Teacher Contracts General Matters Overview
Teacher contracts are lawfully mandating arrangements among the school quarter and the educator. Teacher contracts characteristically identify an educator’s annual wage (Salifu, 2013). The contract can refer to other benefits such as duration of the vacation, payment, rewards, etc. In addition, contracts specify the responsibilities of a teacher. A number of regions may retain the tutor’s occupation general by mentioning the educator as a “subordinate tutor” rather than an “English educator.” Schools turn to this practice just in the situation if the administration would require moving a tutor to a different spot when the school year initiates.
Other probable matters contained within a teacher contract may consist of evidence about recital assessments, necessities to reveal any felony custodies, supplies for laying off educators, and actions for encounter determination among educators and superintendents. Schools typically reveal the agreements at the end of the school year and provide the educators with ten days to evaluate the agreement. If the educator does not give back the contract by the time limit, the agreement becomes valueless (Chudgar, 2014). The two school contracts that are evaluated in the paper are the Cadillac Teacher Contract peculiar to the Cadillac Public Schools, Michigan, and the Brighton Teacher Contract peculiar to Brighton Area Schools. Michigan.
Cadillac Teacher Contract
Teacher Recruitment
Teacher contract covers a period of one scholarly year. When an educator is bounded by the contract, he is not able to abandon his employ without demanding to be unrestricted from the agreement. Correspondingly, for the duration of the contract period of time, the educational institutions are not able to discharge a teacher with an absence of a lawful hearing.
Salary and Retirement Fee
The typical wage for most Cadillac educators is between $41.000 and $65.000. The educators receive the wage according to the pattern that is very similar to the assembly line labors: the amount of money a person actually receives is resolute by a solitary pay plan that provides programmed pay promotions founded only on the time spent on the job plus extra teaching identifications. “Cadillac teachers receive “step” increases for their first 10 years in the district. These increases range from 2 to 5 percent, with the last step producing a 12 percent pay hike” (Cadillac teacher contract summary, 2010, para. 1).
The typical income of an educator in Cadillac Public Schools was more than fifty thousand dollars every year seven years ago, and the educators donated nothing to the price of their health cover. Nowadays, the situation remains almost unchanged and there is no significant growth of salary. However, public sector workers are suggested two hundred and twenty dollars as some health cover and teachers who work at public schools could also obtain this sum (Lott, 2013). The given information could be taken as the part of the present cooperative negotiating contract exchanged among the region and the local filial of the Michigan Education Association unification.
Nevertheless, the region grants a certain medical cover to educators. “The state average for a family premium is $13,160, and employees average paying 21 percent, or $2,800 of this amount. The Cadillac plan features no annual deductible, $5 office co-pay and a $10/$20 RX plan” (Cadillac, 2010, para. 1). Moreover, the educators receive an additional payment between seven and two hundred and eighty dollars per year if the region’s cover payments upsurge by less than seven percent every twelve months.
Being determined by various states regulations, the preliminary retirement fund for a Cadillac educator with 30 years’ teaching experience and a regular base income of sixty-five thousand dollars (the last stage of the income program) would be twenty-nine thousand dollars. For most teachers who had retired, this sum of money upsurges by three percent once in every twelve months. A worker may start amassing a retirement fund after reaching the age of fifty-five.
Tenure
The educators are approved for tenure after four years working in the field and as soon as tenured are assessed once every three years, but neither these assessments nor the presentation of their scholars has an impact on the salary of the teacher. Thus, it should also be said that the level of students performance is also taken into account and analyzed while making a certain decision.
The Elements of Due Process
A teacher contract turns out to be operative once the teacher signs and gives back the contract to his or her faculty’s superintendent.
Effective Staff Retained and Ineffective Ones Removed
The contract implicates the measurement of the teacher’s effectiveness indicators. One is warned that the poor performance leads to the nullification of the contract. Together with this, the effective teachers will receive promotion and the salary bonus.
Aspects of Professional Development
The contract includes stimuli for the professional development such as the increased payment rates and the guarantee to prolong the contract validity.
Common Planning Time And/Or Flex Time Included
Teachers are paid about $45 if they sub for another teacher. Coaching is also rewarded by stipends and teachers who are involved in the given issue might obtain it.
Teacher Evaluation and Motivation
The contract provides bonuses for extra activity and additional duties. Teachers can have 12 days leave for their private issues.
Supporting Student Achievement
The region provided $9200 per student in order to increase the level of their performance and improve their academic showings, which appears to be an upsurge of about four percent from the preceding school year (Sullivan, 2012).
Elements that Should Be Maintained
Investigation of the Cadillac Teacher Contract suggests that all the aspects concerning teacher motivation should be maintained because they provide the basis for teacher professional growth and improvement of students’ performance.
Elements that Should be Added to Impact Student Achievement
The evaluation of the contract suggests that it has enough regulations to stimulate teacher’s desire to improve the students’ performance.
Further Improvements
The contract provides quite unattractive compensation conditions for the new teachers. With this offer, it is questionable that the community will be able to motivate the young teachers to employ. Therefore, it is highly suggested that the entering salary rates are increased, as well as all compensation rates.
Brighton Teacher Contract
Teacher Recruitment
Teacher contract covers a period of 184.5 days (Brighton teacher contract summary, 2010, para. 10). When an educator is bounded by the contract, he is not able to abandon his employ without demanding to be unrestricted from the agreement, as well as for the duration of the contract period of time, the educational institution is not able to discharge a teacher with an absence of a lawful hearing.
Salary and Retirement Fee
The minimum wage for the most part of Brighton tutors is between fifty-six thousand and seventy-eight thousand dollars. Teachers are waged much like production line employees: personal payment is driven by a sole wage agenda that allows mechanical increment depend just on years on the post plus extra education attestation. Brighton professors get “step” escalations of four to five percent for their initial nine or ten years in the region. The last step boost on the payment programmed occurs in a mechanical thirteen percent leap in salary.
A family health cover strategy for a tutor costs the region about fourth six percent more than the regular establishment in the government. “The district paid $15,064 for each employee in 2008-2009, with teachers chipping in $450 annually” (Brighton teacher contract summary, 2010, para. 4). At the same time, “the average employers contribution for a family premium in Michigan is $10,341, with employees paying $2,800 per year. The Brighton plan features no deductibles or co-pays and a $10/$20 prescription plan” (Brighton teacher contract summary, 2010, para. 4). Each educator who fails to register for the region’s medical proposal obtains an additional three and a half thousand dollars annually. Any worker may start amassing a retirement fund, guaranteed by the contract after reaching the age of fifty-five
Tenure
Teachers receive tenure after four years of the teaching experience. The whole wage plan increases by one and one hundred twenty-five thousandths percent every year.
The Elements of Due Process
A teacher contract turns out to be operative once the teacher signs and gives back the contract to his or her faculty’s superintendent.
Effective Staff Retained and Ineffective Ones Removed
The contract implicates the measurement of the teacher’s effectiveness indicators. One is warned that the poor performance leads to the nullification of the contract. Together with this, the effective teachers are offered promotion and the salary bonus.
Aspects of Professional Development
The contract includes stimuli for the professional development such as the increased payment rates and the guarantee to prolong the contract validity.
Common Planning Time And/Or Flex Time Included
There is the number of hours which determine the functioning of a teacher and his/her schedule. Educators are able to take a paid sick leave in case of emergency. The number of these days is determined by the terms of the contract.
The agreement comprises extra wage for extra responsibilities. The educators make forty-five dollars per hour when they replace another tutor or have to teach scholars during a selected training time. “Coordinators get between $1,518 and $3,343 extra each year. Administering certain standardized tests pays between $1,569 and $3,173” (Brighton, 2010, para. 4). If a subordinate tutor takes on an extra lesson, they get an advantage of one-fifth of his or her income.
Teacher Evaluation and Motivation
Teacher performance is regularly evaluated to make decisions concerning motivation or penalties. The underperforming teachers are warned about the danger to be dismissed.
If an educator wants to perform some research activity, he/she could obtain some extra payment as a sort of reward. Teachers with the higher level of education receive better compensation.
Supporting Student Achievement
The contract provides a clear plan demonstrating how students’ performance affects the teacher’s compensation and one’s performance reputation.
Elements that Should Be Maintained
The contract provides the precise and detailed information on how teacher work is assessed and motivated. Thus, there are no elements that should be eliminated. However, since the contract is not in compliance to the economic capacity of the region, amendments are needed to ensure such compliance.
Elements that Should be Added to Impact Student Achievement
Although U.S. education tends to be organized around the principle that perfection has no limit and this is of course the best practice, the evaluation of the contract suggests that it has enough regulations to stimulate the teacher’s desire to improve the students’ performance for the current period.
Further Improvements
Brighton Area Schools belong to Michigan educational department presently functioning with a financial shortage. In accordance with the Michigan Division of Education, the region expended money over its limit by seventeen percent during the previous year. A place to begin seeking paths to escape the red would be the scholars joining the agreement, since the expenses controlled therein use up approximately seventy percent of the region’s primary state funds.
References
Brighton teacher contract summary. (2010). Web.
Cadillac teacher contract summary. (2010). Web.
Chudgar, A. (2014). Alternative forms of teacher hiring in developing countries and its implications: A review of literature. Teaching and Teacher Education, 37(1), 150-161.
Goldring, E. (2015). Principals’ human capital decisions and the emergence of teacher observation data. Educational Research, 44(2), 96-104.
Lott, J. (2013). State teacher union strength and student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 35(1), 93-103.
Salifu, I. (2013). Teacher motivation and identity formation: Issues affecting professional practice. Journal of Educational Studies, Trends and Practices, 3(1), 58-74.
Sullivan, J. (2012). A collaborative effort: Peer review and the history of teacher evaluations in Montgomery County, Maryland. Harvard Educational Review, 82(1), 142-152.