Reply to buy your teacher a nice end of the school year gift please!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Get a summer job and it won’t be a problem. I’d agree to make 30% less money if I had summers off. [/quote]

Oh yes, the “summers off” statement. [b]When you work 60+ hours a week at a job that provides absolutely no down time and no flexibility[/b], those UNPAID summers become the only break you get.

And many of us end up working job #2. It’s not like we are lazing around the pool.

And on topic: please don’t get me anything. I’m a professional and I’m simply doing my job. [/quote]

Sorry, this still doesn't fly. You have multiple long weekends, 1-2 week winter break, federal holidays, 1 week spring break -- all during your PAID months of the year. And while you will likely say you are still working during all of those days off, don't expect us to believe all or even most teachers are.  For "no flexibility" and "no down time," there are an awful lot of teachers MIA the last weeks of the school year.

Teachers don't seem to realize or acknowledge that there are a lot of other professions in which people work 60+ hours a week YEAR ROUND and don't get every Federal and religious holiday and two weeks around Christmas/New Year's. Paid leave benefits vary widely. Fed Gov't is very generous. Some private companies, extremely stingy - literally 5 vacation days and 5 personal days (which includes sick leave) even with 20+ years work experience.[/quote]

If teachers have such generous benefits, then why aren’t all the DCUM complainers applying to teach? That would easily take care of the teacher shortage in the region.

I’m guessing that’s because complainers have most or all of the following: better pay, more flexibility, a better work/life balance, calmer working environments, and more professional respect.

For as good as you want it to sound, I simply don’t see people jumping at the chance to teach. It’s almost like people know it’s not a good deal?[/quote]

There are various reasons a lot of people aren't interested in teaching. For me, the primary reason is because I would suck at being a teacher. Good teaching is HARD and not all that many people are really great at it. I don't want teachers for the sake of filling positions. I want people who want to teach and who are good at their job - just like every employer wants employees who want to be there and are good at what they're expected to do.

[/quote]

I am one of those great teachers. I am very, very good at what I do. I’m the teacher who gets all the parent requests each year. Guess how I am treated? Just like the ones with poor performance.

I’m ready to leave, and I know nobody really cares. The PP wants “people who want to teach” (like me), but isn’t willing to see how the profession needs to change to keep us here.[/quote]

Honest question - what do you expect parents to do about it? It's not like the higher ups listen to us either. [/quote]

+1. This is like a doctor complaining about being a doctor and then complaining that it's up to their patients to change how their profession works. Teachers, if you don't like how your profession works, then be the change. It's not my job as a parent to fix it. I have my own profession with its own issues. [/quote]

I don’t disagree with you that on the whole teachers can be very whiny sometimes (and I am a teacher) but I will say your suggestion for teachers to fix it isn’t quite on target. I teach in the same district my kids are students in and I promise you I get more traction when I speak up about something from the position of being a parent in the district than an employee in the district. The parent voice has much, much more power. [/quote]

Well. I don't think we parents have the power you think we do. I have spoken up many, many times as a parent, and crickets. What about your union? Whe are you complaining to parents and telling us to fix things instead of going to your union? Isn't that the literal point of a union? [/quote]

It’s not really a union, it’s an education association. Schools don’t even let the LCPS education association in the building anymore and we don’t have every staff member choose to be parent of it. Again, you’re treating me like I’m an “other” when I TOO am a parent in this community. I engage in advocacy AS A PARENT because it gets me further than when I attempt as staff whom they see as replaceable. [/quote]

I thought this changed and now they are truly unions. Just saw that AEA negotiated a contract with APS. [/quote]

Well I’m in LCPS and it is not a union here. [/quote]

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