Manatee School District plan: Extend school day

Pat Smith eats her breakfast and lunch in her classroom, hardly ever leaving it during the day from 7:30 a.m. to whenever she leaves Braden River Elementary where’s she’s a third-grade teacher.

All her free time during her work day is spent planning.

“Teachers use every free second as planning time,” Smith said. “If you go into a teachers' lounge during the day, it will be a ghost town. There are designated areas for where teachers can plan during the day, but we mostly just plan in our classroom.”

If voters in Manatee County pass a March 20 special referendum to approve a 1 mill increase in property taxes from July 1, 2018 to

June 30, 2022, the teachers will be even more challenged to effectively plan their courses. An agreement between the School District of Manatee County and the Manatee Education Association (the teachers' union) calls for teachers to convert 15 minutes of planning time per day into classroom time.

The agreement also calls for the teachers' work day to extend 15 minutes to 7 hours and 45 minutes. Those combined 30 minutes are one of the district's main selling points in asking for a tax increase. The 30-minute increase in class time, according to the district, will raise student performance levels.

Although Smith is crunched for planning time, she is in favor of spending more time with the students.

“When we had to add on 10 extra minutes to make up for the time we had to take off for Hurricane Irma, it was so clear to see the difference it made for the students understanding concepts more,” Smith said. “The difference that 10 minutes can make could only mean that 30 minutes could do so much more.”

Nicholas Leduc, another teacher at Braden River Elementary and the 2017 Manatee Teacher of the Year, said he believes teachers in general would sacrifice planning time to spend more time with the students.

“Our whole job is the students,” Leduc said. “I would give up time for them all day long.”

He said he hasn’t met a teacher who wouldn’t sacrifice some paid planning time to help their students succeed in the long run.

If the referendum passes, teachers will work an additional 1 hour, 15 minutes per week and they will receive an average increase of $1,569 per year for that extra time. Pat Barber, the president of the teachers' union, said the average overall gain per one-year teacher's salary will be $5,800 adding a $4,274 supplement generated by the tax increase added to the additional time worked. That supplement is equal to 51% for the total revenue of the 1 mill increase divided by the number of teachers (2,888) in the bargaining unit.

The tax increase is expected to raise $33 million.

“If it doesn’t work out, in four years it will go back to the way it was,” Smith said. “It would just be a godsend to have the 30 extra minutes a day for these kids.”