In response to the 6/19/2014 post, “The Astronomical Cost of Comp Time,” a LYS C/I Director writes:

SC,

I have to reply to your comp day example.  We use comp days to compensate staff for attending professional development in our district. This was the practice in the previous district I worked in as well. However, the comp days are designated on our calendar already.  So, instead of professional development during the year when teachers are busy and not focused, we have personalized professional development occur in the summer prior to the next year of instruction.

So, the cost is nothing for us except for the summer professional development costs.  The days they are off students are not in attendance and therefore instructional time isn’t lost.

Just another scenario for your comp day time since you note it as the worst option.  I think in the scenario you provide it is possible, but in our comp time scenario, I disagree with it being the worst option.

SC Response First, you and the district are to be commended for working to find a way to compensate staff for their off contract time spent on furthering the district’s mission.

And I appreciate that the days that teachers can use the comp time is predetermined by district calendar.  I too, did the same thing when I was in your position.  Teachers who attended extra summer training were able to take the entire Thanksgiving Week off, instead of just the last three days.

Seemingly a Win/Win.  But I wouldn’t do it now.  Now I would pay my teacher’s a stipend for off contract Summer Training and use the two days before Thanksgiving for on-going training, student staffings, team instructional planning and the like.  Are teachers distracted at that time of the year? Yes.  But as professionals, I would expect that given a meaningful task or activity the days could still be productive.

I just know that we talk team, we talk collaboration, and we talk on-going training.  But when we have opportunities to put that talk into practice, we have a lot of justifications for it just being talk.

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