Why is there a half day for MCPS today?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Today has nothing do to with Rosh Hashanah. That is just Monday. This is a teacher work half-day.

They just had a professional day and a 3 day weekend? What the fuck.

Yes and practically a 4 day weekend this weekend. This will be their 4th day off after only being in school 22 days. Those poor overworked teachers.

My DH is an MCPS teacher. He leaves for school at 7 am. He works through lunch meeting with his students. He has meetings after school. Then, when he comes home - he grades more. Then after dinner - you know what he does? More grading and lesson planning. Over the weekend? More grading and lesson planning. He has 150 students. So spare me your sarcastic "overworked teachers" comment.

He works 200 days max a year. He has 150+ days off. So spare me your overworked teachers comment.

You think he is just relaxing during weekends and holidays? Do you know how many times we are on car road trips where I drive an he is grading? Yes - he gets the summer off (which again - he spends some of it lesson planning for the upcoming year), but I think it is well deserved. Teachers are so under appreciated!

And do you get paid 70k a year like the average MCPS teacher, or are in BigLaw or something?

I work 50hrs a week AND work from home after I put my kids asleep. I also have zero vacation time or holidays off. I get Christmas, New Years, and Christmas. I usually go into my office on Saturday mornings to catch up. Most people these days do not work 8hrs a day.

70K for 180 school days = 6 figure salary for people who work 52 weeks.

Let's evaluate this. The average 52-work-week employee works 260 days (52 weeks * 5 days per week). This number includes paid holidays, paid time off, and sick leave.

MCPS teachers have 193 duty days (including professional days and 13 sick or personal days off), but also an additional 12 holidays. Since we counted holidays in work days for the 52-work-week employee, we should also here. Thus, there are 193 + 12 = 205 total days in the schedule.

70,000 / 205 = x / 260

70,000 * 260 = 205x

18200000 = 205x

x = 88780

Thus, the teacher who makes $70,000 per year has the equivalent pro-rated salary of $88,780.

If we instead take the approach of removing all paid days off, for the 52-work-week employee let's use a figure of 10 holidays and 10 paid days off. Thus, there are 260 - 20 = 240 expected work days per year. For the teacher, we could subtract the 12 holidays and 13 paid/sick days off to get 205 - 25 = 180. Let's redo the calculation with this method:

70,000 / 180 = x / 240

70000 * 240 = 180x

16800000 = 180x

x = 93,333


With this method, the teacher who makes $70,000 has the equivalent salary of somebody who makes $93,333.

Both of those numbers are below 6 figures. I think your hatred for teachers may be justified. Your math teacher certainly failed you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today has nothing do to with Rosh Hashanah. That is just Monday. This is a teacher work half-day.

They just had a professional day and a 3 day weekend? What the fuck.

Yes and practically a 4 day weekend this weekend. This will be their 4th day off after only being in school 22 days. Those poor overworked teachers.

My DH is an MCPS teacher. He leaves for school at 7 am. He works through lunch meeting with his students. He has meetings after school. Then, when he comes home - he grades more. Then after dinner - you know what he does? More grading and lesson planning. Over the weekend? More grading and lesson planning. He has 150 students. So spare me your sarcastic "overworked teachers" comment.

He works 200 days max a year. He has 150+ days off. So spare me your overworked teachers comment.

You do realize that the other days are not off--they are unpaid!

Someone just said a teacher in MCPS has an average salary of 70K. That is a huge salary and they can be okay on their unpaid days off. And since tutoring is at the rate of $50-90/HR, I think they are doing just fine and not underpaid by any means. Maybe for big time lawyers and doctors 70K is measly but it is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really hate that so many threads devolve into "those lazy teachers" and "those other people's stupid religious holidays."

Read the calendar in August and make arrangements. Our PTA has it automated so there's a direct link to Google Calendars. Not hard.

Accept that you live in a very diverse county and enjoy the positives that diversity brings to your life.

Teachers, you are making such an important contribution. Thank you!

As soon as someone brings up the school schedule it devolves into lazy teachers. I didn't realize teachers were making up the calendar on their own.

Maybe it was better when I was in school. Our teachers hardly ever went to anything. They weren't required to stay up to date because very little changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today has nothing do to with Rosh Hashanah. That is just Monday. This is a teacher work half-day.

They just had a professional day and a 3 day weekend? What the fuck.

Yes and practically a 4 day weekend this weekend. This will be their 4th day off after only being in school 22 days. Those poor overworked teachers.

My DH is an MCPS teacher. He leaves for school at 7 am. He works through lunch meeting with his students. He has meetings after school. Then, when he comes home - he grades more. Then after dinner - you know what he does? More grading and lesson planning. Over the weekend? More grading and lesson planning. He has 150 students. So spare me your sarcastic "overworked teachers" comment.

He works 200 days max a year. He has 150+ days off. So spare me your overworked teachers comment.

You do realize that the other days are not off--they are unpaid!

Someone just said a teacher in MCPS has an average salary of 70K. That is a huge salary and they can be okay on their unpaid days off. And since tutoring is at the rate of $50-90/HR, I think they are doing just fine and not underpaid by any means. Maybe for big time lawyers and doctors 70K is measly but it is not.

So why don't you become a teacher for the salary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these closures don't really have that much to do with teacher-prep.

Sept 5 - Labor Day
Sept 12 - Eid (Muslim holiday)
Today - Teacher prep?
Monday - Rosh Hashanah

They have school on Columbus day and then they are off on a Wednesday for Yom Kippur

Sept 12th was a professional work day. Not Eid, at least according to the MCPS calendar.

It was off for Eid, teachers had to report.

[Anonymous]

Average salary does not accurately reflect what most MCPS teachers make because, like most school systems in the country, about half of all MCPS teacher leave the profession within five years. So...more accurate measures might be the mode--the most common salary among all MCPS teachers--or the median--the salary in the middle if you line up all of the salaries, from least to greatest. The average is "skewed" by the salaries of veteran teachers who have Masters degrees, plus 30 or 60 additional credit hours.

[Anonymous]

My husband came to teaching as a second career after being a lawyer for 25 years. He works three times for a fraction of the pay. Teacher work days are not "days off". DH goes to school at the appointed hour on every one of them.

He is required to be in school mid-August to approx. June 30 (we can't plan during to be away during snow contingencies at the end of June, which have been used the past 2 years for the system DH works in). If you figure that out, that makes for 6 weeks off (30 work days), in the summer. Yes, he gets an occasional paid holiday, which, except for winter break (5 days) and spring break (5 days), line up pretty much with a typical 52 week worker's paid holidays. So, for those of you that get 30 days paid time off, think of a teacher's summer as being equivalent to your 4 weeks of PTO. So, maybe he gets 10 work days off more than you. But I assure you, he works many of those days and every Saturday and Sunday during the school year. He works every night lesson planning. He leaves for work before child care opens for my kids. He is supposed to have a duty day that ends at 2:45, but at least once per week his principal invokes making him stay until 3:30 under contract for training or meetings. He only leaves at 2:45 to take our kids to activities or appointments, during which he typically grades papers. He never takes a vacation day off during the school year. We can't jet away for a few days of rest because it would put his kids too far behind at school. And for each day he isn't in the classroom, he must prepare detailed sub plans.

And for this, he gets paid roughly $50K. Not, $70K. So he can be sick much of the year with whatever virus you decided it was ok to send you kid to school with.

I lose my husband August-June. I become the daytime parent because I can answer a phone during work. Yup, teaching is such an easy life. Bullshit.

Like the PPs, I might have said teachers have it easy, until my husband became one. He thought it would be easier too. It's not. He is a slave to the system and gets to deal with parents who just don't have a clue how much red-tape and paperwork on top of actually teaching the students teachers have to do. I have become fond of saying that the only priorities lower on the list for the school system than the teachers is the students. I have seen the ugly underbelly of the school systems around here, and it is not pretty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband came to teaching as a second career after being a lawyer for 25 years. He works three times for a fraction of the pay. Teacher work days are not "days off". DH goes to school at the appointed hour on every one of them.

He is required to be in school mid-August to approx. June 30 (we can't plan during to be away during snow contingencies at the end of June, which have been used the past 2 years for the system DH works in). If you figure that out, that makes for 6 weeks off (30 work days), in the summer. Yes, he gets an occasional paid holiday, which, except for winter break (5 days) and spring break (5 days), line up pretty much with a typical 52 week worker's paid holidays. So, for those of you that get 30 days paid time off, think of a teacher's summer as being equivalent to your 4 weeks of PTO. So, maybe he gets 10 work days off more than you. But I assure you, he works many of those days and every Saturday and Sunday during the school year. He works every night lesson planning. He leaves for work before child care opens for my kids. He is supposed to have a duty day that ends at 2:45, but at least once per week his principal invokes making him stay until 3:30 under contract for training or meetings. He only leaves at 2:45 to take our kids to activities or appointments, during which he typically grades papers. He never takes a vacation day off during the school year. We can't jet away for a few days of rest because it would put his kids too far behind at school. And for each day he isn't in the classroom, he must prepare detailed sub plans.

And for this, he gets paid roughly $50K. Not, $70K. So he can be sick much of the year with whatever virus you decided it was ok to send you kid to school with.

I lose my husband August-June. I become the daytime parent because I can answer a phone during work. Yup, teaching is such an easy life. Bullshit.

Like the PPs, I might have said teachers have it easy, until my husband became one. He thought it would be easier too. It's not. He is a slave to the system and gets to deal with parents who just don't have a clue how much red-tape and paperwork on top of actually teaching the students teachers have to do. I have become fond of saying that the only priorities lower on the list for the school system than the teachers is the students. I have seen the ugly underbelly of the school systems around here, and it is not pretty.

I did my math wrong. 30 days = 6 weeks PTO. Good thing I am not a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband came to teaching as a second career after being a lawyer for 25 years. He works three times for a fraction of the pay. Teacher work days are not "days off". DH goes to school at the appointed hour on every one of them.

He is required to be in school mid-August to approx. June 30 (we can't plan during to be away during snow contingencies at the end of June, which have been used the past 2 years for the system DH works in). If you figure that out, that makes for 6 weeks off (30 work days), in the summer. Yes, he gets an occasional paid holiday, which, except for winter break (5 days) and spring break (5 days), line up pretty much with a typical 52 week worker's paid holidays. So, for those of you that get 30 days paid time off, think of a teacher's summer as being equivalent to your 4 weeks of PTO. So, maybe he gets 10 work days off more than you. But I assure you, he works many of those days and every Saturday and Sunday during the school year. He works every night lesson planning. He leaves for work before child care opens for my kids. He is supposed to have a duty day that ends at 2:45, but at least once per week his principal invokes making him stay until 3:30 under contract for training or meetings. He only leaves at 2:45 to take our kids to activities or appointments, during which he typically grades papers. He never takes a vacation day off during the school year. We can't jet away for a few days of rest because it would put his kids too far behind at school. And for each day he isn't in the classroom, he must prepare detailed sub plans.

And for this, he gets paid roughly $50K. Not, $70K. So he can be sick much of the year with whatever virus you decided it was ok to send you kid to school with.

I lose my husband August-June. I become the daytime parent because I can answer a phone during work. Yup, teaching is such an easy life. Bullshit.

Like the PPs, I might have said teachers have it easy, until my husband became one. He thought it would be easier too. It's not. He is a slave to the system and gets to deal with parents who just don't have a clue how much red-tape and paperwork on top of actually teaching the students teachers have to do. I have become fond of saying that the only priorities lower on the list for the school system than the teachers is the students. I have seen the ugly underbelly of the school systems around here, and it is not pretty.

I did my math wrong. 30 days = 6 weeks PTO. Good thing I am not a teacher.

But teachers aren't paid for days they don't work so it's not the same as PTO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband came to teaching as a second career after being a lawyer for 25 years. He works three times for a fraction of the pay. Teacher work days are not "days off". DH goes to school at the appointed hour on every one of them.

He is required to be in school mid-August to approx. June 30 (we can't plan during to be away during snow contingencies at the end of June, which have been used the past 2 years for the system DH works in). If you figure that out, that makes for 6 weeks off (30 work days), in the summer. Yes, he gets an occasional paid holiday, which, except for winter break (5 days) and spring break (5 days), line up pretty much with a typical 52 week worker's paid holidays. So, for those of you that get 30 days paid time off, think of a teacher's summer as being equivalent to your 4 weeks of PTO. So, maybe he gets 10 work days off more than you. But I assure you, he works many of those days and every Saturday and Sunday during the school year. He works every night lesson planning. He leaves for work before child care opens for my kids. He is supposed to have a duty day that ends at 2:45, but at least once per week his principal invokes making him stay until 3:30 under contract for training or meetings. He only leaves at 2:45 to take our kids to activities or appointments, during which he typically grades papers. He never takes a vacation day off during the school year. We can't jet away for a few days of rest because it would put his kids too far behind at school. And for each day he isn't in the classroom, he must prepare detailed sub plans.

And for this, he gets paid roughly $50K. Not, $70K. So he can be sick much of the year with whatever virus you decided it was ok to send you kid to school with.

I lose my husband August-June. I become the daytime parent because I can answer a phone during work. Yup, teaching is such an easy life. Bullshit.

Like the PPs, I might have said teachers have it easy, until my husband became one. He thought it would be easier too. It's not. He is a slave to the system and gets to deal with parents who just don't have a clue how much red-tape and paperwork on top of actually teaching the students teachers have to do. I have become fond of saying that the only priorities lower on the list for the school system than the teachers is the students. I have seen the ugly underbelly of the school systems around here, and it is not pretty.

I did my math wrong. 30 days = 6 weeks PTO. Good thing I am not a teacher.

But teachers aren't paid for days they don't work so it's not the same as PTO.

Yup, so that means he doesn't get paid as much as he should since everyone else gets paid for the six weeks off. He works as much or more than most 52 week employees and a lot of people on this board want to justify the lower pay by saying he gets the summer off. It's bullshit.

[Anonymous]

People have a lot of misconceptions about teachers. I don't think it's s cushy job. The turnover rate for new teachers is extremely high with something like half leaving the profession within three to five years. That screams lousy job to me. From what I can tell the only ones who hang in there really do it because their heart is in it and because they really want to make a difference in the lives of kids. My niece will be graduating from medical school this year because one high school chemistry teacher ignited a spark in her for a love of science and showed her she could be good at this "science stuff". She really connected with her and boosted her confidence. This was a kid who didn't even want to go to school most days. And she still talks fondly about that teacher. I'm sure my niece doesn't ever think the teacher who literally changed the course of her life is "over-paid."

[Anonymous]

Why does every post turn into poor teachers. Cry me a river.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of more concern should be the religious holidays that get plugged into the school calendar. If parents or guardians want to take their kids out of school to celebrate a religious holiday, then so be it. Why must the whole school district take off the day, or days? It's absolutely ridiculous.

Yup, and that is why we are now going to have school on Christmas and Easter.

Easter is on Sunday and Christmas is part of winter break, a federal holiday, and almost everywhere but Asian restaurants are closed. Even the Smithsonian is closed. But nice try.

Christmas coincides with Winter break because it's a religious holiday. Jewish private schools are open on Christmas and have their winter break in January because they don't need to worry about Christmas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does every post turn into poor teachers. Cry me a river.

Because parents view school as free babysitting and whine about it at every turn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does every post turn into poor teachers. Cry me a river.

Because parents view school as free babysitting and whine about it at every turn.

Especially the parents who fail to check the calendar and plan accordingly.