Anyone related to a school teacher here?
 

My fiance was a schoolteacher. Pay depends of how long you have been teaching and what state, and what county within the state.

In general, teachers don't make a lot. Starting off for a new teacher in Florida somewhere around 25k a year. The more tenure and qualifications you might get up to 40k in 10 years. Not that great.



They do get summers off unless they teach summer school, and then they would get extra pay.

Some stats I found:

ADG

So, if they don't teach summer school, they don't get paid . . . unless they are supposed to think $25-40k is good cash for a year.

My girlfriend's sister is a Vice Principal at a large high school in a large school system in the USA. She works 10 months a year and makes $75,000.00 with full benefits, etc. Granted she has 2 Masters Degree's and her Under Grad. Degree, plus she is working on another Masters.

My mother has been a life long school teacher, mostly in high schools dealing with Special Ed. students. Last I checked she has was $50,000+ with full benefits, etc. and she only works 10 months out of year as well. She also has 2 Masters Degrees and has decades of work experience and training.

The two I listed are not your average teachers, most are making in the range of $30,000 a year with full benefits and most have 2 months off in the summer. However these days teachers get paid extra to teach summer school in the summer so it adds to their income. Plus teachers also get additional money for coaching sports teams, running clubs, etc. Also the benefits that teachers receive are simply amazing. Full Medical, Dental, Eye, etc. with the lowest copays or no copays. Sick leave is amazing and you get any holiday off and snow days off.

Jim

Interesting . . . I guess there are probably some districts that help raise the bar. I just read something that implied the teachers in NC were getting a raise . . to $30k

http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/570538.html

AFT had some other interesting stats:

* From 1994 to 2004, average teacher salaries, when adjusted for inflation, dropped in 22 states.
* The average beginning teacher salary in the 2003-04 school year was $31,704, up just 1.1% from the previous year.
* Since 1988, there has been only one year, 2001-02, in which teacher salaries have outpaced inflation by more than 1.1%.
* Connecticut had the highest average teacher salary at $56,516, while South Dakota reported the lowest at $33,236.

If you want to get technical, their salary is based on a "School Year" not a 365 day year.

Some teachers will just chill, some have second jobs outside the school, some will teach summer school, etc etc....

in canada about $60-$65K canadian a year with 10 years experience

Also teachers normally get out around 2pm, remember they also have other related jobs they can take for additional income like:

- Night School
- SAT Prep Classes
- Coaching Sports Teams / Running Clubs
- Teaching at Community College
- English As A Second Language Classes

The list goes on and on,

Jim

I understand . . . I am having discussions with some kids and they are acting like the teachers are overpaid and that they are on paid vacation or something.

BTW, just because a teacher "gets off at 2" doesn't mean they can just split. Those papers don't grade themselves.

Remember also that most high school teachers (which have the heaviest workload as far as paper grading goes) only teach 4 classes per day out of a 7 class period day. Each class period is normally 50 minutes, plus lunch. So technically teachers could get a majority of their work done during the school day when they didnt have classes.

Jim

interesting information

4 classes with what 30 kids? 120 papers to grade a day. How fast do you think you can read and great say a 1 page paper, nevermind a 5 page one?

My mother is a teacher and my sister is one.

I don't wish to discuss their salaries but essentially they go up with experience and level of education. So, my mother who has a PHD, is the head of her department and has been teaching for over 30 years makes a lot more than my sister who has been teaching for five years.

Growing up my mother worked a lot over the summer..it may not have been in the classroom teaching but over the summer she had to do all the lesson plans for the following year, do her budget (though that may have been because she was head of department..I just always remember her doing it), prepare her classroom ( with a lot of slave labour from her daughters) and more. She didn't get fully paid during the summer but that was her choice. On their yearly contracts they could decide to get paid every week during the summer and get smaller checks every week throughout the year or get more per week in the school year and then two lump payments during the summer.

I don't know how usual that is but that is how it worked for her.

She also spent many nights, grading,etc and could never mentally leave her job behind when she came home.

I don't know what teachers you know but I have spent a lot of my life around teachers and barely any of them leave when the kids go home for the day.

I guess it depends from what province you're from because when I use to teach, trust me when I say I earned less than half in a disfunctional classroom...

This is a good site for some info
www.salary.com

BD, My father was a teacher ( rest his soul ) back in the day. He had the option of splitting his checks, and that way he got paid all year, weather he taught summer school or not.

My exwife was a teacher ( WISH it was rest her soul ) but anyway, she tought at a year round school. they worked thirteen weeks on and 3 weeks off, all year.

If she taught during the 3 weeks ( summer school ) she would work 9 days, and get paid a full two weeks. Actually making more.

How often did you get assigned a 5 page paper back in high school? Even in english class my senior year I cant remember doing more than 2 "major" five page papers all year. The teachers normally took about 2 weeks at the least to grade those. From what I remember regarding peer editing/revising we never spent more than 15 minutes doing a full edit/revision. Assuming a teacher would have much more experience with knowing what to look for when grading (and not putting suggestions and changes like a normal edit/revision would call for). That two week period there leaves for a good amount of time to get that done even during their non-class periods in the school day.

Jim

Education has changed drastically, no longer are teachers in Public School Systems having to put together their own lesson plans, their own budgets, preparing their classrooms, etc. In todays world of Standardized Testing and Political Influences in our school systems, Teachers are having less and less control over what they teach and how they grade. Most teachers are no longer grading their own tests in many of the subjects and for things like term papers they are given specific outlines on how to grade them.

I even remember talking to my girlfriends sister and she was telling me how her school system had completely moved off of hand grading of ALL Tests and Quizzes. That means in Math, Science, Geography, Economics, and any other subject other than English the tests were graded by machines (fill in the bubble A B C D E with a Number 2 Pencil). The English tests/term papers where given strict guidelines on how to place a grade on them direct from the Board of Education.

Lesson Plans created by a teacher in today's world? Think again. Do you really think a school system these days with the Political Influence and Awareness we have would ever let a teacher decide how to structure her lesson plans or how to deliver the information to students? Everything is standardized, teachers get a booklet each year that shows them exactly what to do, what information to give, even gives the teachers the tests themselves. Nothing is left up to the teacher at this point.

Classrooms to prepare? Have you been in a high school lately? Teachers no longer have their own rooms. Each class period the teacher and class is in a different room. Most teachers these days have offices and then carts that they wheel around with their needed supplies. The high school class rooms are pretty much bare rooms used to teach all subjects and have rotating teachers each class period. Students and Teachers move from class room to class room throughout the day.

Jim

I'm sorry...yes they do...at least my mother and sister both still do that. I don't know what world yo live in but apparently it isn't the same as the one they teach in.

You know and as we speak my mother is in charge of 28 students that she has taken to the international science fair in New Mexico (it is always in the States but it is international because people come to it from other countries). In order for those kids to have made it to that level they have had to go through multiple levels with their projects..school, regional, state. For as long as I can remember my mother has guided kids through those levels, worked closely with them and often for many years - even after they are no longer in her class. Now and then she will get a contact from one of those 'kids' that is now working at a high level science job or something.

My sister does something similar within her subject with the TSA (Technology Student Association).

They don't *have* to do those things but and if you think they get paid much to do them you have to be kidding. It is about them wanting to nurture those kids. They are hardly the only teachers that have dedication like that. and it is insulting to suggest that teachers are nothing more than people who feed tests through a machine.

A teacher I know usually leaves around 3pm. There are times of course when they stay until 8pm or 9pm or a bit later helping students, etc.. but primarily they don't leave that much later than the students do.

She makes about $32k/year, and has been teaching for 10 years.

You should quit arguing about it. It doesn't just vary per state but per county too, etc.. It's going to be different.

Gal I know landed a teaching job in Burbank for $40k a year. Summers off.

I'm pretty she was getting paid more than the average teacher starting out, though.


I know some college professors clear over 100k a year in CA.

Whatever they are paying them in the inner cities obviously isn't enough.

http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/

Montgomery County Public Schools outside of Washington DC.

The only school system in the USA to have 4 of their high schools ranked in the top 100 schools by NewsWeek/MSNBC:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12532678/site/newsweek/

15 Richard Montgomery** Rockville Md.
34 Bethesda-Chevy Chase** Bethesda Md.
51 Wootton Rockville Md.
75 Churchill Potomac Md.

I could see how smaller school systems would operate differently from this school system, however being in such a large school system does in fact "trail blaze" on new ways of teaching. I know that many school systems in the USA are now switching over to more of a standardized way of teaching (which unfortunately means that many of these teachers will become machine feeders and people who read off of the planned/mandated lesson plans). With SAT and ACT becoming such a cut throat way of determining the future of kids today (by judging what college they attend) there is no way that teachers in the future are going to be acting alone in the tasks that you listed. Many of them around the nation have infact switched over to this new method of teaching. I dont agree with it, but it does put everyone on a level playing field while trying to enter colleges these days (which are extremely competitive to say the least.)

There are still teachers out there who teach for the love of it, and I applaud them. I know there have been many teachers that have left a positive impact on my life just because they went the extra mile. I hope these same teachers and new teachers do not lose the motivation due to the new way of education.

Jim

I have a few friends that have been teaching highschool for 2-3 years with a B.A. degree and they are doing 30-40grand here in Nebraska. One of them works on the reservation in South Dakota and that allows him to file for unemployment through the summer so he is paid from the school and unemployement which is a fucking joke. Gotta love the rez and the gov...

If they do get paid year round, it is just their salary split between 12 months instead of the 9 they are teacher.

the starting salary for a teacher in Los Angeles county is 48K. This is by no means a good pay considering a house cannot be had for less than 500K.
But it is probably a rewarding job in other ways..such as more free time and summers off..

when I was in high school it was 6 out of 7, not 4 of 7......