NEWS A Texas Team Ag Ed Publication
Do I Need
a
May 2018
Summer Plan?
Michael Meadows, Simms
It always amazes me how teachers are not considered state employees unless it benefits the state. Years without a state salary increase, increased annual healthcare costs, making it advantageous for established teachers to stay in the profession could really get me on my soapbox about what our state is not doing to attract good young teachers. However, I want to focus more we can control to solidify our employment locally. Regardless of what our state does, employment depends on what happens within our school districts and communities. Many factors determine if our local school boards, administrators, and communities consider the job we are doing a success. What constitutes success for an ag teacher differs from school district, maybe more so than any other subject area. Expectations from the community need to be clearly defined for ag teachers to meet them. All of us have strengths, weaknesses, and different aspects of a program that we are more qualified or passionate about. Some may find they are simply not a good fit for a community or school- this is ok! It is very important for the success of the program and the ag teacher that these issues are vetted on both sides before hiring decisions are made. Even after all this, there are still things an ag teacher needs to do to ensure a good working relationship with
school boards, administrators, and the local community. One thing to always remember is to communicate. Communicate with your community about what is going on in your program. It will go a long way in developing a healthy relationship between your ag education/FFA program and your community. Also, don’t keep your supervisor or administration guessing about what you are up. Most of us do a pretty good job of communicating our activities during the regular school year through lesson plans, schedules, and or calendars. However, how many of you turn in a plan for your summer activities? Summer plans help justify longer contracts and gave administrators and idea of how much work ag teachers do over the summer. A few years ago, when TEA no longer required teachers to file a summer plan, many stopped with their local administrators as well. Since then, many ag teacher position contracts have been cut back. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so. It is also an unfortunate fact that unless you inform them, most administrators have no idea what we do in the summer months or even after normal working hours during the school year. We can’t expect our supervisors and administrators to automatically know what all we do and the hours we put in. It is unrealistic to expect a school
district to offer an extended contract or an ag related stipend unless administrators know it is justified. The responsibility of justification is on us, and a summer plan is great tool to use when seeking an extended contract or stipend. These plans can be as detailed or as simple as you want them to be. There is a great summer plan resource on the VATAT website. Use this, or come up with your own, but do something to inform your school district of what you do as an ag teacher. I hope one thing you include in your summer plans is attending the VATAT Professional Development Conference in Lubbock this July. The VATAT Continue on page 2