Double Take- opposing Camps

amother

Pansy

Sun, Sep 08 2024, 1:42 pm

amother Bergamot wrote:

Oh, right. I forgot about that. Still, I also teach high school and although I'm not setting up my classroom, I still check that I have the textbooks and other supplies that I need, that the room is set up, and also we do spend some time on a teachers meeting. I can't imagine coming back from camp on Sunday and starting school on Monday.

She wrote how she really needs this money from camp to support her family, in order to get the camp job this is the sacrifice she has to make, I am guessing that preparing is not easy for her
It's understandable and she did the best she could to accommodate both jobs

amother

↑ Bergamot ↓

Sun, Sep 08 2024, 1:50 pm

groisamomma wrote:

As a teacher and married staff member at a camp, I was incredulous reading this.

1) With the base salary and all the perks that come with working in a sleepaway camp, it is fair to say the pay is easily double the monthly salary of a teacher throughout the year. Hence, it gets priority when the schedules conflict.

2) I thought the principal wrote that it was worked into the contract that they’d have to take a Personal Day if they missed it. In that case, it’s the teacher’s choice and she has the right to miss it in exchange for a personal day. But three personal days?? That would never have made it onto a decent teacher contract, and is just spiteful on the principal’s part.

I hear and understand the background the principal gave, and the importance of this particular training, however any way you slice it it’s the teacher’s choice to take the ONE personal day in the contract, especially if she was willing to make it up when she got back.

AIUI, it was going to be three days of training - which is absolutely ridiculous on the face of it: how dare you force people to spend three days of unpaid time on training? - so by missing it, she'd be missing three days = 3 personal days. Really spiteful, as you say.

↑ ittsamother

Sun, Sep 08 2024, 3:07 pm

groisamomma wrote:

The only mention of contract, actually, was where the principal says:

"I believe the dates were on your yearly planner, which was sent out when you signed the contract."

amother

↑ OP

Sun, Sep 08 2024, 4:34 pm

Just curious- do any of you ever write in to the mishpacha to give your takes?
I think these double take discussions here are really interesting.

Regarding coming back a day before school: of course ideally she should come back a few days before. But if it meant missing another day of camp, I totally get why she wouldn't. Also, after several years of teaching, there's isn't much prep needed. I didn't look at my books from he last day of school until I walked into class on the first day. I knew the material by heart by that point, so prep was no problem.

farm

Mon, Sep 09 2024, 6:34 am

It wasn’t one of the better Double Takes because it’s the kind of thing that lends itself to a halachic sheila-
Does the school have the right to enforce a contract clause that was never enforced in previous years with a few weeks notice?
And even if the answer would be yes (skeptical), it’s definitely a situation where principal may win the battle but will lose the war.
Teacher will either leave, or stay with a massive amount of toxic animosity that will spread among the staff and/or she will use ‘personal days,’ run out of them, and realize that it’s empowering to decide the school doesn’t own her and it’s worth her menuchas hanefesh to take unpaid days instead of folding herself into a pretzel not to use an hour off more than absolutely necessary, as she has always done previous years. So she will start padding her visits out of state to her family for yom tov and simchas, etc. And who really loses in the end? Principal and the students.
The principal is such a poor personnel manager, I found it hard to read.