By now you’ve probably realized how often you lose your prep time due to holidays and professional development days. But how can you recoup that time? There’s a clause for that!
(About the asterisk: You’ll find an asterisk next to many clauses in our Collective Agreement. It’s a sign of the inequity since it signifies that the particular clause does not apply to Adult Education Teachers.)
*D.4.10 TIMETABLING FACTORS
Where employees lose preparation time because of statutory holidays, in-service activities, non-instructional days or the like falling on a day when the employees’ preparation time is normally scheduled:
*a. Schools may make reasonable internal arrangements acceptable to the Principal / Vice Principal and the employees affected to distribute the effects of the reduced preparation time in an equitable manner, but
*b. This time will not be made up as lost preparation time under Article D.4.9.
So how do you get this enacted at your school? We suggest going through Staff Committee. One suggestion that Staff Committee might recommend is that admin make up the prep time by covering the affected class or taking several classes at once to view a movie or conduct another activity.
Another option might be that teachers rotate the most commonly affected days (Monday and Friday) somehow throughout the year, or from year to year. This can be achieved by choosing prep times with a lottery system. For example, if you have had your prep on Fridays for the past several years, you could suggest that the staff committee keep track of this from year to year so that this is rotated more equitably.
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