Learning to work with Work-to-Rule

by Ryan Johnston

As many students know, teachers within the City of Woburn are currently in the works of renewing their contract in hopes of receiving more benefits and more revenue in order to be able to sustain their style of living. Unfortunately, an agreement between the Woburn Teachers' Association and Mayor Scott Galvin cannot be reached, which has led to a tactical maneuver that is called “Work-to-Rule.”

Work-to-Rule is not a strike per se, however it is a method of showing protest to something by only abiding by the contractual guidelines that are currently in place by the former contract. Many students, parents and even city workers do not realize how much extra effort teachers put into their teaching jobs outside of school hours. Some examples are the following: grading papers and creating lesson plans at home, writing college letters of recommendation, staying after for additional days of help, attending outside events hosted by the school and many more important things. Due to the fact that these things listed above are not in the teacher contracts, with work-to-rule, these activities will not be carried out as a way to protest the current contract offers the teachers have been receiving.

This is very frustrating for both teachers and students, because students may require these extra services that teachers provide.  However, due to Work-to-Rule, these services are no longer being provided. It is frustrating for the teachers, because they would like a fair contract, one where they could be able to pay their bills and sustain a regular lifestyle instead of struggling due to contractual conditions. They also wish to be part of outside activities, like the promenade and graduation, but can't due to Work-to-Rule.

Junior Janki Patel expressed her opinion and shared a personal experience of how Work-to-Rule had personally affected her as a student at WMHS.

“Work-to-Rule is super frustrating because one time I had a math quiz on Friday that I needed to stay after for, however another one of the classes taught by the same teacher had a quiz on Wednesday. My teacher decided to stay after school on Tuesday in order to help those students who required extra help for the test on Wednesday. Unfortunately, since he used up his 1 extra help day for the week, he was not able to stay after again that week,” stated Patel.

Teacher contracts state that teachers must only stay after school once a week for a set time of approximately thirty minutes, which may greatly take away from the extra learning experience that students require.

Overall, this is a very frustrating situation for both teachers and students. If we would like anything done as a city, we must take action and call into the mayor’s office inquiring about it, and demanding a resolution to this crisis.