A Mehlville School District teacher recently addressed the Board of Education regarding comments board member Ron Fedorchak made about increasing the district’s number of instructional days.

Laura Kadlec, a Blades Elementary School second-grade teacher, told the board she arrived at Blades Elementary roughly 90 minutes before her contracted time the week before the May 17 board meeting to prepare for a field trip. She also stayed after the school day ended to prepare for the upcoming week.

“I then rushed home, got ready to go to the school board meeting and received a slap in the face,” she told the board. “The day I described is not typical just for me, but for most of the teachers, if not all, in this district. And Mr. Fedorchak, for you to say that I’m not willing to work six days, and I can be replaced by a substitute, is ludicrous, disappointing and plain out of touch.”

Fedorchak said at the board’s May 10 meeting he would not approve a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with district teachers because it did not increase the number of instructional days past 174.

Before the board voted to approve the district’s 2012-2013 academic calendar at the May 10 meeting, Fedorchak made a motion to approve an amended calendar increasing the district’s number of instructional days to 180.

The amended calendar, according to Fedorchak, would have cost the district roughly $400,000 and required hiring additional substitute teachers to account for the additional days. Fedorchak’s motion did not receive a second.

No teachers said they were not willing to work six more days, according to Kadlec, but teachers “do need to be compensated appropriately.”

“And the fact that the state does not reimburse us for over 174 days still has me baffled as to how you would fund this plan in the first place,” she said.

Fedorchak told the Call all of the district’s teachers have done a “fantastic job” with his children and he always intended that teachers be compensated for increased time in the classroom.

If Fedorchak’s amended 180-day calendar had been approved, it would have included six days teachers were not contracted to work because the board already approved the MOU, which is why he included the cost for substitute teachers.

“Teachers would have been able to say they (were) not working because they’re only contracted for 174 days, (and) would be well within their rights (to do that),” Fedorchak said.

The message Fedorchak said he is trying to communicate is that instructional time is what is important.

The approved MOU calls for teachers to receive, on average, a 5-percent pay increase over a two-year period as they “will be given one step on the schedule for the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 contract years. In addition, the agreement states, “Teachers will be granted channel changes they have earned for the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 contract years.”

Fedorchak said the granting of steps and channel changes is not why he voted against the agreement.

Kadlec, who went to school in the district and has taught at Blades Elementary for 22 years, said the hours she has given to the district “far outweighs the six days” Fedorchak believes she is not willing to teach.

Fedorchak said he is “very much in support” of teachers receiving their steps and channel changes, but he could not vote in favor of the MOU without, at least, the promise of increased instructional time.

“(The school calendar) didn’t have to be at 180 days, but we had to be moving toward it,” he said.

On May 10, the board voted 5-2 to approve the MOU with district teachers.

Fedorchak and board President Venki Palamand were opposed because the MOU did not include increased instructional time.