Teacher who was late 111 times says he was eating breakfast

SMTA said:

Then that teacher needs to make their own decision.

It is not relevant to the requirement of being at work on time, especially when there are several dozen students waiting.

Two wrongs do not make one right.

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Greetings, SMTA. :2wave:

:agree: If he knew about, and agreed to the bus duty, he should keep his side of the agreement. This doesn't have anything to do with his habitual tardiness, IMO.

faithful_servant said:

Why are you defending this guy?? He's in violation of his employment contract, he's setting a horrible example for his kids and you're defending him. WHY??

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Do we know that?

That he's "setting a horrible example for his kids"?

I don't know much at all about a primary/secondary school teacher's work day.

Is it possible that this guy was late "for work" but not late "for class", in which case the kids would never know that he was late?

I mean, maybe the policy is that the teachers are required to be in the school building prepping for class or attending a department meeting, or whatever, at 0800 but class doesn't actually start until 0830?

polgara said:

Greetings, SMTA. :2wave:

:agree: If he knew about, and agreed to the bus duty, he should keep his side of the agreement. This doesn't have anything to do with his habitual tardiness, IMO.

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he did not volunteer for the bus duty
it was assigned to him - beyond the contract defined work hours
so, does he comply with that contract provision and abandon the safety of the students and leave at the contracted time just as there are those who insist he is wrong because he arrived minutes late to campus - again outside the contracted work hours

Full disclosure: I only read the first 10 or so posts, so if any more relevant information came out after that, please let me know.

soot said:

Do we know that?

That he's "setting a horrible example for his kids"?

I don't know much at all about a primary/secondary school teacher's work day.

Is it possible that this guy was late "for work" but not late "for class", in which case the kids would never know that he was late?

I mean, maybe the policy is that the teachers are required to be in the school building prepping for class or attending a department meeting, or whatever, at 0800 but class doesn't actually start until 0830?

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That is how it works at most schools where I'm from. For example, the first class starts at 8, but I have to be at work by 7:30.

It's inexcusable that he's late and his tardiness should have been handled correctly. Furthermore, being late 111 times has nothing to do with breakfast. I'll guarantee you it was about far more than that, likely some kind of power play he's trying to have with the administration. And, if the administration would do their job the way they are supposed to, tenure would not save his job.

But, at the end of the day, there's nothing here to suggest this is about kids. This issue is between a teacher and his administration. We should leave the kids out of it.

donsutherland1 said:

I believe the School District tried to take action. That has indefensible actions are being supported is, IMO, the problem. There should have been no opposition to his being disciplined or fired.

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False. The opposition is not regarding the teacher's actions, but rather the violation of his contract. If the contract requires certain measures to be followed, then the administration should be required to follow their policies.

If we do not require administrations to uphold their own policies, then good teachers get fired for no reason better because they made Johnny, the school board member's son, sit in timeout during recess. Tenure is there to provide teachers with due process. It does not protect the jobs of bad teachers, it just requires the school to have legitimate reasons for dismissal, rather than simply because someone doesn't like the teacher.

JasperL said:

But it was over two years, so his attendance grade was 69.2%. So you just failed your math quiz..

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Nah. That wouldn't be math, would be reading comp. Those are different subjects. I assumed 1 year. But. All that is irrelevant.

69.2% isn't exactly a stellar performance is it? Would you get fired for being late 30% of the time? I would be. In fact...I wouldn't argue a bit. 111 times is a JOKE. Buy an alarm clock. Period. There is no defense for being late 111 times in 360 days of the job you are getting paid to do.

soot said:

Do we know that?

That he's "setting a horrible example for his kids"?

I don't know much at all about a primary/secondary school teacher's work day.

Is it possible that this guy was late "for work" but not late "for class", in which case the kids would never know that he was late?

I mean, maybe the policy is that the teachers are required to be in the school building prepping for class or attending a department meeting, or whatever, at 0800 but class doesn't actually start until 0830?

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If it says be there at 8...be there at 750. Start your day at 8. Simple. If you are being paid to be there from 8-3...you are in your assigned location there from 8-3. I would fire anyone incapable of handling that. So would any good employer.

Much ado...

Apparently (and there is no counter to his claim) the teacher never was late to class. He was late clocking in. From what was described, there is a period of time where the doors are opened and the teachers file in. There is a line to clock in. of all the times he was 'late' (which means being AT the school, not in the classroom) only 6 of those 111 times was he 5 minutes or more late, only 1 time in 15 years was he 10 minutes late (and he called in...had car problems), and never missed a classroom or teachers meeting.

I know...I know...but he was still 'late'. Late for...coffee? late for being in the teachers lounge? I have a weekly staff meeting. I HATE meetings. I hate these particular staff meetings because the first 5-10 minutes are all bull**** ramblings. So I am routinely late to those staff meetings knowing I wont miss a thing. If it ever becomes a problem, the senior leadership is required to counsel me and provide me a written statement with a corrective action plan, or during evals...it never happened. So...it never happened.

It sounds like a similar situation for the teacher. There is no record he was ever counselled or disciplined. Realistically...he probably figured being a few minutes late to clock in and sit in the lounge and drink coffee wasnt that big of a deal. He is probably right. And if it IS a big deal...the management is required to address it. They didnt. I dont see the hullabaloo.

Slyfox696 said:

Full disclosure: I only read the first 10 or so posts, so if any more relevant information came out after that, please let me know.
That is how it works at most schools where I'm from. For example, the first class starts at 8, but I have to be at work by 7:30.

It's inexcusable that he's late and his tardiness should have been handled correctly. Furthermore, being late 111 times has nothing to do with breakfast. I'll guarantee you it was about far more than that, likely some kind of power play he's trying to have with the administration. And, if the administration would do their job the way they are supposed to, tenure would not save his job.

But, at the end of the day, there's nothing here to suggest this is about kids. This issue is between a teacher and his administration. We should leave the kids out of it.
False. The opposition is not regarding the teacher's actions, but rather the violation of his contract. If the contract requires certain measures to be followed, then the administration should be required to follow their policies.

If we do not require administrations to uphold their own policies, then good teachers get fired for no reason better because they made Johnny, the school board member's son, sit in timeout during recess. Tenure is there to provide teachers with due process. It does not protect the jobs of bad teachers, it just requires the school to have legitimate reasons for dismissal, rather than simply because someone doesn't like the teacher.

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Is 7:31 considered "late" or is there a grace period?

Crovax said:

Is 7:31 considered "late" or is there a grace period?

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I'm always at work by around 7. But I suspect if a teacher was running a minute or two late, it would not be a big deal. Running 5-10 minutes late wouldn't be a big deal, so long as it was not a regular occurrence.

But this situation seems, to me (and I do have some sense of how these things go), that this isn't about being late. This is about a teacher and administration not getting along and getting into a power struggle. The teacher's argument is asinine...and the administration didn't take the steps they were supposed to take. It sounds like two sides trying to get at one another just out of spite.

stonewall50 said:

Nah. That wouldn't be math, would be reading comp. Those are different subjects. I assumed 1 year. But. All that is irrelevant.

69.2% isn't exactly a stellar performance is it? Would you get fired for being late 30% of the time? I would be. In fact...I wouldn't argue a bit. 111 times is a JOKE. Buy an alarm clock. Period. There is no defense for being late 111 times in 360 days of the job you are getting paid to do.

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As I said, no, I wouldn't have been. I never had a job as an adult post-college when being "late" was something anyone tracked or cared about. I had to bill hours and if I got those between noon and 4am, and managed to attend client and firm meetings, no one would care a lick. And the very simple observation by the arbitrator and many on this thread is his employer let him slide on being late 110 times, so the rational conclusion anyone in that place of business would draw is their employer also didn't care about being "late" so long as he was on time for class, which he said he was.

So let me ask you a question. Would it take 110 times being late before your employer pulled out the big hammer and gave you an ultimatum? If he or she didn't say anything or cause you to suffer any consequences for 110 times, I'd put the fault largely on their incompetence, not yours, for failing to set and enforce reasonable workplace standards, then arbitrarily deciding that the standards they failed to enforce were a sufficient cause for firing YOU. They ought to be fired, IMO.

It's why this whole thing is so weird. It's a kind of passive aggressive management style to carefully document 111 late arrivals, do nothing, then after the second year of chronic lateness fire the person. If being late MATTERED to the operations of the school or to the other teachers, the Principle or whoever is simply massively incompetent to allow it to continue for two dang years. So being late didn't actually matter to anything, or if it did, getting rid of the teacher was put ahead of getting his behavior changed so the school ran better. Neither one really makes all that much sense.

donsutherland1 said:

I believe the School District tried to take action. That has indefensible actions are being supported is, IMO, the problem. There should have been no opposition to his being disciplined or fired.

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if i am reading this correctly, you are advocating that the teacher not be entitled to due process

justabubba said:

he did not volunteer for the bus duty
it was assigned to him - beyond the contract defined work hours
so, does he comply with that contract provision and abandon the safety of the students and leave at the contracted time just as there are those who insist he is wrong because he arrived minutes late to campus - again outside the contracted work hours

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Good morning, justabubba. :2wave:

I'm not clear on the timing here - was he assigned bus duty at the start of the school year, or was he given the duty to "make up" for times he was late to class to keep the other teachers from complaining about preferential treatment? If it's the former, he has no argument - if the latter, he might want to point that out in his own defense - 30 minutes extra for daily bus duty versus the two or three minutes of daily tardy time doesn't sound fair either.

Bottom line to me is that his boss didn't point out or address with him that his current arival time at work was an issue till, like....105th time?


That's not HIS fault, that's his bosses fault. Period.

Speaking as a former bargaining unit employee, and a current managerial representative that has to deal with a few different unions on a fairly regular basis, I'd just like to add my opinion based on my experience and some speculation.

Now, I haven't read the contract the teacher was supposed to violate, but typical FLRA approved contracts include a grace period for tardiness that is somewhere from 5 minutes to 59 minutes depending on the bargaining unit contract. This grace period is an option to forgive tardiness by the immediate supervisor of a given employee. Because these grace periods exist, the supervisor has to specifically address tardiness and correct it if it seems to be a recurring issue, otherwise it is implicitly 'waived' through the grace period option the supervisor has.

This teacher was obviously stretching the bounds of that grace period... as it is normally put in for such things as the occasional flat tire or car battery issue or similar situations. However, as he wasn't late for class, and was doing his job, and didn't receive any official corrective action the fault with this behavior is upon the management. I have supervisors that work for me that would forgive someone being late five minutes every day under the right circumstances. (Employee drops kid off at day-care for 6 weeks while spouse is in the hospital, but works part of their lunch, or performs part of their duties during their off-hours, to make up for the lost productivity.)

Rambling aside, based on my familiarity with these situations and round about 18 years experience dealing with them, the direct supervisor bears the bulk of the responsibility for this issue. The union is doing it's job by forcing the school to follow the negotiated disciplinary process, and the teacher wasn't aware, based on his performance, that his minor tardiness was an issue. (Since he was on-time for all his class start times.) If that supervisor worked for me, I would have documented their inability to correct their employees by now, and fixed the supervisor. (Probably by helping him learn how to use the formal disciplinary process... Mentoring is magic.) It does in fact fall into a category of 'rules that aren't enforced aren't rules.' Also known as behaviors that aren't corrected, become accepted.

That may not be great, but that's the way those contracts work. The frustrating part, is that formal progressive discipline is so very easy to implement if you have clear and consistent standards in the workplace and you don't let behavior like this slide until you gut upset. (In my experience, most of the time this 'no big deal' behavior goes on for a long time, and then the supervisor gets angry at the employee and suddenly decides to bust out the discipline cannon. This turns things into punitive actions instead of corrective ones, and that's not good for standards or morale.)

-TTB

stonewall50 said:

If it says be there at 8...be there at 750. Start your day at 8. Simple. If you are being paid to be there from 8-3...you are in your assigned location there from 8-3.

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What exactly does that have to do with what I posted or the question I asked?

Nothing as far as I can tell.

Twice, that I counted, maybe there were more, faithful_servant explicitly claimed that this guy was setting a bad example for kids.

What I'd like to know is, do we know for a fact that this guy was setting a bad example for kids.

Pretty simple.

I'll concede that regardless of the answer to that question this guy was officially in the wrong for not honoring the terms of his contract.

I think it's kind of silly that anyone would harp on a couple minutes more or less but then again I'm not that kind of clock-watching ********er, no offense to those who are.

JasperL said:

As I said, no, I wouldn't have been. I never had a job as an adult post-college when being "late" was something anyone tracked or cared about. I had to bill hours and if I got those between noon and 4am, and managed to attend client and firm meetings, no one would care a lick. And the very simple observation by the arbitrator and many on this thread is his employer let him slide on being late 110 times, so the rational conclusion anyone in that place of business would draw is their employer also didn't care about being "late" so long as he was on time for class, which he said he was.

So let me ask you a question. Would it take 110 times being late before your employer pulled out the big hammer and gave you an ultimatum? If he or she didn't say anything or cause you to suffer any consequences for 110 times, I'd put the fault largely on their incompetence, not yours, for failing to set and enforce reasonable workplace standards, then arbitrarily deciding that the standards they failed to enforce were a sufficient cause for firing YOU. They ought to be fired, IMO.

It's why this whole thing is so weird. It's a kind of passive aggressive management style to carefully document 111 late arrivals, do nothing, then after the second year of chronic lateness fire the person. If being late MATTERED to the operations of the school or to the other teachers, the Principle or whoever is simply massively incompetent to allow it to continue for two dang years. So being late didn't actually matter to anything, or if it did, getting rid of the teacher was put ahead of getting his behavior changed so the school ran better. Neither one really makes all that much sense.

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Alright so maybe they didn't catch it right away. Maybe they don't check the clock on his excessive lateness. Maybe they had to check a special time log? Or a sign in sheet? Maybe it was something that didn't occur to them until someone started counting. After all it is "1-2 minutes" right? Except the problem is that he was late 111 times.

Are you telling me it is UNREASONABLE for them to demand he be there on time for 71% of the days he decides to go to work? Sorry. But 111 times being late is just NOT ok. Especially on a job that has specific hours that he is paid by the public to be there.

Furthermore he is a salaries employee right? It is in his contract to be there at (hypothetical) 8am. He isn't there by 8am 111 times. Wouldn't you call that a violation of the contract?

soot said:

What exactly does that have to do with what I posted or the question I asked?

Nothing as far as I can tell.

Twice, that I counted, maybe there were more, faithful_servant explicitly claimed that this guy was setting a bad example for kids.

What I'd like to know is, do we know for a fact that this guy was setting a bad example for kids.

Pretty simple.

I'll concede that regardless of the answer to that question this guy was officially in the wrong for not honoring the terms of his contract.

I think it's kind of silly that anyone would harp on a couple minutes more or less but then again I'm not that kind of clock-watching ********er, no offense to those who are.

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Im a clock watcher because I work for a good company. They pay me for every minute and will write me up for working off the clock. Major liability. And every extra minute I work early I can leave early or get ot for. But that is different.

What we are talking about here is a guy who took money from the school through time theft. It is a contract violation and that is why I care. If we are going to demand accountability for cops....we should probably consider any public employee a part of that accountability.

Sounds like my kind of teacher.

When I was in school, roughly 90% of the teachers could have been late everyday for all I cared...most of them were worse then useless, imo.

justabubba said:

but you were the one insisting that he was obligated under his contract to arrive on time
and i asked is he allowed to leave at the contracted departure time and not assure the safety of his students

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Asked and answered.

Reading comprehension issue?

SMTA said:

Asked and answered.

Reading comprehension issue?

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yes
by one of us

stonewall50 said:

Alright so maybe they didn't catch it right away. Maybe they don't check the clock on his excessive lateness. Maybe they had to check a special time log? Or a sign in sheet? Maybe it was something that didn't occur to them until someone started counting. After all it is "1-2 minutes" right? Except the problem is that he was late 111 times.

Are you telling me it is UNREASONABLE for them to demand he be there on time for 71% of the days he decides to go to work? Sorry. But 111 times being late is just NOT ok. Especially on a job that has specific hours that he is paid by the public to be there.

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Of course it's not unreasonable to demand he be on time. What we're all pointing out is for 110 times over two years they did NOT demand he be on time. After #111 they fired him. Sorry, but TTB phrased it perfectly above: "It does in fact fall into a category of 'rules that aren't enforced aren't rules.' Also known as behaviors that aren't corrected, become accepted."

In fact, his/her entire comment is dead on in my view.

Furthermore he is a salaries employee right? It is in his contract to be there at (hypothetical) 8am. He isn't there by 8am 111 times. Wouldn't you call that a violation of the contract?

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Every teacher I know works tons of hours off the clock at night and on weekends. If he's 5 minutes late and works 3 hours that night grading papers, is he violating his contract, shorting the taxpayers?

JasperL said:

Of course it's not unreasonable to demand he be on time. What we're all pointing out is for 110 times over two years they did NOT demand he be on time. After #111 they fired him. Sorry, but TTB phrased it perfectly above: "It does in fact fall into a category of 'rules that aren't enforced aren't rules.' Also known as behaviors that aren't corrected, become accepted."

In fact, his/her entire comment is dead on in my view.



Every teacher I know works tons of hours off the clock at night and on weekends. If he's 5 minutes late and works 3 hours that night grading papers, is he violating his contract, shorting the taxpayers?

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But he was previously disciplined. He missed out on two raises because of his tardiness.

OrphanSlug said:

It takes a union for someone to be late 111 times, and still have their job.

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yea you would be fired from my company or any other company if you were late that many times.

Lutherf said:

But he was previously disciplined. He missed out on two raises because of his tardiness.

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A performance review, even a substandard one that counts against a raise or promotion does not fall into the category of progressive discipline per most contracts. It does mean that it is a documented issue, which allows for a maximum first offence suspension of the type the teacher is currently facing. (The documented history showing a pattern that can show behavior that will likely repeat without harsh correction allowing it to be considered as a Douglas Factor to allow for a suspension for a 'first time' disciplinary action vice using a Letter of Reprimand or similar.)

The system is a bit silly. There's a difference between performance appraisals, and discipline. We have employees that get placed on leave restriction for suspected leave abuse all the time, but that doesn't count as a first time disciplinary action. There are different categories for a lot of these issues.

justabubba said:

what horrible example is he setting for the students?

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Now you're just being intentionally obtuse....