Fair Teaching Load for High School Classes

[Cooldude]

I am teaching five HS language art classes a week 4 core including AP and a writing elective. Class sizes are 16-22 and block periods. What do other other teachers consider fair and reasonable?

[shadowjack]

When you say 5 classes a week, I am assuming it is an 8 block, 4 blocks a day ABCD/EFGH rotating type schedule?

If so, that is nice. One day you teach 3 classes the next day 2.

If you can elaborate on what the schedule looks like - ie 90% of your time is contact and 10% prep, then we can give better feedback.

[Thames Pirate]

My current domestic IS is approximately 20 hours of contact time/week, so 50%. However, it is a bit more complicated because we are on multiple campuses, so most of our staff have to drive 15-20 minutes across town (not to mention the pack up and settle in time that entails--that's just the driving). Additionally, our meetings (on average 90 minutes/week) are held mid-day, so staff sometimes have to drive, meet, then drive. So on average we drive 1-2 hours each week. We also share classrooms, so we are constantly moving to another room when we do have prep time. These little time sucks can really add up. We typically teach 160-180 students and 2 preps--one pre-IB and one Diploma Program. Additionally we are each CAS coordinators and EE coordinators for 30-36 students (half juniors/half seniors), so we are working 16 EEs at a time.

Hubby had a job at an IS with 21 contact hours/week, 5 preps including MYP, IGCSE, and DP (all of which were new to him at the time). He also had an advisory group and managed 3 EEs. Class sizes similar to yours. Expected to do a lot of cover and extra duties with no consideration given to balancing people's workloads (so he had lunch duty on the one day he didn't have a single prep period and was not permitted to swap with a colleague).

However: At our domestic IS we are VERY well supported and collaborative, work hard to keep the BS stuff off each other's plates, support one another when personal lives get in the way, etc. The other job was the opposite--lots of useless distractions, admin who didn't give a rip and were disorganized, and while other staff were wonderful, they were limited in their ability to provide real and meaningful support. This piece is critical to one's overall mental health and can make all the difference.

[PsyGuy]

I also assumed you had an alternating A/B block schedule. Thats a lot of preps in IE but not uncommon depending on the size of the IS. Larger and upper tier ISs usually have 2-3 preps (sometimes 1 prep), whereas in a small IS you could easily have 5 or more preps. There are ITs on fixed daily schedules that have 7 preps.

[sid]

Like the others said, you haven't really given the info needed for us to be sure. But from what you've written, it sounds pretty typical to me.

[justlooking]

Here's what I'm fighting for next year:

1 TOK Class
Grade 12 Econ
Grade 12 History
Grade 11 Econ
Grade 11 History
Grade 10 MYP Humanities

Class sizes are reasonable- between 10 and 23 students, but this seems like a lot of different preps for a medium sized school (1100 students K-12).

My principal thinks I'm soft or something because even with 6 different preps it's only 26 out of 40 periods of teaching, so he's not inclined to look for a solution. A few other teachers have similar schedules but most are dealing with 3-4 preps over 5 classes.

I'm curious what other people think.

[chilagringa]

Yikes! That sounds terrible, justlooking.

I have a very easy schedule. Block schedule, 5/8, two preps. Class sizes around 22. I teach middle school. In the high school it's the same but many people have 3 preps. 5/8 three preps seems fine to me, but I wouldn't want a job with more preps than that.

Surely a big school can offer fewer preps?

[durianfan]

^^That's a lot.

I had six preps per week this year of 6 different levels of English A. Classes are 1 hour each, between 12-18 students. It's not the preps that kill me; it's the 6 different levels. It's an insane schedule.

Whenever I go home to the US to visit and hear my teacher friends complain about having 3 different preps, I just laugh in their faces.

[Thames Pirate]

Remember, though, that prep time and class size are also factors. I had a far easier time teaching small classes of 15-20 and five preps than 3 preps of 35-40! It's not uncommon for teachers in the US to teach 5/6 or 6/7, having only before/after school and one 50 minute class period to prep. The only way to keep that manageable with class sizes near 40 is to reduce the number of preps.

[chilagringa]

Surely though most international schools can offer both - small classes AND few preps? I mean, it only really takes 60 students per grade to make, say, 2-3 preps for a teacher reality.

[PsyGuy]

@justlooking

Your leadership either doesnt like you or the person doing the master scheduling is incompetent.

Its possible that who ever did the scheduling or leadership wants to give ITs 'exposure' by giving them multiple classes, but with 1100 students in K-12 thats an average of 84 students per form and with 10-23 students per class thats an average of 16 students per class (my assumption is that your primary has larger class sizes than your secondary), this easily means there are multiple classes of the same subject.

I could see you having:

1) Either all of the Economics or all of the History in years 11 and 12.
OR
2) All of the year 11 students or all of the year 12 students (this would be my preference)
AND
1) More than 1 TOK (especially if you choose all the year 12 students), and no MYP (this would be my preference)
OR
2) More than 1 MYP Humanities and no TOK

My optimal choice would be the year 11 Economics and History and the TOK. This way you get to do interdisciplinary units between history and economics without having to collaborate with another IT. You add utility to the resume by having both econ and history to the resume. TOK is one of those subject areas you have to do to add it too your resume and TOK is a lot easier to prep for that MYP Humanities. Year 11 students havent checked out, and are under less stress than year 12 students.

[justlooking]

I think it's the latter, PsyGuy. There's some fundamental issue with the way the schedule is set up. Different sections of the same class (three sections of Economics, for example) run at the same time. Therefore, 3 different teachers are teaching it. That's nice for collaboration, but it means that each of us is taking on several different classes. This past year I was "collaborating" with 5 other people. So in one 40 minute session a week we were trying to plan units with common assessments, share teaching practices and resources, and standardize marking. Needless to say, it didn't get done.

We can only hope that someone looks seriously at the scheduling in the high school and things change in the following years. Either that or a good lot of experienced and highly competent teachers will move on to someplace with a more reasonable work load so that we can ply our craft more effectively.

[PsyGuy]

@justlooking

If that were true why doesnt your leadership want to fix it? You cant be the only one complaining about the schedule.
Hope rarely accomplishes anything in IE.

[Thames Pirate]

Sometimes the leadership simply doesn't care or, more likely, has other problems. We had that situation--incredibly lopsided and idiotic scheduling--and the reality was that it was a symptom of a much larger problem. The inept leadership created so many problems that a few teachers griping about a schedule was a minor concern.

[PsyGuy]

@Thames Pirate

That can be and isnt uncommonly true, but in IE ISs are generally much smaller, with an entity often limited to one campus, not the sprawling local authority/districts of many large metropolises. There is also an inherent correction mechanism in the form of parents, which wield considerably more influence in the IS community. If ITs are complaining regardless of the other problems, the IS is either circling the drain, or students will figure it out and parents will here about it. Leadership can only shrug and carry on as long as the revenue stream isnt interrupted.