With the amount time teachers spend on college recommendations, they have little extra time to worry about how the district accounts for their hard work.

According to Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator Gary Shiffman, teachers can get an R-day, or one day off from teaching, to work on letters of recommendation or other professional activities.

Shiffman and Ed Wiser, the science curriculum coordinator, both report that the district would like to clarify how the school accounts for R-days.

According to Shiffman, while R-days are recognized and supported by the district, there is no extra pay for the work, though it is time-consuming and has an impact on teachers inside and outside the classroom.

English teacher Jenee Ramos said that recommendations take up a huge part of her personal and professional life because she has to teach all of her classes on top of spending upwards of two hours on each student’s recommendation.

“I have a number of Oct. 15 recommendations. I have a lot of Nov. 1 recommendations. I didn’t get any sleep the weekend of Nov. 1. I have a ton of Nov. 10s, 15s, Dec. 1s, and Jan. 1s. It goes on and on,” Ramos said.

Similarly, Wiser said that one year he wrote 35 recommendations, all before Naviance was around to ease the process.

“It takes the teachers a tremendous amount of time and some teachers try to get it done during the summer and it’s difficult to do it during the year, especially now that all sorts of kids are applying early and at the beginning of the year.” Wiser said. “It’s just nuts to begin with.”

Despite the stress and frustration it causes, Shiffman said that teachers agree on the importance of writing recommendations.

“I think teachers understand that writing recommendations is a good thing for our students,” he said. “We want to do the right things for our students.”

Clasby Chope and Tyler Knight can be contacted at [email protected].