A 'Grade-In' on a Sunny Saturday

More than 60 teachers from the Shoreline, Edmonds, Northshore and Lake Washington school districts spent a couple hours of a sunny Saturday afternoon grading papers at Third Place Commons Lake Forest Park to draw public attention to their profession.

The “grade-in” event held June 4, is a concept that has been promoted nationally by teacher’s unions to show the public that teachers jobs don’t end at the conclusion of the school day.

“We want to bring attention to all the work that teachers do off the clock that typically the public doesn’t see because it’s done at schools late at night or at home on their couch,” said Edmonds Education Association President Andi Nofziger. “Typically when I was teaching math I spent 10-12 hours every weekend getting ready for the upcoming week. People don’t see that.”

A similar grade-in event was held Saturday morning in Bellevue and last weekend at Southcenter Mall in Tukwila.

As class sizes are climb to more than 30 students per class in some schools despite evidence that students perform better in smaller classes, the strain on teachers increases as well. State money to ease class sizes has disappeared mostly because of the still stagnant economy and the Legislature has cut the amount of money it sends to districts.

“It takes me about five or six hours to grade one set of essays,” Shorecrest English teacher Britt Harris said. “When you have to close to 150 kids in five classes--one essay--that’s 30-40 hours of work right there for one paper.”

Mary Haltiner of Shoreline teaches eighth grade at Kenmore Junior High and had 100 tests to grade Saturday for a Monday deadline.

“I just have a lot to do and that’s only three classes,” she said, adding that her largest class has 32 students.

Katy Rubinkowski, who teaches second grade at Martha Lake Elemetary in Lynnwood, said she loves teaching but when she used to work for a Danish electronics manufacturer, she did not have to work outside normal work hours or pay for her own employee development.

“At 5 p.m. I left and I went home,” she said.  “When I worked for this company Bang & Olufsen I could take any class I wanted. I even took voice lessons, art and they paid for it as long as I got a ‘C’ or better it was not required to keep my certificate or my job there. Here we’re required to take 15 credits every five years and we have to pay for it out of our own pocket.”

Eric Scaia, who taught math for nine years at Shorewood High School, and is now president of the Shoreline Education Association, the district teachers union felt the event was successful and had a good turnout for such a nice day weather-wise.

“I think in the last six to nine months teachers have felt attacked in the public,” he said. “There seems to be this archetypal teacher that’s has been teaching for awhile who doesn’t care anymore and doesn’t actually do their job. It’s this bad teacher out there who doesn’t really exist or isn’t the norm, Teachers are really good at doing their jobs they spend a ridiculous amount of time away from school to help students learn. We wanted to make sure people saw that.” 

Lyn Sherry, the UniServ representative that assists local teachers' unions, said similar events will likely take place next year. Last November, voters made it clear they did not want their taxes raised to pay for budget deficits.

"We've reached a tipping point,"  she said. "We want to help the public understand every vote they take impacts schools and kids."