Thursday, November 12, 2009
Room Use
Teaching technology comes with responsibilities that not many other teachers can relate to. I need to maintain an entire fabrication shop. This includes machinery, power tools, hand tools, and raw materials. I teach three different grades so i have different projects going on all the time. Unlike a math teacher i need to keep track of more than just text books and pencils. I need to know the condition of my classroom to ensure the safety of my students as well as myself. So hear is the problem. My district has an adult school that comes in and uses my classroom at night without telling me and i walk into a room that is not the way i left it when i left the day before. Its a lot like having someone ells clean your room as a kid. When you first walk in its like a feeling of something is just not right with this room. I am in the process of having them banned from my room. Does anyone ells have a story of other people taking liberties with a classroom that they have no business doing so? Please share.
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Our building has a strict policy about the use of our classrooms by anyone other than ourselves. No one can use our classrooms without the teacher's consent; in fact, if a janitor leaves something out of place in our rooms they can get into trouble (something must have happened in the past before I arrived here to necessitate such a strict policy). However when I was at the Boys and Girls Club we were a community building and thus I let different groups use our building on the weekends and on some week nights. There were several instances where we had clogged drains, pop spilled on the gym floor and one time we had an xbox broken. It is really frustrating to have someone take advantage of our facilities/classrooms and it seems that I hear about instances such as yours in an increasing amount. In your case it must be extra frustrating when you have all of that equipment involved.
ReplyDeletect
In my current school there are a few times where our rooms are used for other things but the teacher is always notified about it and you usually have a chance to talk to the person/group that is using the room. I do find it a bit annoying to have someone else in your room for the simple fact that it is oraganized to my liking and there is some confidential information that could be found if someone wanted to snoop. I am lucky enough though that I have not had any kind of problems. It is too bad what is happening in your room.
ReplyDeleteI decided to commment your blog becuase I am a teacher who uses another classroom in a different school. Once a week I teach a parent/preschool class in another district and we use three different classrooms for the program but I am so careful on how I use the room. I make sure everything is placed back in its original place and watch carefully that we do not use use the teacher's own personal classroom supplies. I have had no complaints in the three years I have done the class. I always tell the classroom teacher though that if anything is wrong or out of place to let me know so I can be sure it doesn't happen again. Maybe you can have your administration talk to the group using your room or you could leave a note for them if they continue to use your room. I would want to know if I was messing up your teaching environment. Good Luck!
Hello-
ReplyDeleteMy school does allow night classes to be held in our building but so far not in our labs. As far as the classrooms go for the most part they are returned in the order we had them.
I would be upset also if they left my room looking like a mess. Is there a way you can lock-up certain items or post signs to remind them to put things away?
Good luck.
The Business Education/Information Technology Department at Mandan High School has three computer labs. As department chair, I have the added responsibility of overseeing these three rooms. We had first a Smart Board, then three Promethean Boards in our rooms years before anyone else in the school district had them. On occasion, I have had people use our rooms without asking us first. This is a huge concern because we had thousands of dollars of technology and often the rooms had students unsupervised or people who didn't know the Promethean Boards were not simple whiteboards, so were writing on them or other uses. I was lucky that my administrators understood when I complained about the large investment being unsupervised or misused, so people have not been allowed to use our rooms without talking to us first. My suggestion would be to talk to your administrators in terms they understand-dollars invested. They always understand money, even if they don't understand what you have in the room or how to use it.
ReplyDeleteLast spring during the flood, our nation guard used our schools as a rest/recovery stations. I am glad that they could use our schools for this. The guard memebers were told that they could use the gym, multipurpose room/cafeteria wing of the school (there are bathrooms there and is very comfortable). The special education rooms are also in this wing. Our MH teacher brought it to our principals attention that her room was used during the flood, her room rearranged, and food left in there. Our rooms has a lot of confidenctial information and expensive technology (special chairs etc) that could be broken accidentally. It is difficult to come back to your room to find that someone has moved your things. It feels like an invasion of privacy.
ReplyDeleteAs to your situation, with all the expensive equipment you have in your room, I am suprised that they would use your room. If they continue to use your room, why not leave them a note asking them not to move/touch your things, if that does not help, than have them banned.