For three months,teachers set their own schedules; but for some, work doesn’t always end when the school year does
Some never leave the classroom. Some travel well beyond the walls of their schools. Others catch up on sleep or yard work.
For teachers throughout eastern Montgomery County, the summertime marks a welcome change of pace where they are able to set their own schedules.
‘‘We have this inside joke, that the reasons to teach are June, July and August. ... But really, it is a very, very stressful job,” said Takoma Park resident Elizabeth Wade, an eighth-grade science teacher at Silver Spring International Middle School.
Wade will be spending her summer training her German shepherd Berlin in rescue tracking and obedience. The two will spend a week together at a camp in Wisconsin to make a champion tracker out of Berlin.
‘‘I look forward to the time off,” Wade said. ‘‘Truly, when you get those light bulb moments, that’s when you know why you’re doing it. It’s worth it for that. ... But it is a tough job.”
Gaithersburg resident Jacqui Phillips, a high school English teacher at Wheaton High School for the last four years, said she has grown used to the attitude of ‘‘you poor thing, you have the summers off” among her friends outside of the school system.
But by the time the summertime comes, most teachers are drained, she said. After teaching about 130 teenagers a day, Wade said she looks forward to time off.
‘‘The first summer I had, I wanted to do absolutely nothing. It was this novel concept,” she said. ‘‘But since then, it’s become important to have things scheduled for myself. ... You really have to keep it structured.”
Phillips is spending her summer taking two courses on technology for educators at Johns Hopkins University. The state requires teachers to take six credits for recertification every five years, Phillips said, and rewards teachers with salary boosts if they pursue masters’ level coursework. The Montgomery County Public Schools system also pays back some of the tuition if teachers receive a B or better.
According to the most recent survey from the National Education Association on how teachers spend personal time, about 35 percent of teachers surveyed nationwide in 2003 said they were participating in courses and activities sponsored by their school systems in the summertime.
‘‘Many of them take professional development courses because that’s easier to do in the summer,” said Daniel Kaufman, a spokesman for the Maryland State Teachers Association, a group associated with the National Education Association. ‘‘It needs to be said that most teachers during the school year work much more than just the usual daily schedule. ... They’re usually in the 60-hour per week range.”
Burtonsville resident Jim Street, a Takoma Park Middle School computer science teacher for the last 25 years, said for many teachers, the summer is much like a weekend. It’s over before they know it, he said.
‘‘When the summer first starts up, you think about all this stuff that’s going to be done,” said Street, who is taking night classes at the University of Maryland at University College this summer. ‘‘But pretty soon, it’s the last couple days before summer’s over.”
Early in his teaching career, Street spent summers working in construction and pool repair. Since then, the county has offered teachers an option to receive paychecks through the summer, ‘‘so you’re not nearly as poor,” Street joked.
‘‘The bills don’t stop coming in the summer,” he said. ‘‘You take the time to fix things up, take that family vacation.”
Many teachers try to schedule travel. Katie Kelel, an English for Speakers of Other Languages teacher at Springbrook High School, will be trekking throughout Peru. Kathleen Hucks, a kindergarten teacher at East Silver Spring Elementary School, is taking a cruise with her family.
Dan Bell, a first-year video music production teacher at the Chelsea School in Silver Spring, said once he finishes his master’s degree in special education at Trinity University in Washington, D.C., this summer, he plans to spend subsequent summers abroad. But that doesn’t mean he’ll stop thinking about his classroom during his time off.
‘‘I think all teachers can never really let it go,” said Bell, a Silver Spring resident. ‘‘It’s always on your mind.”
Teachers’ opinions vary on the idea of a 12-month academic year, with short vacations scheduled around holidays rather than the traditional summertime block. Proponents argue that children forget much of what they learned during the school year once summer hits. Opponents say the method inconveniences parents and wears out teachers.
Wade said it was an interesting idea as long as teachers were compensated. Bell said that kind of schedule would enable him to travel off-season.
Phillips said she likes the calendar as it is, and not only because she loves her summers off.
‘‘Working with a child, every minute of a day, it really is very physically, emotionally and mentally draining,” she said. ‘‘That’d be what I’d be most concerned about. You really do need that break, and I think the kids do, too.”
