089/365 Money...What Money by stuartpilbrow
Many school systems, mine included, face unprecedented budget challenges this year. I imagine that in addition to implementing or continuing pay freezes, many divisions also have to consider eliminating teacher leadership stipends. I worry that we’re going to lose great teacher leaders. Why take on more work without more compensation? With looming increases in class size and corresponding cuts in staffing and materials, including IT, teachers will have to do more with less next year regardless of their leadership roles. Is it fair to ask teachers to lead others while they have to negotiate their own responses to rapid change in working conditions?
Certainly a bevy of teachers lead now and will continue to lead with or without a stipend or title like “department chair.” Leaders may also take the loss of stipends as an opportunity to pass along their mantles and duties to a new leader and to coach their successors less formally.
I’m not at all cynical about educators’ desire to do right and to help one another help children.
I’m concerned that teacher leadership will become less attractive to teachers and that uncompensated leadership will become the status quo during the economic downturn.
How could teacher leadership and compensation for it be saved systematically without unfair expectations put on classroom teachers? What do you think? What kinds of compensation remain available to divisions and teacher leaders apart from stipends and IT?
Lately, I’m thinking a lot about grants. I think I can take a much more active role in securing the materials and technology I see my students using in the future. I’ve posted about how I might better resource my class. So far, I’ve pursued two grant opportunities – one for e-readers and another for the tools necessary for student app development and learning space design.
What if we used grants to help replace stipends? What if lead teacher positions rotated fairly and part of the lead teacher’s duty was grant-writing?
Imagine a lead teacher earning more time during the school day to pursue grants that benefit both the department and the lead teacher. Imagine a lead teacher drawing 3-5 more students a piece from concurrent classes in the same content area so the department reaches more children in a shorter amount of time. Imagine a class size of 30-32 instead of 26-28. Imagine the lead teacher earning an extra class period, half-block, or duty-period off for the pursuit of grants. Imagine 5% of the curriculum development line-item in each grant budget going to the lead teacher for the R&D necessary for the grant proposal. This isn’t a new idea – awarding commissions to grant writers – but it could be systematized in a new way for teacher leadership.
Could that lead teacher recoup the cost of a lost stipend? Maybe. Could that lead teacher continue to model scholarship and innovation in best practices? Absolutely.
What do you think, teachers? Would you agree to greatly increased class size one or two periods a day to earn grant-writing time that could underwrite your stipend?
Another thought: what if a lead teacher or department social media maven could earn time to tweet and blog about the great work going on within the department? What if the division’s legal team created a framework for advertising professional texts or professional development on the blog with most of the revenue from clicks going to the department while 5-10% of the revenue went to the lead teacher/department blogger in place of a stipend?
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