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Bill would give teachers five more workdays
GREENSBORO — Long after students have left for the day, many teachers stay to plan.
Sometimes they huddle over a hurried lunch to share information with each other.
Not surprisingly, some teachers in Guilford County Schools like a proposed bill that would reinstate five teacher workdays lost under a 2004 bill that pushed back the start of school to late August.
“Other professions, they get time to plan,” said Gail Deal, a kindergarten teacher at Nathanael Greene Elementary.
Teachers are always on the run, she said.
“When these kids hit the door, you have to be on top of it,” she said.
Districts desperately need the days back to provide training and planning time for teachers, said LeeAnn Segalla, Guilford’s executive director of elementary curriculum and instruction.
The district already is looking at literacy training for kindergarten through second-grade teachers and math training for third- through fifth-grade teachers, she said.
State Sen. Jerry Tillman, a Republican from Archdale, introduced the bill last month after hearing from teachers from several counties.
“The issues seem to be, they need meaningful days, generally before the kids come, where they can get things done before the year starts,” he said.
Legislators this session have submitted several education-related bills, including changing the age at which students start kindergarten and increasing the age students must reach before being allowed to drop out.
Tillman’s bill would add back the five days lost to the calendar change but does not address pay or give teachers any control over how the days are used.
That makes teachers leery.
The extra time, without pay or a say in what it is used for, is not effective, said Susan Fleenor, an English teacher at High Point Central High School. The school or district will find something for teachers to do on those workdays, but Fleenor said, “I have plenty I can do on my own.”
She spent her winter break working on an Advanced Placement audit because there was no time during the workdays or planning she gets now.
Teachers complain that much of the workdays get earmarked for district-level training, leaving little time for teachers to plan, said Mark Jewell, president of the Guilford County Association of Educators.
Educators who plan well teach better, said Ken Robison, who works with students with disabilities at Jefferson Elementary.
“I can always use more days for planning,” Robison said. “That’s one of the critical things that’s missing.”
Angella Hauser, principal at Nathanael Greene, also would love to have the days back. She knows that some of the time might get taken by district training. But she hopes some would be left for planning and school-based training.
Tillman said he hoped school districts would work with their teachers to find the best way to use the days.
Guilford would work with principals, who should also be representing their teachers, on how any additional days would be spent, Segalla said.
The bill now sits in the hands of a legislative education committee. It must pass that committee and the full Senate, then go through the same process in the House before it could become law.

Contact Jennifer Fernandezat 373-7064 or jfernandez@news-record.com