The information, as presented to me today, was akin to someone telling me the world was, after all, flat.  And here is the proof.  And what you thought about the world has been wrong all along.  And it was presented with such assuredness, that I had to see the truth in it.  It was if someone opened a window and let in light that had me see thing, what I have been doing an how I thought about it in a completely different way.

I would love to say this mind-altering experience was about student learning or creating community, but it was not.  It was about the job of what I do.  

For nearly all of the last 13 years, we have had 'short days' on Wednesday.  We use this time to collaborate and plan, usually at grade level, but sometimes school wide.  When this was first implemented, we were told what to do on those Wednesdays and that we had to document what we were doing.  We had to shift our day to make the other days of the week longer, in order to have the correct instructional minutes. 

As time has gone on, we have had more and more administrative tasks to do at our Wednesday planning time.  At first, it was used almost exclusively for grade-level planning.  In the last few years, we have had fewer and fewer grade-level days.  We have, instead, had days where we have had to do data analysis and review school goals and student achievement.  Granted, all of this is valuable and has benefited our school, but we really need a balance of days.  This year, in particular, when we have had so much taken away from us in planning time, we need less administrative tasks and more control over what we use those Wednesdays for. 

It turns out, all those meetings I have attended - all of them - every Wednesday, and sometimes Fridays, were not required.  They were optional.  My contract says that my time, after the established instructional day, is mine.  This blows me away.  We spent quite a bit of time last year helping our administrator decide what we would spend our Wednesdays doing.  We voted on it, we discussed it at length.  In none of those discussions, in no conversation ever, was it suggested these meetings were optional - that this was OUR time we were giving freely over to the school. 

Granted, I probably would have done most of the planning and school wide planning that we have always done, as would have my colleagues, but I would have liked to have been given a choice.  

I am not sure why we were laboring under the assumption that these were 'required'.  It might have something to do with the frequent use of words like "mandatory" to describe these meetings, and having to provide 'minutes' of what we did to justify our time.  I think what sealed the idea that these were required meetings was being told not to schedule medical appointments on Wednesdays, because I had to be at the planning meetings.  If I needed to make a medical appointment, I should do it on my own time, or get a substitute and take a personal day of leave. 

Now, I am sure my administrator believed that these were mandatory meetings.  I am sure she believes that she is allowed to tell us we have to be there - that we are, in fact, to stay at school until 3 pm, even though the students leave at 1:15.  And that it is her job to ensure we are being productive with this time.  

The problem is, she is wrong.  According to our union president, which a colleague spoke to at length today, not only does this violate our contract, the union is going to file an official complaint on our behalf - not because we requested it, but because it is such an egregious violation of our contract it needs to be addressed.  We, as a staff, have put in far more time than our colleagues at other schools in the district.  And it is a large district. 

And I am feeling like I was just shown the earth revolves around the sun.  I see it, I believe it, but it is just hard to get my head around.  All that time.  All those meetings.