Why does no one acknowledge how overworked teachers are?

[Anonymous]

I was just at a holiday party talking with a few teachers. Kids last year were horrible. Teachers can’t handle the discipline issues. We have a education system based off the innate desire of young people to please elders. Mass media culture, Technology, bad parenting, and fallout from the pandemic has broken a lot of those basic, needed expectations and norms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The school is still paying the same share of the premiums over the summer as they do the rest of the year. Did you really think you were paying the full premium over the summer? Or that they were taking the full premiums for the summer out of your paychecks during the school year?

In my school district, yes, that's how we are paid.

I earn a salary of $83,320/year. I'm paid for 22 pay periods. My yearly health care insurance premiums, long term disability, pension contributions, etc are divided up for the year by 22 and the amount is paid from that paycheck. The school district's share of our premiums and contribution to our pensions comes during those 22 pay periods, as well.

From each paycheck about 1/6 of my gross pay (actually 18%) is withheld (after taxes). They keep that for teachers in a "Summer Pay" fund. We get 4 paychecks in the summer from that fund. But all our premiums are paid from the 22 salary paychecks. Not from the 4 summer fund paychecks.

You realize what they withhold from your paychecks doesn’t cover the entire premium, don’t you? The school pays most of the premium, even for those summer months when you're not working.

This really isn’t that complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need to quit whining. Even this thread is about why nobody supposedly acknowledges how overworked teachers are. We get it, you feel stressed out, but so are many other professionals. We've already heard you complain about it 1000 times. Why do you think you're special and get to whine louder than everyone else?

I don’t think you can appreciate the stress of teaching unless you’ve done it. Is it the ONLY hard job? Of course not. Are teachers extremely overworked? Yes.

-career changer who has worked in the corporate world. I hard rough weeks in that job, but teaching is considerably more time-consuming and stressful to me.

Fact is that many middling college students who'd rather not get stressed out over grad school self-select into the teaching profession because they think it's an easier gig with lots of vacation time. And then those people get all upset when they realize that teaching is just as hard as many other jobs. So it's not the work per se but the false expectations about teaching that's causing all the whining.

My friend in college was like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need to quit whining. Even this thread is about why nobody supposedly acknowledges how overworked teachers are. We get it, you feel stressed out, but so are many other professionals. We've already heard you complain about it 1000 times. Why do you think you're special and get to whine louder than everyone else?

I don’t think you can appreciate the stress of teaching unless you’ve done it. Is it the ONLY hard job? Of course not. Are teachers extremely overworked? Yes.

-career changer who has worked in the corporate world. I hard rough weeks in that job, but teaching is considerably more time-consuming and stressful to me.

Fact is that many middling college students who'd rather not get stressed out over grad school self-select into the teaching profession because they think it's an easier gig with lots of vacation time. And then those people get all upset when they realize that teaching is just as hard as many other jobs. So it's not the work per se but the false expectations about teaching that's causing all the whining.

Teachers get very little paid vacation time and that time is dictated to them. They do not have the option of working for more than the ~190 days of the school year without applying for another, different,temporary job. For all practical purposes, they are furloughed every summer.

What? We don't get any paid vacation time. Most teachers work a 190 day contract and they work 190 days. We don't get paid vacation at all. I do get one paid personal day per year and a certain number of sick days.

What do you think “paid vacation time” is? That’s what your personal day is.

That sounds like very little, and it is. Except you also get holidays and many schools breaks off. That’s when other people end up using their paid time off.

Teachers don’t get as many holidays off as Feds do, which is a huge percentage of DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need to quit whining. Even this thread is about why nobody supposedly acknowledges how overworked teachers are. We get it, you feel stressed out, but so are many other professionals. We've already heard you complain about it 1000 times. Why do you think you're special and get to whine louder than everyone else?

I don’t think you can appreciate the stress of teaching unless you’ve done it. Is it the ONLY hard job? Of course not. Are teachers extremely overworked? Yes.

-career changer who has worked in the corporate world. I hard rough weeks in that job, but teaching is considerably more time-consuming and stressful to me.

Fact is that many middling college students who'd rather not get stressed out over grad school self-select into the teaching profession because they think it's an easier gig with lots of vacation time. And then those people get all upset when they realize that teaching is just as hard as many other jobs. So it's not the work per se but the false expectations about teaching that's causing all the whining.

Teachers get very little paid vacation time and that time is dictated to them. They do not have the option of working for more than the ~190 days of the school year without applying for another, different,temporary job. For all practical purposes, they are furloughed every summer.

What? We don't get any paid vacation time. Most teachers work a 190 day contract and they work 190 days. We don't get paid vacation at all. I do get one paid personal day per year and a certain number of sick days.

What do you think “paid vacation time” is? That’s what your personal day is.

That sounds like very little, and it is. Except you also get holidays and many schools breaks off. That’s when other people end up using their paid time off.

Teachers don’t get as many holidays off as Feds do, which is a huge percentage of DCUM.

Care to explain?! Nobody gets off as many 3-day weekends and endless vacations as teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The school is still paying the same share of the premiums over the summer as they do the rest of the year. Did you really think you were paying the full premium over the summer? Or that they were taking the full premiums for the summer out of your paychecks during the school year?

In my school district, yes, that's how we are paid.

I earn a salary of $83,320/year. I'm paid for 22 pay periods. My yearly health care insurance premiums, long term disability, pension contributions, etc are divided up for the year by 22 and the amount is paid from that paycheck. The school district's share of our premiums and contribution to our pensions comes during those 22 pay periods, as well.

From each paycheck about 1/6 of my gross pay (actually 18%) is withheld (after taxes). They keep that for teachers in a "Summer Pay" fund. We get 4 paychecks in the summer from that fund. But all our premiums are paid from the 22 salary paychecks. Not from the 4 summer fund paychecks.

You realize what they withhold from your paychecks doesn’t cover the entire premium, don’t you? The school pays most of the premium, even for those summer months when you're not working.

This really isn’t that complicated.

Let me walk you through this with some sample numbers so you can understand where I am coming from.

Scenario 1:
Health care for employer per year is 12,000
Health care for employee per year is 8,000 ( 800a month for 10 months, or 666.6 a month for 12)

Scenario 2:
Lets say the board decides to lower their payment to 10,000 and pass the extra 2 to the employee. Now it is

Health care for employer per year 10,000
Health care for employee per year 10,000 ( 1,000 per month for 10 months or 833 per mont for 12 month pay)


I'll admit to not knowing much about this, but both of these seem viable options.
Please provide me with an explanation to show how local school boards decide how much premium they pay vs the insurance. You can also let me know how schools choose health providers and negotiate payment and decide how much they pay vs their employees. I will be honest and say I don't know how any employer does this, but it seems like any employer can change the formula and I am not sure how you would know the breakdown between employer and employee.

[Anonymous]

I left teaching after over a decade, and let me tell you, I never realized how easy other work could be. I have a lunch break, I can go to the bathroom whenever, I can work from home, I can change my hours around a bit for appointments, I don’t need to do anything if I take a day off, I don’t need to be “on” and putting on a show if I’m not feeling my best. Truly, my only complaint is I sometimes get bored. In order for others to realize what it’s like to be a teacher, they would need to spend time in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Teachers have always been overworked. It's not a new concept and I hope they knew before entering the field.

The return is the relationships they develop with students. Some jobs are somewhat thankless but are needed in our society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need to quit whining. Even this thread is about why nobody supposedly acknowledges how overworked teachers are. We get it, you feel stressed out, but so are many other professionals. We've already heard you complain about it 1000 times. Why do you think you're special and get to whine louder than everyone else?

I don’t think you can appreciate the stress of teaching unless you’ve done it. Is it the ONLY hard job? Of course not. Are teachers extremely overworked? Yes.

-career changer who has worked in the corporate world. I hard rough weeks in that job, but teaching is considerably more time-consuming and stressful to me.

Fact is that many middling college students who'd rather not get stressed out over grad school self-select into the teaching profession because they think it's an easier gig with lots of vacation time. And then those people get all upset when they realize that teaching is just as hard as many other jobs. So it's not the work per se but the false expectations about teaching that's causing all the whining.

My friend in college was like that.

Well I agree I was stressed about paying for medical school and am now a teacher. I got a full ride for undergrad and living at home with my parents was not an option for me after 18. I worked 35 hours a week, had a full ride and put myself through school. I wanted to be a pediatrician, but didn't want to take on the debt load involved and so I became a teacher. Over time, I figured identifying ear infection after ear infection after strep throat after ear infection while not earning that much (in the beginning) and having student debt made teaching look better and more fulfilling. Plus I really like kids and I wanted to see them when they were healthy not only sick.

I don't think that means I should end up taking crap from people about my job. I still think I am worth of respect. I could have gone to med school and done well. I could have been an engineer, but I chose teaching. The working conditions are very hard and there is a layer of patriarchy in our society that makes people further denigrate teachers.

Right now things are particularly bad in education. As people are looking to rebuild relationships and reenter society after COVID, I think they are understandably upset that our social fabric was torn apart with COVID. People are looking for something to help mend and heal the tear. They really want teachers to be the ones to start the process since we are an archetype for all women everywhere and we work with children and we have always pulled together "for the children."
The problem is we are so very tired also that we aren't willing right now to soothe all the worries away and take in all the behaviors from parents and kids we are dealing with right now. We are trying but we are tired too, just like all caring professions. During times of stress, things that are fragile tend to break. School systems have always relied on teachers to cover up their mistakes from buying too many supplies, to being the face of the system to parents. We are tired of doing this.
Carry on with your "you caused this" rants, but know that root of what you are doing comes from a place of misogyny and patriarchy (Cue defensive, angry posts now)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need to quit whining. Even this thread is about why nobody supposedly acknowledges how overworked teachers are. We get it, you feel stressed out, but so are many other professionals. We've already heard you complain about it 1000 times. Why do you think you're special and get to whine louder than everyone else?

I don’t think you can appreciate the stress of teaching unless you’ve done it. Is it the ONLY hard job? Of course not. Are teachers extremely overworked? Yes.

-career changer who has worked in the corporate world. I hard rough weeks in that job, but teaching is considerably more time-consuming and stressful to me.

Fact is that many middling college students who'd rather not get stressed out over grad school self-select into the teaching profession because they think it's an easier gig with lots of vacation time. And then those people get all upset when they realize that teaching is just as hard as many other jobs. So it's not the work per se but the false expectations about teaching that's causing all the whining.

Teachers get very little paid vacation time and that time is dictated to them. They do not have the option of working for more than the ~190 days of the school year without applying for another, different,temporary job. For all practical purposes, they are furloughed every summer.

What? We don't get any paid vacation time. Most teachers work a 190 day contract and they work 190 days. We don't get paid vacation at all. I do get one paid personal day per year and a certain number of sick days.

What do you think “paid vacation time” is? That’s what your personal day is.

That sounds like very little, and it is. Except you also get holidays and many schools breaks off. That’s when other people end up using their paid time off.

Teachers don’t get as many holidays off as Feds do, which is a huge percentage of DCUM.

Looking at the MCPS calendar, teachers get 22 days off during the year, not counting early release days. That’s a lot more than feds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need to quit whining. Even this thread is about why nobody supposedly acknowledges how overworked teachers are. We get it, you feel stressed out, but so are many other professionals. We've already heard you complain about it 1000 times. Why do you think you're special and get to whine louder than everyone else?

I don’t think you can appreciate the stress of teaching unless you’ve done it. Is it the ONLY hard job? Of course not. Are teachers extremely overworked? Yes.

-career changer who has worked in the corporate world. I hard rough weeks in that job, but teaching is considerably more time-consuming and stressful to me.

Fact is that many middling college students who'd rather not get stressed out over grad school self-select into the teaching profession because they think it's an easier gig with lots of vacation time. And then those people get all upset when they realize that teaching is just as hard as many other jobs. So it's not the work per se but the false expectations about teaching that's causing all the whining.

Teachers get very little paid vacation time and that time is dictated to them. They do not have the option of working for more than the ~190 days of the school year without applying for another, different,temporary job. For all practical purposes, they are furloughed every summer.

What? We don't get any paid vacation time. Most teachers work a 190 day contract and they work 190 days. We don't get paid vacation at all. I do get one paid personal day per year and a certain number of sick days.

What do you think “paid vacation time” is? That’s what your personal day is.

That sounds like very little, and it is. Except you also get holidays and many schools breaks off. That’s when other people end up using their paid time off.

Teachers don’t get as many holidays off as Feds do, which is a huge percentage of DCUM.

Looking at the MCPS calendar, teachers get 22 days off during the year, not counting early release days. That’s a lot more than feds.

That's 22 days PLUS endless summer vacation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The school is still paying the same share of the premiums over the summer as they do the rest of the year. Did you really think you were paying the full premium over the summer? Or that they were taking the full premiums for the summer out of your paychecks during the school year?

In my school district, yes, that's how we are paid.

I earn a salary of $83,320/year. I'm paid for 22 pay periods. My yearly health care insurance premiums, long term disability, pension contributions, etc are divided up for the year by 22 and the amount is paid from that paycheck. The school district's share of our premiums and contribution to our pensions comes during those 22 pay periods, as well.

From each paycheck about 1/6 of my gross pay (actually 18%) is withheld (after taxes). They keep that for teachers in a "Summer Pay" fund. We get 4 paychecks in the summer from that fund. But all our premiums are paid from the 22 salary paychecks. Not from the 4 summer fund paychecks.

You realize what they withhold from your paychecks doesn’t cover the entire premium, don’t you? The school pays most of the premium, even for those summer months when you're not working.

This really isn’t that complicated.

Let me walk you through this with some sample numbers so you can understand where I am coming from.

Scenario 1:
Health care for employer per year is 12,000
Health care for employee per year is 8,000 ( 800a month for 10 months, or 666.6 a month for 12)

Scenario 2:
Lets say the board decides to lower their payment to 10,000 and pass the extra 2 to the employee. Now it is

Health care for employer per year 10,000
Health care for employee per year 10,000 ( 1,000 per month for 10 months or 833 per mont for 12 month pay)


I'll admit to not knowing much about this, but both of these seem viable options.
Please provide me with an explanation to show how local school boards decide how much premium they pay vs the insurance. You can also let me know how schools choose health providers and negotiate payment and decide how much they pay vs their employees. I will be honest and say I don't know how any employer does this, but it seems like any employer can change the formula and I am not sure how you would know the breakdown between employer and employee.

You can not just "change the formula". The employer is required by law to pay at least 50% of the premium for the insured person. If you pay 75% of one employee, you must pay 75% of all, etc. but the minimum you must pay is 50%

[Anonymous]

Okay, how about paraeducators. We work the same hours as teachers during the day, and get four vacation days. Yes Summers and some school holidays, but there are many what they call "no work no pay" days for paraeducators.

The hourly rate is less than what I could make at Starbucks or Costco. There is Health insurance, but that is changing too, for the worse: from CareFirst to Cigna

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, how about paraeducators. We work the same hours as teachers during the day, and get four vacation days. Yes Summers and some school holidays, but there are many what they call "no work no pay" days for paraeducators.

The hourly rate is less than what I could make at Starbucks or Costco. There is Health insurance, but that is changing too, for the worse: from CareFirst to Cigna

Thanks for what you do. No question, you are inexcusably underpaid and underappreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The school is still paying the same share of the premiums over the summer as they do the rest of the year. Did you really think you were paying the full premium over the summer? Or that they were taking the full premiums for the summer out of your paychecks during the school year?

In my school district, yes, that's how we are paid.

I earn a salary of $83,320/year. I'm paid for 22 pay periods. My yearly health care insurance premiums, long term disability, pension contributions, etc are divided up for the year by 22 and the amount is paid from that paycheck. The school district's share of our premiums and contribution to our pensions comes during those 22 pay periods, as well.

From each paycheck about 1/6 of my gross pay (actually 18%) is withheld (after taxes). They keep that for teachers in a "Summer Pay" fund. We get 4 paychecks in the summer from that fund. But all our premiums are paid from the 22 salary paychecks. Not from the 4 summer fund paychecks.

You realize what they withhold from your paychecks doesn’t cover the entire premium, don’t you? The school pays most of the premium, even for those summer months when you're not working.

This really isn’t that complicated.

Let me walk you through this with some sample numbers so you can understand where I am coming from.

Scenario 1:
Health care for employer per year is 12,000
Health care for employee per year is 8,000 ( 800a month for 10 months, or 666.6 a month for 12)

Scenario 2:
Lets say the board decides to lower their payment to 10,000 and pass the extra 2 to the employee. Now it is

Health care for employer per year 10,000
Health care for employee per year 10,000 ( 1,000 per month for 10 months or 833 per mont for 12 month pay)


I'll admit to not knowing much about this, but both of these seem viable options.
Please provide me with an explanation to show how local school boards decide how much premium they pay vs the insurance. You can also let me know how schools choose health providers and negotiate payment and decide how much they pay vs their employees. I will be honest and say I don't know how any employer does this, but it seems like any employer can change the formula and I am not sure how you would know the breakdown between employer and employee.

You can not just "change the formula". The employer is required by law to pay at least 50% of the premium for the insured person. If you pay 75% of one employee, you must pay 75% of all, etc. but the minimum you must pay is 50%

Ok thanks so the formula can be anywhere between 50%-100% for all employees? Are you saying the board cannot change the amount paid from 60% to 50% for all employees? I am genuinely asking because I don't know.