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Early‑childhood teachers urge board to accept MOA while pressing for planning time and workload protections
Summary
Early‑childhood teachers urged the Jefferson County Board of Education July 29 to approve a temporary memorandum of agreement while pressing the district to secure protected planning time and compensation for growing duties.
Early‑childhood teachers and the Jefferson County Teachers Association (JCTA) spoke at the July 29 meeting about a proposed memorandum of agreement (MOA) for early‑childhood staff. Speakers said they supported the MOA because it avoided a return to a contract arrangement that would pay teachers for seven hours while requiring 7½ hours of work, but they urged the board and district to address persistent workload issues during incoming contract negotiations.
Maddie Shepherd, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, welcomed the district's new superintendent and said JCTA wants to be a collaborative partner. Several early‑childhood teachers then spoke to the board in a single public comment block.
Speakers described the early‑childhood classroom as requiring both general‑education and special‑education responsibilities: conducting multiple assessments, writing IEPs, attending ARC meetings, mandatory home visits and parent conferences, and managing a range of student needs in a single classroom. They said the MOA avoids immediate pay inequity but does not solve the fundamental problem: limited, unstable planning time and increasing responsibilities without compensation.
Several teachers urged the board to treat planning time as protected time. One speaker recommended considering a four‑day student week with a full planning day as a structural option to ensure teachers have adequate time to complete required work. Others called attention to the inequity between early‑childhood teachers—who earn 400 minutes of planning every nine school days under the MOA—and K‑12 teachers who are guaranteed daily planning (about 500 minutes every two weeks), arguing that early‑childhood planning is easier to take away (for trainings, snow days or emergencies) and therefore not equitable.
Speakers asked board members and the superintendent to visit early‑childhood classrooms so board members can see the work performed there. They said the MOA was a "bandage" and urged that the next full contract negotiation include time, supports or compensation for the additional responsibilities early‑childhood teachers shoulder.
The board did not take a separate vote on the public comments but later approved consent items that included the MOA.
