We like the idea of staff development being related to the needs of the students because that's what we're about. We also talked about improvements that could be made in Human Resources. They need more people. We felt compensation needed to be looked at across the board with more support for National Board certification, compensation for taking classes at the universities, more time to do that, and consideration on how to build in more time. At another table of teachers, the discussion focused on the demands on their schedules, incentives for veteran teachers, and the need for greater respect.
Benefits are unbelievable and they have a lot of respect from the community.
That's probably because when you look at the socio-economic structure of that community, teachers are not on the bottom rung as they are here. I hate to say it, but your financial situation goes a long way to determining what kind of respect you get. I think she would be a great teacher, but it's too uncool for her to say she would study education. Teachers had a chance to voice their concerns and provide their feedback to the report. Along with the desire for respect and the need for support, a number of teachers talked about the demands on their time.