On Tuesday, I get the pleasure of speaking to new teachers in the BTSA program. My task is to give them information on different parts of our contract. I always know what I want to say, but don't always know how to say it. Anyone else have this problem? I really want to make the sections I'm responsible for as accessible as possible. Anyone who has ever read a contract knows that most contracts have a lot of verbiage that makes you want to poke your eyeballs out.
As part of my bargaining team this year, I know the contract pretty well, better than most people that have been with the district longer than I have. That being said, there are times when I get stumped and sometimes just looking at the contract doesn't make it any easier.
In writing new contract language for our contract, we have been drawn into long conversations between the gist of such words as "may" and "shall" and "will" seriously! It is enough to make anyone go a wee bit crazy (something that I don't necessarily need).
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5 comments:
This sounds like a job that could lead to an exploding head.
Yuck. I guess pretend you're trying to explain the contract to your middle schoolers (not condescending to the new teachers) I just mean if you're trying to put in in language simple enough for your middle schoolers to understand, then the teachers should get it too.
I hate trying to figure out contract stuff. Some of ours just plain goes against common sense!
Contracts! Blech.
You're a good soul, the work you do, good soul.
Oy. I was the lead negotiator on the contract for my association last year, and those were the conversations that drove me nuts:
"We want to change the word "will" to "may" on line 35."
"But if it says may, then you won't."
"What if we said that we shall, after association input? Then maybe we will shall do this thing."
(head explodes)
The sausage factory metaphore is apt; the final product is always much easier to see than the process.
I'm not a California teacher, but I think I'll thank my contract negotiator tomorrow morning!
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