedule so bad last year that there were a total of 8 revisions throughout the year when people would find something wrong with it. It was a headache trying to remember which schedule was the right one. Have someone else double check it for you just to be safe.
Having duty It's amazing how duty really depends on each school. At my school here is how it breaks down. Door duty - Each classroom teacher has it about twice during the school year. Dissmisal - Each classroom teacher dimisses walker and car riders. Bus duty- Support teachers have buses in the afternoon. Breakfast- Administration (V, AP, counselor, and facilitator) Lunch duty- Admin & paras Recess- this is not considered a duty because each teacher decides to take the class out. Some go out everyday while other don't go out for recess at all.
Our paras cover lunch and recess. A teacher would NEVER be expected to do these things due to Union contract. People would be up in arms. It's hard, though. We don't have enough paras to cover all the kids! Sometimes I go out there just to make sure there are no fights or incidents.
I have morning bus duty for a week every 3 weeks (about 15 min). I have recess duty 3 days a week I have afternoon dismissal/busy duty every day. I hate the AM bus duty the most Recess and afternoon bus do not bother me as much. I do get a 30 min lunch & 45 min prep every day.
We have different duties. The P makes the schedule (no AP here). He usually assigns two teachers per quarter per duty. Some teachers split it; others complete it together. I had after school front door this year. We have to stand there from last bell until the kids leave on the bus (about five minutes). We split ours so we each had about four weeks.
A 7 hour school day is short? How long is your day? On topic: we have lunch aides and paras, so teachers don't have recess/lunch duty. Thank goodness, because I cannot stand being out in the cold. And by "cold", I mean under 65 degrees.
We have four duties... bus, recess, lunch and yard. Lunch is for the first half of lunch time when the students are eating, and you are going classroom to classroom. Yard is when they are outside (though the 3-5s do go out for the last ten minutes of Lunch duty, as they eat more quickly and can get dressed to go out more quickly) We typically get two duties a week, one week bus and lunch the next week yard and recess. EAs are always on duty. Having said that, we have a new principal, and who knows what will happen.
60 minutes a week! WOW! Every teacher in my school has duty for 15 minutes every morning (we take our kids off of the bus 15 minutes before the bell for a gross motor activity) and we have lunch or lunch recess duty for 30 minutes, 4 times a week (they go home at noon on Friday). So that is 3.25 hours of duty/week that every classroom teacher in the school has to do. We take our own class out for recess in the mornings.
Public schools here don't have classroom teachers doing lunch or recess duties. School and lunchroom aides handle that. At the private school I worked at my AP did lunch duty while assistants did recess duty. At the charter school the duties rotated daily but were all covered by TAs or us subs. There were different roles, sometimes you covered all 4 lunch/recess periods, other times it was just 1 period. It depended on the day and who was absent. There was one person who scheduled lunch duty and then another person who assigned your role for the day. Always had to check the main office before lunch started. It was never the P or AP.
How long is your day? My kids are in school from 7:40-2:10. I know we have an early start/end time, but I thought 6.5 hours of school was about average.
We also have a max of 60 minutes of duty a week. Our lunch duty is a separate time from our duty-free lunch.
School is in session for 8 1/2 hours? We have about the same amount of time, starting about 40 minutes later.
At my school, all duties are performed every day all year long if you are a duty teacher. I have cafeteria duty so I'm there M-F, all year. The recess teachers are on the playground M-F, all year. The only thing that is different is second recess for primary grades. The grade level works out a rotation of their choosing. I have 30 minutes of duty, and then 30 minutes duty-free lunch.
What a long day! What are the start and end times for your students? Like others, our students have a 6.5 hour day.
