Why is there a teacher shortage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Well… they don’t like it, and they are leaving… hence a teacher shortage.

Don’t know if you don’t have school age children but if you do at some point it WILL bother you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Then why are you commenting on this thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Can you think of another profession that requires a degree, specialized course work, and a license and pays similarly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers I know like the schedule because it allows them to be there for their kids for much of the summer. On the other hand, it’s not such a perk that it’s keeping them from leaving.

+1, I also know teachers without kids who like it because it allows them to take longer vacations in the summer. I have a friend who teaches and she does foreign travel every summer. She's considered changing fields because there are things about teaching she doesn't like, but she's really reluctant to give up the ability to go abroad for a full month -- if you love foreign travel but don't have a ton of money, it's a much more economical way to do it because you only buy the plane tickets once and then you can visit multiple countries and cities.

So in her case, I guess sit is a perk that keeps her from leaving. She's also a 15 yr veteran in a district that pays well though, and has a good pension. I think the teacher shortage is really most acute places where teachers are paid poorly. Teachers in most DMV districts actually make pretty good money, especially if they put in some years to reach the highest pay step, and/or are willing to work in Title 1 schools, which many are. I know teachers in this area who make around 140k plus will qualify for a full pension in their 50s. Even in a high COL area like this, that's really not bad at all. Especially if you are married to someone with a similar or better income.

I get why teachers quit, it's a tough job and doesn't get enough respect. It's also my impression that many schools and districts are just incredibly poorly run, and no matter what field you're in, working for dysfunctional organizations wears you down over time. It's my impression that at least in the DMV, job dissatisfaction among teachers is driven by stuff like hating curriculum changes or bad administration, much more so than low pay or annoying parents. The pay is not that low and, tbh, if you are in the DMV at a school where the parents are involved enough to be annoying, you probably recognize that the alternative is a school with little to know parental involvement, which is generally a lot harder.

Those areas were facing teacher shortages before the pandemic.

The DC area is facing increasingly worse teacher shortages since the pandemic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/09/dc-area-schools-teacher-resignations/

In most D.C.-area districts, more teachers resigned during the 2022-2023 school year than in the term prior, data shows. Alexandria saw 325 teachers leave last year, compared with 212 in 2021-2022. More than 500 teachers left Loudoun County Public Schools last year, up from 339 in the school year prior. In Prince George’s County, officials counted 1,126 resignations between July 2022 and this July — the district last year reported losing 989 teachers between June 2021 and July 2022.
In Maryland’s largest school system — Montgomery County Public Schools — 625 teachers have resigned since the start of the 2022-2023 school year, which is about 2.4 percent of the total workforce. In 2021-2022, 576 teachers resigned their positions, The Washington Post previously reported.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-8.html
> Teachers reported better well-being in January 2023 than in 2021 and 2022, and rates of job-related stress have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, teachers continue to report worse well-being than the general population of working adults.

> Twenty-three percent of teachers said that they were likely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year. Of these teachers, those who reported poor well-being were more likely than their counterparts to say that they intended to leave. Stress and disappointment of the job, salary, and number of working hours were the top reasons teachers intended to leave.

> Among the 77 percent of teachers who were unlikely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year, their ability to positively affect students and positive relationships with students and other teachers were the top reasons they intended to stay.


Takeaway: be nice to the teachers who are staying because they are there for your kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers I know like the schedule because it allows them to be there for their kids for much of the summer. On the other hand, it’s not such a perk that it’s keeping them from leaving.

+1, I also know teachers without kids who like it because it allows them to take longer vacations in the summer. I have a friend who teaches and she does foreign travel every summer. She's considered changing fields because there are things about teaching she doesn't like, but she's really reluctant to give up the ability to go abroad for a full month -- if you love foreign travel but don't have a ton of money, it's a much more economical way to do it because you only buy the plane tickets once and then you can visit multiple countries and cities.

So in her case, I guess sit is a perk that keeps her from leaving. She's also a 15 yr veteran in a district that pays well though, and has a good pension. I think the teacher shortage is really most acute places where teachers are paid poorly. Teachers in most DMV districts actually make pretty good money, especially if they put in some years to reach the highest pay step, and/or are willing to work in Title 1 schools, which many are. I know teachers in this area who make around 140k plus will qualify for a full pension in their 50s. Even in a high COL area like this, that's really not bad at all. Especially if you are married to someone with a similar or better income.

I get why teachers quit, it's a tough job and doesn't get enough respect. It's also my impression that many schools and districts are just incredibly poorly run, and no matter what field you're in, working for dysfunctional organizations wears you down over time. It's my impression that at least in the DMV, job dissatisfaction among teachers is driven by stuff like hating curriculum changes or bad administration, much more so than low pay or annoying parents. The pay is not that low and, tbh, if you are in the DMV at a school where the parents are involved enough to be annoying, you probably recognize that the alternative is a school with little to know parental involvement, which is generally a lot harder.

Those areas were facing teacher shortages before the pandemic.

The DC area is facing increasingly worse teacher shortages since the pandemic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/09/dc-area-schools-teacher-resignations/

In most D.C.-area districts, more teachers resigned during the 2022-2023 school year than in the term prior, data shows. Alexandria saw 325 teachers leave last year, compared with 212 in 2021-2022. More than 500 teachers left Loudoun County Public Schools last year, up from 339 in the school year prior. In Prince George’s County, officials counted 1,126 resignations between July 2022 and this July — the district last year reported losing 989 teachers between June 2021 and July 2022.
In Maryland’s largest school system — Montgomery County Public Schools — 625 teachers have resigned since the start of the 2022-2023 school year, which is about 2.4 percent of the total workforce. In 2021-2022, 576 teachers resigned their positions, The Washington Post previously reported.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-8.html
> Teachers reported better well-being in January 2023 than in 2021 and 2022, and rates of job-related stress have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, teachers continue to report worse well-being than the general population of working adults.

> Twenty-three percent of teachers said that they were likely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year. Of these teachers, those who reported poor well-being were more likely than their counterparts to say that they intended to leave. Stress and disappointment of the job, salary, and number of working hours were the top reasons teachers intended to leave.

> Among the 77 percent of teachers who were unlikely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year, their ability to positively affect students and positive relationships with students and other teachers were the top reasons they intended to stay.


Takeaway: be nice to the teachers who are staying because they are there for your kids

You just said that it'sabout pay, not parents. So it doesn't matter if parents are 'nice' or not.

DC surveys of why teachers leave cite bad management, new curriculum things, hours, etc.

"Bad parenting" is just a cudgel that has no use for actual change. It's just people on this board who I suspect as being deeply misogynist using it as cover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

I'm not a teacher, but you have your head in the sand. Teachers are leaving at significantly higher rates than in previous school years even pre-pandemic. School districts are not able to hire enough replacements and typically have vacancies at the start of the year. Parents are complaining that their children are getting placeholder classes in some cases instead of real classes because they are monitored by a non-teaching staff member and the children, already behind due to the pandemic, are falling further behind.

Teachers are trying to tell you why this is the case and you just don't want to hear the whining. So, either listen to the teachers and try to convey to your BoE or vote for BoE members who are amenable to listening to the teachers and addressing their concerns, or stop complaining about the lack of teachers for your children in school and just settle for your child missing out on their education because we can't provide teachers a suitable working environment to retain them.

[Anonymous]

For some reason I chose to read the last few pages of this thread and its just teachers explaining why they want to leave and non teachers telling them that they actually don't think teachers feel that way. Bizarre lack of understanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For some reason I chose to read the last few pages of this thread and its just teachers explaining why they want to leave and non teachers telling them that they actually don't think teachers feel that way. Bizarre lack of understanding.

Yes, and I love a non-teacher referring to it as “average work.”

Anybody who has actually done the job knows there’s nothing average about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Can you think of another profession that requires a degree, specialized course work, and a license and pays similarly?

Social work? Many of those working in government employment make similarly low salaries, including attorneys working as prosecutors and public defenders, make even less than teachers with less flexibility for work/life balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

"degree"
taking classes in elementary music is stupid


IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Can you think of another profession that requires a degree, specialized course work, and a license and pays similarly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers I know like the schedule because it allows them to be there for their kids for much of the summer. On the other hand, it’s not such a perk that it’s keeping them from leaving.

+1, I also know teachers without kids who like it because it allows them to take longer vacations in the summer. I have a friend who teaches and she does foreign travel every summer. She's considered changing fields because there are things about teaching she doesn't like, but she's really reluctant to give up the ability to go abroad for a full month -- if you love foreign travel but don't have a ton of money, it's a much more economical way to do it because you only buy the plane tickets once and then you can visit multiple countries and cities.

So in her case, I guess sit is a perk that keeps her from leaving. She's also a 15 yr veteran in a district that pays well though, and has a good pension. I think the teacher shortage is really most acute places where teachers are paid poorly. Teachers in most DMV districts actually make pretty good money, especially if they put in some years to reach the highest pay step, and/or are willing to work in Title 1 schools, which many are. I know teachers in this area who make around 140k plus will qualify for a full pension in their 50s. Even in a high COL area like this, that's really not bad at all. Especially if you are married to someone with a similar or better income.

I get why teachers quit, it's a tough job and doesn't get enough respect. It's also my impression that many schools and districts are just incredibly poorly run, and no matter what field you're in, working for dysfunctional organizations wears you down over time. It's my impression that at least in the DMV, job dissatisfaction among teachers is driven by stuff like hating curriculum changes or bad administration, much more so than low pay or annoying parents. The pay is not that low and, tbh, if you are in the DMV at a school where the parents are involved enough to be annoying, you probably recognize that the alternative is a school with little to know parental involvement, which is generally a lot harder.

Those areas were facing teacher shortages before the pandemic.

The DC area is facing increasingly worse teacher shortages since the pandemic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/09/dc-area-schools-teacher-resignations/

In most D.C.-area districts, more teachers resigned during the 2022-2023 school year than in the term prior, data shows. Alexandria saw 325 teachers leave last year, compared with 212 in 2021-2022. More than 500 teachers left Loudoun County Public Schools last year, up from 339 in the school year prior. In Prince George’s County, officials counted 1,126 resignations between July 2022 and this July — the district last year reported losing 989 teachers between June 2021 and July 2022.
In Maryland’s largest school system — Montgomery County Public Schools — 625 teachers have resigned since the start of the 2022-2023 school year, which is about 2.4 percent of the total workforce. In 2021-2022, 576 teachers resigned their positions, The Washington Post previously reported.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-8.html
> Teachers reported better well-being in January 2023 than in 2021 and 2022, and rates of job-related stress have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, teachers continue to report worse well-being than the general population of working adults.

> Twenty-three percent of teachers said that they were likely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year. Of these teachers, those who reported poor well-being were more likely than their counterparts to say that they intended to leave. Stress and disappointment of the job, salary, and number of working hours were the top reasons teachers intended to leave.

> Among the 77 percent of teachers who were unlikely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year, their ability to positively affect students and positive relationships with students and other teachers were the top reasons they intended to stay.


Takeaway: be nice to the teachers who are staying because they are there for your kids

You just said that it'sabout pay, not parents. So it doesn't matter if parents are 'nice' or not.

DC surveys of why teachers leave cite bad management, new curriculum things, hours, etc.

"Bad parenting" is just a cudgel that has no use for actual change. It's just people on this board who I suspect as being deeply misogynist using it as cover.

Maybe you’re confusing posters. I didn’t say it’s about pay or anything about bad parenting.

If you want teachers to stay, listen to them. And, as a start, stop disparaging them on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers I know like the schedule because it allows them to be there for their kids for much of the summer. On the other hand, it’s not such a perk that it’s keeping them from leaving.

+1, I also know teachers without kids who like it because it allows them to take longer vacations in the summer. I have a friend who teaches and she does foreign travel every summer. She's considered changing fields because there are things about teaching she doesn't like, but she's really reluctant to give up the ability to go abroad for a full month -- if you love foreign travel but don't have a ton of money, it's a much more economical way to do it because you only buy the plane tickets once and then you can visit multiple countries and cities.

So in her case, I guess sit is a perk that keeps her from leaving. She's also a 15 yr veteran in a district that pays well though, and has a good pension. I think the teacher shortage is really most acute places where teachers are paid poorly. Teachers in most DMV districts actually make pretty good money, especially if they put in some years to reach the highest pay step, and/or are willing to work in Title 1 schools, which many are. I know teachers in this area who make around 140k plus will qualify for a full pension in their 50s. Even in a high COL area like this, that's really not bad at all. Especially if you are married to someone with a similar or better income.

I get why teachers quit, it's a tough job and doesn't get enough respect. It's also my impression that many schools and districts are just incredibly poorly run, and no matter what field you're in, working for dysfunctional organizations wears you down over time. It's my impression that at least in the DMV, job dissatisfaction among teachers is driven by stuff like hating curriculum changes or bad administration, much more so than low pay or annoying parents. The pay is not that low and, tbh, if you are in the DMV at a school where the parents are involved enough to be annoying, you probably recognize that the alternative is a school with little to know parental involvement, which is generally a lot harder.

Those areas were facing teacher shortages before the pandemic.

The DC area is facing increasingly worse teacher shortages since the pandemic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/09/dc-area-schools-teacher-resignations/

In most D.C.-area districts, more teachers resigned during the 2022-2023 school year than in the term prior, data shows. Alexandria saw 325 teachers leave last year, compared with 212 in 2021-2022. More than 500 teachers left Loudoun County Public Schools last year, up from 339 in the school year prior. In Prince George’s County, officials counted 1,126 resignations between July 2022 and this July — the district last year reported losing 989 teachers between June 2021 and July 2022.
In Maryland’s largest school system — Montgomery County Public Schools — 625 teachers have resigned since the start of the 2022-2023 school year, which is about 2.4 percent of the total workforce. In 2021-2022, 576 teachers resigned their positions, The Washington Post previously reported.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-8.html
> Teachers reported better well-being in January 2023 than in 2021 and 2022, and rates of job-related stress have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, teachers continue to report worse well-being than the general population of working adults.

> Twenty-three percent of teachers said that they were likely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year. Of these teachers, those who reported poor well-being were more likely than their counterparts to say that they intended to leave. Stress and disappointment of the job, salary, and number of working hours were the top reasons teachers intended to leave.

> Among the 77 percent of teachers who were unlikely to leave their job by the end of the 2022–2023 school year, their ability to positively affect students and positive relationships with students and other teachers were the top reasons they intended to stay.


Takeaway: be nice to the teachers who are staying because they are there for your kids

You just said that it'sabout pay, not parents. So it doesn't matter if parents are 'nice' or not.

DC surveys of why teachers leave cite bad management, new curriculum things, hours, etc.

"Bad parenting" is just a cudgel that has no use for actual change. It's just people on this board who I suspect as being deeply misogynist using it as cover.

Maybe you’re confusing posters. I didn’t say it’s about pay or anything about bad parenting.

If you want teachers to stay, listen to them. And, as a start, stop disparaging them on DCUM.

Your quote was: "Takeaway: be nice to the teachers". Although I do admit that your posts don't mention pay.

Please also stop disparaging parents on DCUM. Saying that 80% of the problem of teachers leaving is bad parenting (like three pages ago) isn't winning parents to the side of teachers. Plus it's not even correct, if you look at actual studies of why teachers are leaving the profession.

Being nice or not to teachers, in the sense of smiling at them or other trivialities (pizza party, anyone?), isn't going to do anything to get teachers to stay or not. It's silly to say so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Can you think of another profession that requires a degree, specialized course work, and a license and pays similarly?

Social work? Many of those working in government employment make similarly low salaries, including attorneys working as prosecutors and public defenders, make even less than teachers with less flexibility for work/life balance.

Librarian jobs now almost universally require a masters degree and specialized studies and make about the same amount as teachers do, but generally have worse benefits. And yes, social work and therapists with social work degrees and many other government employees, including people who have degrees in things like engineering and data science. There are actually a lot of people who make about the same or even less than teachers, have similar job satisfaction and stressors, and many have fewer benefits and none of the advantages of union membership.

I say this not to denigrate what teachers do, but just to note that for many of us, the reason why we might not agree with the argument that teachers are poorly paid or that their jobs are so terrible is because... we have similar jobs. I make 80k, have to work in person, and my job often requires working on weekends and holidays (I work in events). My DH works for the government (engineer, also in person) and makes 115k (after being in his job for 25 years) and he has regular hours but also has to deal with the public a lot and they can be abusive.

I think on DCUM there's a tendency to pretend that all public school parents are attorneys or consultants with big HHIs, or cushy work-from-home jobs with no stress and minimal responsibility. And that's true for a certain segment of the population. But IME, most public school parents are more like us, or work even harder jobs (a lot of my kids' peer's parents have jobs working for FedEx, Pepco, work in retail or food service, etc.).

Which is why I do take issue with the idea that parents are to blame for teachers jobs being hard. I know I always work to be kind and understanding of teachers -- I view them as peers and really appreciate what they do for my kids. But I don't assume their jobs are harder than mine and I know many of the teachers at our school outearn me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is teachers are treated like unpro crap and blamed for society's ills while being paid peanuts and getting no support from the admin or union.

That’s the reason. I can’t think of another profession requiring a specialized degree and license that pays so little

I can’t think of any other profession that gets over 3 months off per year.

Me neither since it's more like two months. Even that doesn't help. There is a shortage and it will get worse. Nobody seems to care to do anything about it. Eventually, schools will go to a model that already exists in places. One certified teacher will teach online while many classrooms will watch. They will employ monitors to watch the kids in person in the classrooms.

Summer alone is 2.5 months. There are lot more days/weeks off and vacations during the school year. It is a lot of time off

IT DOESN'T SEEM TO HELP THOUGH, DOES IT? If these benefits are so awesome, people should be flocking to fill these positions but they aren't. We've had vacancies for over a year and not one person has even applied to most of them.

So…teachers should get paid a lot more for working a lot less?

Let’s be very, very clear about this:
Apparently these glorious summers aren’t a huge perk. WE ARE ALL STILL LEAVING. If you think these amazing summers are worth it, then apply to work as a teacher.

You clearly know the workload and the pay AREN’T worth it, because I don’t see you lining up for an interview. I don’t see anybody lining up for an interview!

I’m so sick of hearing “but you get all this time off.” I work 7 days a week. Yes, 7. I am never caught up. I spend my glorious unpaid summers you seem to crave in classes that I PAY FOR in order to keep my certification.

So just stop with the “all the time off” nonsense. Frankly, it’s very insulting.

Teachers haters irrationally hate teachers. There is literally nothing that you can explain to them that will help them understand.

No one hates teachers, but let’s not claim teachers are working 8+ hrs per day 7 days per week and 365 days per year. They don’t. In fact, it’s been discussed to pay teachers more and have them be year round employee and many teachers chimed in stating there isn’t enough work for them to do. No other profession gets as many vacation days as teachers do. Some people want to make a lot of money and seek a job that pays as such, but you’d be lucky to get. Some people would rather make less and have more time off and a schedule more closely aligned to the days off their children have. Short of taking FMLA leave, no other employee could take the same number of (unpaid) days off a teacher has without getting fired. The avg American only gets 11-15 paid vacation days, of which most people don’t even take for various reasons. That is comparable to the paid time off teachers get as well.

Teachers don’t get paid time off. They work 180 days and get paid got those 180 days.

My kids have 6 teachers/6 classes daily. There seems to be a least one sub per week in a class, sometimes more. Does this get deducted from their 180 days of paid working days?

Most teachers get 8-10 days of leave a year. So those teachers lost a day of leave, yes.

I think the PP is trying to point out that the days teachers don’t work (summer break, spring break, etc) aren’t actually leave. Teachers contracts are for 180-190 days a year. Breaks aren’t “leave”. They just aren’t work days. Teachers aren’t paid for them.

(And they often are work days. When I taught public school, my family was very mad at me for grading on thanksgiving. I had no choice. It had to get done.)

So teachers do get paid time off in addition to the unpaid breaks

Do you think of your weekends as “unpaid breaks”? I suspect you don’t.

So 10 days of leave for 190 days of work. That’s not a lot.

My husband gets 45 days of personal leave a year, including 2 additional weeks at Christmas. He also gets paid about three times more than a teacher and doesn’t work 40 hours a week. He can take just 1 hour of leave and doesn’t have to do anything to prepare for it. He has true flexibility.

I think you are trying to make the argument that teachers have it so good. They don’t. Period. That’s why the teacher shortage exists.

Teachers make average pay, for average work. They have decent benefits, some of which are very unique and many find helpful for their lifestyle (having holidays, snow days, and summers mostly off). It isn’t the best job, but it is far from the worst. I find the constant complaining and demands for respect exhausted. Many many people have harder and more demanding jobs with less benefits. I’m sure we all could find a million complaints about our current jobs. Leave if you don’t like it, doesn’t bother me a bit.

Can you think of another profession that requires a degree, specialized course work, and a license and pays similarly?

Social work? Many of those working in government employment make similarly low salaries, including attorneys working as prosecutors and public defenders, make even less than teachers with less flexibility for work/life balance.

Nurses