Study Reveals FCPS Teacher Career Salaries $142K Below Average of Regional Peers

[Anonymous]

Elementary.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why people choose teaching as a career if they dislike the working conditions and the pay? I have a lot of friends who are teachers and when they get together all they do is bitch about work. It gets old listening to it. I don't feel the need to burden my friends with the day to day complaints about my job.

Teachers as a collective enjoy complaining about their work and they are very vocal about not being paid enough. Teachers also have this misconception they are the only ones working hard. We as a society feed this negativity on their part and continually tell them they aren't valued, they don't make enough, they work too much. But what would be fair pay? If we gave them all $125K annual salary I still don't think they would feel adequately compensated.

But my question is this, what person ever thinks they are paid enough for what they do? We all want more money.

Really? Lawyers love to complain about their jobs, or quit and change careers or stay home. Doctors love to complain about how everything is harder now, more patients and less time, the money is gone, etc. But it does seem as if teachers have it a bit worse -- low pay and impossible administration.

I don't know that other professions have people outside of their field thinking they know how to do and telling them how to do their jobs.

Many time people see them as complaints, but a lot of the comments teachers make are made to refute misconceptions about the job brought up by somebody else.

This thread is specifically discussing pay. It's discussing a study done to compare teacher's salaries across the region. No one has ever bothered to do a study of pay across the US much less the region for my job position or field. Public School teachers are public employees with a lot of interaction with the community at the schools and also because of taxes to fund their jobs. Their job also gets a lot of publicity such as the article referred to here so many people are more aware of the current issues facing teachers than other professions. This is why they get a lot of comments from non-teachers. People make the same types of comments about police officers and politicians.

Understood. Here's the thing... Person A says, "It might be nice only having to work 7.5 hours a day for 180 days a year". The teacher responds with, "Well. I actually work about 10 hours a day for 194 days a year". Person A then says the teacher is complaining.

Person B says, "It must be nice getting free healthcare for life". The teacher responds with the fact that they pay $500 a month for their family and that it jumps to almost the whole premium in retirement and they are told they are complaining.

Person C makes a comment that teaching must be easy since she can just reuse the lesson plans from year to year. When the teacher explains about how much work goes into planning small group instruction, remediation, enrichment, etc. she is seen as complaining about her workload.

You forgot to discuss retirement pay.

Also FCPS teachers teach core lessons for about 4 hours a day. I find that hard to believe 10 hours is a daily standard of work especially beyond the first year. None of the teachers I know do much in the evening because they have young children. They just don't have the time. To me 10 hours would be more of a problem than the pay.

I work 8 hours contract, and every moment of that is instruction except for one 30 minute lunch and one 45 minute prep (which I don't get every day). Almost none of the teachers at my school have small children. The job is incompatible with it. People usually leave when they have kids, so most are young and single or have grown children already. Very few in between.

Which district? I'm guessing not Fairfax unless you are at a school that has a different contract or you are being taken advantage of. FCPS has a 7.5 hour contract day. Yes, almost all of us put in more hours than that, but you have to be there for 7.5. My wife and I both teach in elementary schools. Teacher hours are 8:00 a 3:30. By regulation we are also guaranteed a minimum of 300 minutes of planning a week, 240 of which are unencumbered teacher planning.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm willing to pay teachers a lot more.

But I want 8 hour school days that match working hours (8-4:30) and I want it to be year round with 4 weeks of break (2 in winter and 2 in summer). (I'll be generous with 4 weeks since normal white collar jobs only give 3)

Teachers in FCPS already work 8 hours, and that's just contract hours. And NO ONE goes home at the end of contract hours in my school. Studies show average work weeks is 55 hours.

So if you want it to be like everywhere else, then maybe they should get overtime too.

Technically contract hours are 7.5.

Not at my school. I have to be there at 7:45 and can't leave before 3:45. Last year it was more like 7 hours 45 minutes, but the bell schedule added 10 minutes to our day.

Are you at an "Extended Day" elementary? There are a few of those.

[Anonymous]

A big part of the problem is that teachers in FCPS find it hard to live in the county on their salary due to the high cost of housing. Also teachers who are familiar with both FCPS and Arlington county public schools have mentioned that there is a lot less bureaucracy in the Arlington schools. FCPS has a tremendous amount of data collection requirements for educators which is adds burden to their work load and does absolutely nothing for improve outcomes. Higher class sizes in FCPS is another challenge for teachers. I think FCPS teachers have a lot more obstacles and less salary makes the situation worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm willing to pay teachers a lot more.

But I want 8 hour school days that match working hours (8-4:30) and I want it to be year round with 4 weeks of break (2 in winter and 2 in summer). (I'll be generous with 4 weeks since normal white collar jobs only give 3)

That's not what the OP is about. It's about how compensation compares with surrounding districts.

It really doesn't matter what the surrounding counties pay. You're welcome to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm willing to pay teachers a lot more.

But I want 8 hour school days that match working hours (8-4:30) and I want it to be year round with 4 weeks of break (2 in winter and 2 in summer). (I'll be generous with 4 weeks since normal white collar jobs only give 3)

That's not what the OP is about. It's about how compensation compares with surrounding districts.

It really doesn't matter what the surrounding counties pay. You're welcome to leave.

It seems some are.