Enjoy a traditional Chanakuh dinner at the Jewish Community Center

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Zeroing In: Who’s been naughty and who’s been nice?

The perennial complaint rises with the snow drifts. The more frequently flakes and ice delay school openings, the more likely criticism of teachers getting paid for not working appears &#8212; in letters to the editor, online comments and pundit rebukes.&#8220;If it&#8217;s a two-hour delay, why don&#8217;t they get out two hours later?&#8221; one reader posted to the Times Leader site in March.Teacher union representatives and others versed in the law say such fault-finding is flawed. On the surface, the numbers can seem damning, especially when winter whacks the region on a near-weekly basis, as happened last year:&#8226; 24 hours lost to snow delays in Crestwood and Dallas school districts&#8226; 26 in Greater Nanticoke Area, Lake-Lehman and Wyoming Valley West&#8226; 28 in Hanover Area and Wyoming Area&#8226; 31 hours in Wilkes-Barre Area, the only local district to call for three-hour delays, and a Luzerne County-topping 36 hours in Hazleton Area, the county&#8217;s largest district in both enrollment and square miles.To estimate the cost, the Times Leader began with total teacher salary payroll, divided it by 185 school days (typical in teacher contracts) for a daily payroll, and divide again by 7.5 hours, often the maximum contracted work day for teachers (some are seven hours).The results: The estimated total paid to teachers in Luzerne County public schools for what critics argue were hours not worked last winter due to weather delays topped $3.66 million.And that doesn&#8217;t count Pittston Area, which did not respond to several requests for data (a rough estimate based on snow delays in neighboring districts and state data on salaries sets the cost to Pittston Area at around $200,000).How is this justified?Hourly vs. salaryFirst and foremost, union representatives and some experts from public school advocacy groups said, teachers may have contracted hours, but they are not paid by the hour.&#8220;They are salaried employees, not hourly employees,&#8221; union representative Paul Shemansky said.Shemansky is spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association Northeast Region Office. PSEA is the largest teacher union in the state, and the parent agency of unions in 10 of Luzerne County&#8217;s 11 districts.&#8220;That&#8217;s 7.5 hours classroom time, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that&#8217;s the end of your day,&#8221; Shemansky said, noting his wife is a teacher. &#8220;There&#8217;s so much more. You have to grade tests, read papers &#8212; it just goes on and on.&#8220;All the planning that goes into the job does not occur within the span of that school day,&#8221; said Linda McClosky Houck, union president and teacher at Wyoming Valley West School District. &#8220;Most of the preparation for what a teacher does happens outside school.&#8221;Besides, Shemansky and Houck both noted, the state has a minimum number of hours students must complete in a school year &#8212; 990 for high schools and 900 for elementary schools &#8212; and that doesn&#8217;t change because of two-hour delays. If anything, the requirement discourages too many delays or early dismissals, Houck said.&#8220;You have to count the minutes,&#8221; Houck said. &#8220;If they have too many hourly delays, they have to make up the minutes, which is why, I believe, most districts don&#8217;t do three-hour delays.&#8221;In fact, area districts often have more school hours built into their calendars than the state minimum, precisely so they have breathing room when snow delays or other emergencies cut into classroom time.&#8220;We have 185 teacher days and 182 student days,&#8221; Houck said of Wyoming Valley West. &#8220;We added minutes into our school day years ago.&#8221;One other nuance should be remembered, Houck said: &#8220;Teacher&#8217;s don&#8217;t set the schedule. The determination of snow delays and early dismissals is made by the superintendent of schools and the administration for the safety of students.&#8221;Enjoying a breakNot that teachers don&#8217;t quietly welcome the break of an occasional delay. Dave Usavage, retired after teaching at Wyoming Valley West for decades, conceded it was easy to feel relief when a call came late in the evening announcing a two-hour delay.&#8220;You say, &#8216;Oh great, I don&#8217;t have to wake up as early&#8217;,&#8221; Usavage admitted. But that visceral reaction disappears quickly if delays start to pile up.&#8220;One two-hour delay is pretty much a relief, but get two in a week or three in two weeks and you have to worry about it,&#8221; Usavage said. &#8220;You lost six hours of time, and what do you take out to make it up? If you planned correctly, you don&#8217;t have six hours extra.&#8221;The problem is compounded with struggling students, particularly in elementary grades, who need a consistent schedule to succeed, Usavage said. When delays keep coming, &#8220;You know it&#8217;s going to have an impact.&#8221;Usavage, who previously sat on the Dallas School Board and, after moving, won a seat on the Wyoming Valley West School Board, said part of the reason school delays get more attention is because there are more of them. District consolidation has meant fewer schools and more bus trips, so fear of slick pavement in a forecast prompts earlier decisions to delay putting students on the road.&#8220;There are definitely more snow delays than there used to be,&#8221; Usavage said. &#8220;But I don&#8217;t see it as time off for teachers. I don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s happy because they are getting paid for two hours not in school.&#8221;Semantics and lawPerhaps more importantly, the distinction between hourly and salaried employees is not semantic &#8212; or even strictly contractual. It is a matter of federal law, Pennsylvania School Board Association Spokesman Steve Robinson pointed out; specifically, the Federal Labor Standards Act, which sets minimum wage and overtime rules.&#8220;Teachers are salaried, FLSA-exempt employees who receive their full salaries for partial work days unless they are required to use sick or personal leave, just like all exempt employees,&#8221; Robinson wrote in an email.Being exempt essentially means an employee isn&#8217;t hourly, regardless of contract language.&#8220;While the collective bargaining agreement does set out the number of days in the work year and the length of a normal school day, they legally are not hourly employees whose pay may be docked,&#8221; Robinson wrote.Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials Director of Member Assistance Jeff Ammerman said the contracted hours should be considered what&#8217;s expected, not necessarily what&#8217;s required. In theory, having contracted hours prevents an employer from overworking salaried staff.&#8220;They are there during the day, but they grade homework at night and they are not paid to do that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When you or anyone is a salaried professional, you work the hours you work and there is no overtime.&#8221;Usavage pointed out one other consideration: If you start docking teachers for snow delays, they could counter that they should also get overtime pay.Contract vs. commitmentThere is also the matter of volunteer time from teachers, Shemansky argued. Area residents may take such work for granted until a local union, frustrated with stalled contract talks, votes to &#8220;work to rule,&#8221; meaning they do only the work explicitly listed in the contract.&#8220;On average, teachers volunteer about 12 hours a week,&#8221; Shemansky said.Houck said there is another factor residents may not see that motivates teacher work beyond the classroom: High-stakes standardized tests and curriculum mandates.&#8220;We are salaried professionals; we are paid to do a certain job and have a certain amount of time to cover the curriculum,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Every delay impacts that.&#8221;The importance of covering all material grew when the state introduced the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment standardized tests in 1995. The number of tests and the students who take them kept growing, and the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind law set minimum test results each year.More recently, the state tied teacher evaluations to student test results &#8212; all of which means any decrease in class hours can increase work for teachers trying to catch up. &#8220;Our students are taking the PSSAs whether there are no snow delays, or there is a snow delay every day,&#8221; Houck said.She added that there are other causes for lost classroom time beyond weather &#8212; from worthwhile school assemblies to emergency evacuations for, say, a suspected gas leak.&#8220;Two-hour delays are an anomaly,&#8221; she said, just like unexpected evacuations or early dismissals, and all such delays cut into the teachers&#8217; time to cover material. But the cause is what should matter most, she added.&#8220;The primary concern is always the safety of the students and everybody who is in that building.&#8221;<style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Mark Guydishmguydish@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</shirttailMeta></div>

Teacher pay for snow delays: Real cost or legal mirage?