Thank you for all of the responses. A couple of days ago I posted
the question "How much time is spent teaching classes?" for an elementary
librarian in my district. The average number of classes being taught per
week is 30.5 with most classes being 30 minutes in length. School sizes,
where given, ranged from 650 to 850 students. Most people are on fixed
schedules and are the planning period for their teachers. A couple of
people have fixed schedules but also have some flex time built in as well.
There were only a couple of responses where people had more than 200
minutes a week allocated for prep/planning. There was one person where by
contract where they had to be given a prep and another where the state
legislature had gotten into the fracas by mandating that teachers would have
a guaranteed 40 minute uninterrupted prep every day. One person had no prep
and was expected to do administrative duties before or after school on her
own time. One person is down to 3 hours a week and another is at 40 minutes
a day. The good news is that the majority of the respondents have at least
a part-time aide and in a lot of cases a full time aide/assistant. No one
said that they had enough time for doing "library stuff". Most of the
respondents are exhausted and are feeling frustrated.
Once again, thank you for your responses and I hope that this
information can be used by this librarian when she speaks with her principal
and that the second librarian can be allocated some "prep" time of her own
and maybe even give up her PE class!
-------------
You make it sound as though there is no prep, that is not allowed by
contract in our district. Our schedules have varied over the years. Some
years we have had one prep, lunch and taught 6 periods a day, other years we
have had 2 free periods a day. I currently teach in a school with 650 kids,
and I teacher 25 classes a week. When you are a prep, it is tough. We are a
prep in Marlboro Township.
-----------------
I have always asked those people who think I'm not working when I don't have
classes, why the public library has employees. They don't have students!
It makes them think, if nothing else.
In my case, we are a K-5 elementary school with 850 students. We have a
full time aide and 1 1/2 librarians (the 1/2 time librarian is at another
school the other half of the time). I have 45 scheduled classes, 25 minutes
each, with 5 minutes in between classes. My open times are available for
teachers to schedule their classes for research and/or collaborative
lessons. Students may exchange books at any time but our lunch time.
---------------
My pure library time has recently been reduced to 3 hours per week and it's
nowhere near enough. I have no aide and have always had at least 5 hours a
week to get things done.
-------------------
I teach 6 40 minute classes per day. I have one forty minute class prep per
day. In order to get the prep I leave lesson plans for a reading teacher to
cover library twice per week. However, I have a full time aid who starts
the day thirty minutes before school. I teach, I make
purchasing/discarding/display decisions but she handles everything else in
the library.
------------------
I teach 37 classes for 30 min./wk. I have a full time secretary. I do two
book clubs a year for 4th and 5th grades, which meet once/wk. for 6 wks.
--------------------
Over the 4 full days I work I have three 40 minute slots that are not spent
with classes. I try to catalog, organize displays and plan my lessons etc
etc in those 3 slots.
I could do with much more time for everything.
I also have a half time assistant but she does issues returns and shelving .
I rely on volunteers for most of my shelving and book covering / repairs
---------------
We have about 27 classes which we see 30 minutes a week. The teachers stay
with the classes and supposedly help out and supervise during checkout, and
most do, although a few have any excuse to run out. My assistant and I each
have a 50 minute playground and a 30 minute hall duty each week. The rest of
the time, except for eating lunch is supposedly ours, but there are students
and teachers coming in a lot of that time.
-------------------
I see 33 classes a week for 30 minutes each on a fixed schedule. I am the
classroom teachers' planning time. I also am the first line computer
troubleshooter for the building and the webmistress which keeps me pretty
busy! I have 30 minutes a day "planning time" of my own, but I have no
"negotiated" admin/processing time. Although I have a full time aide, she
is very busy checking in/out books, but helps with copy catalog donated
books. I do most things like lesson plans, budget, etc before or after
school or at home. Processing books is a long start-stop process when we
can squeeze it in. Forget keeping the shelves in perfect order!
---------------------
My day starts at 8 am and ends at 3 pm. In that time I teach 5 40 minute
classes, have one forty minute lunch period, and have a 40 minute lunch DUTY
period and 30 minute dismissal duty There is 5 minutes between each class. I
have an aide from 8:30 am to 11 am. The only time I get anything done is
after dismissal duty or if I put a video on. My prep is supposed to be from
8 to 8:55 but that's when the teachers come to ask me questions, and the
kids arrive and want to change their books.
It's a mess.
--------------
I have 26 classes K-4. The 6 K classes are 30 minutes, the rest are 45. I
have the same 200 minutes of 'plan' time as classroom teachers plus
approximately 6 hours (spread throughout the week) of 'management' time.
When I publish my schedule I make sure that people know what I do with the
'open' times...
------------
In my district, the number of classes we teach each week depends upon the
number of students in the school. Currently, our elementary libraries are
on fixed schedules and most of the teachers use the library time for their
planning period. The librarians see each class once a week, usually for a
35-40 minute period. All our elementary librarians have full time aides
(called library coordinators). The aides do most of the checking in and out
of books, shelving books and keeping track of overdue books. This allows
the librarians to concentrate on collaboration with teachers, researching
and teaching students.
-------------
The situation is similar where we are. All K-6 LMT's except for myself have
30 minutes classes for the entire day. District policy actual states that
LMTs are not to have a prep period although we provide prep for the other
teachers. All lesson planning and library management must be done before
and after school. I talked my principal into not having me do prep. I see
classes on two days of the week 8 classes per day. I have one day that is
totally for management and lesson planning. I'm very lucky to be able to
make my own schedule. I'm only at this school 3 days per week so I really
have to squeeze the work in on those days. But I love my job.
-----------
I don't have a lot of time, but sounds like I have more than she does. (Why
in heavens name is she teaching a PE class???) I teach 35 regular classes a
week for 30 min. each, which also includes about 10 minutes for checkout. I
do a few more "flexible" scheduled research classes a week. We have an open
library so there are plenty of drop-ins all day long. I have 2 hours on
Thursday pm for meetings and library work, plus 1 hour of planning time on
Mondays. I do not have to teach any other "outside" classes and our
teachers must accompany their classes to the library (not planning time for
them). I do not have an aid. I have about 750 students total. I do my own
PO's, receiving and book processing. I also run 6 reading programs
(including AR), do two book fairs a year, and various and sundry other
things (duty 3x a week), etc. I am exhausted! I feel the pain of no time to
do much library management or collaboration. Hope this helps.
-----------
In Arkansas, elementary librarians are also the teacher planning periods.
Our legislature, in its wisdom, mandated that all planning periods be an
uninterrupted 40 minutes per day, so those of us who had been having 30
minute classes wound up having 45 minute classes because 45 minutes were
easier to schedule than 40. Librarians found a receptive legislator who
submitted a bill that was passed giving elementary librarians 1/3 of the day
for administrative duties. We are still fighting battles with our
administrators to get that time...most of mine is on one day instead of
spread out over the week. Many of our librarians have solid classes all day
every day, but with the legislative bill to wave in front of principals,
some relief is being given. I have 25 45 minute classes but others in my
district have more than 30. It is tough!
Good luck.
-----------
I am in a grades 1 & 2 school. I teach 24 classes for 30 minutes each, per
week. It was 40 minutes, 2 years ago, and it was 29 classes too. I proposed
the reduction in time so that I could have flex scheduled collaborative
lesson time. I have a little more time for library management work that way
too, because I'm not totally booked for the flex time.
---------------
I work in a fairly small K-7 elementary school (12 classes). My library
assignment is 60% - of that, half is allocated to covering teacher prep.
time & half is allocated to Library.
With 15 hours per week - 7.5 hours is covering teacher prep & 7.5 is for
library admin & book exchanges for the intermediate classes (30 minutes,
during which I do a 'quick' library skills lesson & then the students sign
out books).
The intermediate teachers are to stay with their classes in the library. (I
negotiated the library skills with the individual classroom teachers. Yes it
is pretty much 'skills in isolation' - but it's better than nothing.) We
also have a grade 7 class that does independent research projects all year
long. They work in six-week cycles. This class has 'flexible' scheduling -
they may use the library anytime - even if I have a class, though they may
not interrupt a "lesson-in-progress".
FYI - the 50% prep coverage & 50% library time is a district-wide thing
here. The Principal tried to slot in more prep but I protested - & he ended
up hiring me to do 2 more blocks of primary teacher prep time. (So I'm now
at .672)
--------------
I have no aide and 15 library classes as well as 6 computer classes. I also
teach two AEP groups (small enrichment classes to mentor student projects
which take a lot of time at certain times of the year...) I have 4
"planning" periods (as do all teachers) but many times I solve tech problems
during those times. It just depends on how the day goes. I also have one
period that I call Library Admin. I have two periods where I do technology
stuff (not classes) such as log in requests or discuss problems with our
3-hour a week technician.
Finally, I have two 30 minute periods where kids come in to take AR tests
and some stay and shelve books. I also do AR with younger kids (again a
combination of AR and adult volunteer shelving over the lunch periods on the
other days.) I guess that is about everything. Oh, I do the AM and PM
announcements and two cafeteria duties per week. I do a lot of admin at home
but try to squeeze it in when I can.
-----------
I am an elementary librarian on a fixed schedule seeing 21 classes per week.
I see K-3 for 35 minutes and 4 and 5 for 40 minutes. I have no library aide
and we are still using the non-automated catalog system (which doesn't look
like it will change soon!) Our district also has no set curriculum and each
librarian in each school is doing completely different things (and I mean
completely!) I sometimes feel like I am struggling to reinvent the wheel.
(This is only my third year.) I don't know how many people are in this
situation but if there are others let me know!
-----------
I have 1/2- 1 hour average a day for planning and library administration and
I label them as such in my schedule and plan book. I also have 45 minutes
before school on the clock and the half an hour afterschool. I have an aide
who helps with reading, does lunch room duty and is on the playground twice
a day. She is in the library about 3-3 1/2 hours. I see primary classes once
a week for 30 minutes and intermediate classes once a week for 40-45
minutes. I see 29 classes.
Linda De Vore
Media Center Director
Casa Grande Middle School
Casa Grande, AZ 85222
linda.devore@cgelem.k12.az.us
"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most
accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." -
Charles W. Eliot
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