Section A - The normal weekly teaching load in the senior high schools, middle schools, and special schools (except exceptional child education schools) will be no more than twenty five (25) teaching periods or equivalent time, and five (5) preparation periods. If a school is structured so that it has more or less than six periods in a school day, the teachers will be provided no less than fifty (50) consecutive minutes for planning. A supervised study or lunch period or similar duty of equivalent time shall be considered a teaching period for which volunteers will be given priority.

Section B - Because of pupil arrival/departure times and programmatic requirements there must be provisions for flexibility from school to school and within schools in establishing employees' duty hours. Principals shall first seek volunteers for early and late duty. If there are not enough volunteers the principal shall assign employees on a rotation basis to early or late duty.

Itinerants in elementary schools shall only be required to do the ten (10) minutes rotation at their home school.

The normal duty hours of employees, except for elementary teachers, social workers, resource teachers, special instructional assistants and other such employees shall not exceed seven (7) consecutive hours in length including a duty free lunch period.

The normal duty hours of elementary teachers shall not exceed six (6) hours and fifty (50) minutes including duty free lunch periods. These employees may be scheduled for an additional length of time up to ten (10) minutes on a rotation basis immediately preceding or following normal duty hours as needed for the supervision of pupils.

The normal duty hours of social workers, resource teachers, special instructional assistants in schools, and other such employees shall not exceed seven and one half (7 1/2) consecutive hours in length including a duty free lunch period.

Upon notification to the school office and approval by the principal or school head, an employee may leave the premises during duty hours.

Section C - Routine matters should be handled in such a way (written communications, announcements, etc.) as to permit optimum use of faculty meeting time for discussion, planning, and evaluation of the school's program. A written agenda, with specificity, shall be distributed by noon of the day before regularly scheduled faculty meetings. Absent a timely agenda, a faculty meeting will not occur. Faculty meetings shall begin no later than fifteen (15) minutes after the student day and shall last no longer than sixty (60) minutes. Attendance at faculty meetings and all other meetings beyond the employee's normal duty hours shall not exceed one (1) hour per week.

Section D - Every reasonable effort will be made to schedule Open House as far in advance as possible. There will be no mandatory faculty meetings during the week that an Open House is held. Attendance at all other meetings and all other duties beyond the employee's normal duty hours shall be voluntary except for parent conferences which shall be scheduled when possible to take place within normal duty hours. Mandatory attendance at meetings, including ARCs, beyond the one (1) hour per week will be paid at the hourly rate of pay except for Open House and parent conferences.

The Employer agrees to provide reasonable advance notice of conferences and/or meetings beyond the regularly scheduled work day.

Section E - Employees in the senior high schools and middle schools shall not be required to have more than three (3) teaching preparations concurrently during any one major grading period.

Principals or heads of schools shall make every reasonable effort to keep to a minimum the number of different courses taught per employee.

Section F - Elementary teachers (primary program through grade 5) shall normally be provided two hundred (200) minutes of preparation time per week for the school year.

To the extent possible, planning time will be provided each day and will be balanced throughout the week.

Section G - All employees shall have a duty free lunch period of at least twenty (20) minutes.

Section H - The Parties recognize that a teacher's primary responsibility is to teach. The school day shall be organized toward ensuring that the energies of the teacher are used primarily to this end. Every reasonable effort will be made to contain and reduce non instructional duties through the use of all available school resources.

Section I - Employees shall not be required to give medication to students unless they have been provided with specific written instructions and training where appropriate and with signed notarized requests by parents or guardians.

Section J - The Employer shall maintain a program to provide substitutes for teachers when they are absent. This provision shall not apply to providing substitutes for social workers, reading and math resource teachers, special instructional assistants, speech and hearing impaired teachers, middle school and high school and special school librarians, elementary exceptional child education resource teachers, federal program/grant award teachers, and other such employees.

When a teacher is not provided a substitute due to lack of availability, following approval of the Substitute Teacher Center, volunteers will be sought to provide coverage of classes. Employees will provide coverage only during planning time and will complete their planning time at the end of the same school day at the work site. Employees shall be paid their hourly rate for the extra assigned duties.

Section K - Employees are to attend the faculty meeting at the school where they end their day.

Section L - Every reasonable effort will be made to reduce paperwork.

Section M - Elementary itinerant employees shall collaborate in the development of their teaching schedule with the building teaching staff and the building principal. The itinerant teaching schedule shall not be altered without involving the same collaborative process.

Section N - Itinerant elementary art, music, physical education and computer teachers shall have no more than one (1) hall bulletin board assigned to them for preparation per building assigned.

Section O - Itinerant elementary art, music, physical education and computer teachers shall have no more than one major and one minor exhibition in each school. It is also the responsibility of the itinerant teachers to work with regular teachers when preparing other programs.

Section P - Itinerant/traveling teachers are to report absence to the principal of the first school to which they are assigned on the days of the absence, and are to request a substitute through the substitute center. All principals are responsible for reporting itinerant/traveling teachers' absences daily to the home location for payroll records.

Section Q - If faculty meetings are used for professional development as planned by the SBDM process, that time shall be counted as referred to in Article 11, Section C.