Cash Money

I have a BA in English and M.Ed. I am employed full time as a school teacher and given all the pay and benefits accorded to that post. According to the contract I signed with the school district, I am paid a couple of copper pieces over $29.00 and hour and access to a decent health package, employer-paid contributions to the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS), and 13 weeks of vacation every year.

The district's math gets a little tricky though. You see, I am actually a salaried employee which means, of course, the posted pay scale reflects an annual rate not an hourly rate and I am expected to work like a salaried employee; I work until the job is done and normally wear the uniform of a white-collar professional. My annual rate of pay is a couple of lumps over $38,000 per year. OK, still not bad considering the health, retirement and vacation package, but starting to look a little thin for someone with a graduate degree. In fact, according to the US Census Bureau's Evidence From Census 2000 Earnings by Detailed Occupation for Men and Women, it is $11,000 less than the 1999 median salary (50th percentile) for individuals with a bachelors degree or higher.

Sure, you may say, but you only work a few hours a day, five days a week and get all that sweet summer vacation. Using that logic, 29 bucks an hour isn't that bad for teaching kids stuff you already know.

So let's get back to the hourly rate. That number, the wage-for-a-non-wage-earning-employee, is calculated using the contracted teaching day of 7.11 hours including one 85-minute lesson preparation period and a 30-minute lunch break. By this calculation, I only have to work five hours a day for 180 days a year. What' the problem?

I don't work only five hours a day nor do I work only 180 days a year. Lesson planning, paper grading, student counseling, parent calling, and staff meetings, fill my prep periods, add another five hours to each day and usually take up at least 75% of every weekend during the school year. Outside the school year, I am expected to attend professional development classes and refine my lessons for the next school year. Thus, I am really working 12-hour days, six to seven days a week during the school year, and reduced hours over my breaks. Furthermore, the pay calculation does not include the need to purchase classroom supplies, much of which comes out of my own pocket. Our total English department supply budget, I was told by more than one source, amounts to a paltry $1,000 for the entire school year (excluding paper). With that, 15 teachers are expected to buy all the usual things you might expect a room full of students to need as well as some you may not have considered, like toner cartridges, four of which will eat the annual budget in one gulp.

Here's one last interesting fact: my take home check from the district every month is $300 less than my military pension from the United States Government and I can collect Uncle Sam's largesse while sitting on the couch watching Twilight Zone marathons.