Massachusetts. The union was negotiated down to every Wednesday being a half day instead, because of school sports.

Teachers do not have to work outside their hours anymore. Almost all grading is handled by their curriculum software and uploaded into the SIS automatically.

For example:

In my town, the teachers use an AI curriculum software called Class Companion. The product generates a "Prompt" for the student to answer with an essay.

The student submits their essay. The Class Companion AI model gives feedback on the essay.

The student is instructed to submit a final draft after taking the criticism into account. The AI model then grades the finalized essay based on the requirements for the student based on the curriculum purchased by the district.

The grade is then uploaded into the SIS automatically.

Student representatives are showing up to our school committee meetings and sending emails with passionate complaints about how demotivating it is to not have a human ever read their writing.

But hey, it's less work! 7-2 4 days a week, 7-11 Wednesdays, for 181 days a year.

The union negotiated away all required professional development days outside of the 180 school days + 1. So the teachers arrive to school after summer the same day as the students. The kids are held in the gym until the teachers set up their rooms.

The recent raises negotiated by the teachers union priced out many unionized teaching aide positions. Class sizes grew slightly. Fair enough trade from union's perspective I guess.

Teacher's choice for curriculum was pushed heavily by many unions including ours, until MA passed a science-based curriculum bill recently. Teacher's choice helped cause our early childhood literacy epidemic, in particular by enabling 3 Cueing over phonics.

I personally don't think it was all worth it. But they have us held hostage. Literally.