Dear Members of the APS Board of Education,

I am writing to you out of my deep concerns about the proposal to rearrange the schedule of APS high schools next year so that teachers would teach six classes rather than five but with the same total number of students (150 for English Language Arts teachers and 160 for all other teachers).This proposal means more work for teachers at no additional pay, although it might appear otherwise on paper to someone who doesn't teach high school. A teacher's overall number of students affects grading load and some classroom management issues, but going from 30 students to 25 or from 32 to 27 per class is not a significant difference in a teacher's classroom paradigm, so having a sixth class with fewer students in each class does not equate to the same workload.

The number of classes per teacher is the primary issue. Ask any high school teacher who has ever "sold their prep,” or agreed to give up their preparation period and teach a sixth class for a 20% increase in salary. I've done this -- once. I'll never do it again.It's indescribably exhausting. Each section of each class requires the activity and attention that the material and lesson plan require, and teaching a sixth class is a 20% increase in work, regardless of how many students are in class.Yes, a class that is too large is harder to teach and reduces individual attention, but trust me, in my sixteen years of teaching I've taught classes as large as 36 and as small as 16, and the effort I expend in class doesn't become "less work” until the class is smaller than about 17 students.Every class requires presenting information, explaining material and assignments, and supervising and evaluating in-class work, as well as taking attendance, stating and repeating what's required for homework, collecting assignments, dealing with passes from the office, and managing the students' attention and behavior.Having five fewer students in the room doesn't decrease any of that significantly, so six classes of the same total number of students is not "the same amount of work.”

This schedule proposal puts the burden of our budget shortfalls squarely on the shoulders of teachers, and we can't take any more.(I wrote a much longer version of this letter that details so much of what we already endure.)Too many of my talented and accomplished colleagues have left teaching before retirement or retired before they had planned to because of the unacceptable conditions of teaching today, and forcing more responsibility onto us will only lead more of us to leave. This is a direct result of what you're considering right now.If you increase the burden on teachers, you increase the burden on students.Period.

Budgeting is not my area of expertise, but this proposal is not the correct solution. Just one more unnecessary burden, something like teaching a sixth section per year with no more pay, could very well be enough to keep me and a lot of other great teachers from showing up to teach again in August.I love my job.Please believe me. I'm only asking for the conditions of my job to be left the way they are.The only thing apparently wrong with our current high school schedule is the cost, and money is the worst reason to change anything in education.