Education
In reply to the discussion: I get so tired of people gritching that "teachers get all summer off" We get paid for 186 days [View all]knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)1. Those extra classes are required for us to stay certified, keep our jobs. They don't get us pay raises. We're required to get a master's after so many years (usually have to start on it after five years) just to keep teaching in most states.
2. What teacher's lounge? Not all schools have them, you know. We have one in the school I'm in now, but most of us don't have a key to it, and the door's kept locked. I wish I did have a key--the good Coke machine is in there.
3. Sabbaticals aren't in most district contracts these days. I haven't seen a teacher take one since I was in middle school 25 years ago, and I come from a teaching family and am a teacher myself.
4. I teach from 7:30am to 3:30pm and get a half hour lunch. There are 8 classes in a day, and I have 7 preps (different classes I have to teach), and the average teacher in my school has 6 preps, over the contract amount but it was either take that or get fired. I get a whole half hour to sit down and eat, but the rest of the day I'm either teaching or grading or calling parents or getting called into a meeting, etc. As a substitute who works for another company, I'm not supposed to stay past 3:30, but I do because the kids need me to for extra help, etc. That's unpaid time that I'm expected to put in, and I do. I've been asked to work for free before, and I have (even though it's illegal)--every teacher has. We all put in unpaid time, do stuff we're told we'll get paid for and then aren't, and work for free when told to.
5. Tenure only means that they have to have a reason to fire you. That's it. It means you can't be an at-will employee. I've seen tenured teachers fired, but honestly, the reason why so many aren't is because the principals don't have time for the paperwork or just don't want to deal with it.
6. I make $14K a year with no benefits, and that's if I sub every day. That's about half of what the teachers in my area make as a starting salary, and with the wage freezes, starting teachers don't get a raise here. Five years later, and they're still not making over $30K a year. Wow--that's such a high salary for a college degree with required college classes and higher degrees.
Seriously, get into your area school and observe. Ask questions. If you're basing all this off of when you were in school last, trust me, things have changed.