Appear in the New York Teacher on December 6, 2000 'Secretaries on Overload'
All day, scenes like this play over and over again in every public school in New York City — all variations on the theme of interruption. Long before it’s time to eat lunch — if she gets to eat lunch today — Donohue has made sure classes are covered during a weekly total of six professional and common prep periods for every teacher, dispatched some kids with the right forms their teacher wanted, and put in some work on "the new thing from the districts, scheduling out the balanced literacy blocks." Donohue has dealt with a class that was split and wasn’t supposed to be, and has finally given up the idea of "sliding in" on the one photocopy machine that serves the entire staff. There are too many teachers sliding in on their own lunch breaks. She has tracked down a parent to make sure the big sister coming to pick up her sick little brother is who she says she is. "That’s another problem," Donohue adds. "There’s no communication between the lunchroom and the office so if a kid gets hurt during lunch period, parents call here, frantic, and we can’t tell them anything." For the uninitiated, it’s enough to make your head spin. And it’s enough to make your jaw drop when Donohue turns to her co-workers and says, "Gee, it’s quiet here for a Monday; I wonder why?" Donohue’s co-workers, pupil accounting secretaries Carole Mandel and Deborah Priester, agree that "It’s dead here today." If the UFT has its way in the upcoming negotiations, the contract will recognize the demanding roles of secretaries, guidance counselors and other staff. The union seeks to establish realistic workload standards and a procedure to speedily resolve claims of excessive work and professionally inappropriate work. But whether it’s a dead day or a hectic day, in every school there are always a bunch of adorable, needy kids like Juliette, who hang around the front office like it’s momsville. After all, the nice ladies at their desks don’t ever grade you with a red pen, they have candy, and they’re the ones who help you go home when you have a tummy ache. Then again, there are also plenty of not-so-lovable kids that secretaries have to constantly shoo away, not to mention acting-out adolescents copping an attitude with secretaries in middle schools and high schools. But kids like Juliette are the "interruptions" that Donohue wishes she had more time for. "I like working with the kids, with teachers, and I like the camaraderie here," Donohue says. "It’s the peripheral stuff that’s impossible." Transient kids like Juliette also make the job of recording immunizations even harder. Next to interruption, immunizations are the bane of secretaries’ existence. Talk to any one of them: First they have to make all separate entries for all the shots of every single child on complicated immunization cards. Some are incomplete, so children have to be admitted provisionally. It’s the secretaries’ job to keep after parents to get their children’s shots. Each age group has different criteria and it’s up to the secretaries to know what shots are age-appropriate. Sometimes a kid can get a measles shot in the fall, when doctors usually immunize, but it can be a few months or even a few days before that child’s next birthday. So even though the kid has had the right shot, the Board of Ed still considers that child’s enrollment provisionary. "I even have to call up doctors to find the correct doctor," says Aracelia Cook of PS 72. It’s not like she’s making extra work for herself. The efficient, outspoken pro was the Brooklyn winner of the UFT Secretary of the Year award in June. "Immunizations need to be done by one additional, designated person," she says. Evelyn Berg, chapter leader of the secretaries, couldn’t agree more. "The Board of Health should have their own nurses get all the info on immunization," Berg says. "The follow-up should be handled by the school nurse and the secretary should just have to input the information, period. But the Board of Health won’t go near that," she continues, clearly frustrated. "The secretaries are terribly overburdened." Berg feels strongly that what secretaries truly need is more secretaries. "The UFT is fighting for that," she says. "There are 1.1 million school children, about 70,000 teachers, about 20,000 paras, approximately 4,000 supervisors and there are only 3,000 secretaries to take care of all of them. "For as long as I’ve been in the system," Berg continues, "all the numbers have increased except the number of secretaries. Plus, computers have increased the work load. It gives people at the Board of Ed the ability to get a lot more information out, so secretaries have a lot more to get in." Berg wants to see the chancellor allot money to each district specifically for hiring school secretaries. Cook, too, wants to see more secretaries in the office. "Not just to get things running smoothly," she says, "but to get things done on target. There’s one school I know that has only one school secretary! "Now that we have school-based choices, principals have a choice about how many secretaries they want, but a lot of them are not allocating money for that. "They don’t feel they have the money in the budget," Cook continues. More training and higher pay are also high on Cook’s list. Like Donohue, there are days that Cook doesn’t get to take a lunch break and "barely has time to go to the bathroom. Your whole day can get thrown off because of students sent down to the office or parents coming in for unnecessary things. Then there are the phones, the phones! There’s no end to the phones," she says. Is there anything Cook likes about her job? "I’m a people person, and I like working with kids. Even when I get off late, it’s still early enough to spend time with my own children. And one thing I must say, the day does go quickly!" Donohue agrees that there’s never a dull moment, even on "dead" days. "You have to not get angry and teach everybody everything, I tell myself. If they knew the answer they wouldn’t be asking me." So, if you ever come into the office and think that the secretaries are in a really bad mood, take a word of advice from Connie Donohue. "We’re just busy." |
July 4, 2008
