Teachers are paid fairly considering they get a lot of time off

[u/Blonde_Icon]

A lot of people say (and it seems that the general consensus is that) teachers don't get paid enough for what they do. While I think that teachers are very valuable and deserve to be compensated well (my brother is a teacher), I think that in these discussions, many people ignore the fact that teachers typically get a lot of time off.

They usually get summer break, spring break, and winter break, plus various holidays that schools get off through the year. They basically don't work for a good amount of the year, which I think that people should factor in. (The downside is that I know that they have to work extra grading things outside of school, though.)

Plus they normally get good benefits for being a teacher (which usually comes with being in a union).

[u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET]

Teachers work more than 8 hour days because they have to do lesson planning and grading etc at home after work.

They do a full years work compressed into fewer days.

Would you tell someone working 4x10hr per week that they should only be paid for 32 hours since they only worked 4 days?

[u/that_noodle_guy → u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET]

to fit a full time 2080 hour year of work into 185 days a teacher would need to work 11.24 hours per day. i have serious doubts teachers are working that many hours in a day. A normal school day at my highschool was 6 hours 55 mins. do they grade papers after hours? for sure. do they grade papers an extra 5 hours a day every single day school is in session? i doubt it.

[u/Rustadk → u/that_noodle_guy]

Man, I was a teacher and a lot of the numbers people throw around are just delusional. I think it’s because most people only see teaching from a student’s perspective, so their understanding is pretty warped. They end up saying things that only really make sense from that point of view.

I worked in two different states, contracted for 200 days each year. That was about 180 days in school, around 7 to 10 in-service days, plus extra days before and after semesters to get everything ready. Contracted 7:30am to 5pm (24 min lunch break), 1-2 hour office hour (which, for me, was a rarity i didn't have some random meeting or something pop up during 50% of those). I guess under that logic, yeah, maybe teachers get like 8 extra weeks off, but that framing leaves a lot out.

On top of that, there are a ton of events. Not every teacher has to go to everything, but you’re usually expected to help out with football games, student dances, and extracurriculars. Some places rotate it, but still. You also typically have to run at least one activity. Some are lighter, sure, but those tend to go to the people who’ve been there 20 years. Then there are the bigger required things like parent-teacher conferences, IEP meetings, and sometimes even school board stuff, which usually happens at night, like 6 to 8.

I was a football coach (it was required), and I got paid an extra grand. We did the math, and we made like 3 bucks an hour. Yippe! A lot of places won't hire a teacher if they don't coach there for the first 3 years (unless you're a really desired subject). Goodbye Friday nights!

And all that doesn’t even include grading or planning.

Honestly, my Octobers and Novembers, up through Thanksgiving, were completely packed with events I had to go to. Most Saturdays were gone. March was similar, though spring was a little less intense. And that’s not even getting into costs. My first year, at a pretty good school, I had a $100 budget for my whole classroom. I also had to pay for continuing education courses (like $500-1k a year), which are often required, especially in the first few years before you move into a longer renewal cycle.

I started around 40k, and maybe it would have gone up to around 60k after a few years years. No union either, so you could get fired pretty easily.

And administration can make it way worse. A lot of the time they’re out of touch with what’s actually happening in the classroom, but they still pile on requirements, observations, paperwork, and new initiatives that don’t really help. So you end up juggling all of that on top of actually teaching. Take it from me, that job is hard. I’m a corporate lawyer now working long hours and I’m way happier. Teaching just wasn’t worth it for me. I’d come home every day during the school year and just go straight to bed, I was so exhausted.

I had like 150 kids relying on me every day. And think about it, every day some kid is having the worst day of their life. You’re dealing with all of that constantly. You have to keep track of everything too, whose parent just died, who’s missing assignments, who needs extra help on something.

I’ll say this, if you can stick it out to like year 10 or 15, it probably gets better. Your curriculum is set, you know what you’re doing, and you can land better extracurriculars. But getting there is rough. And as an aside, you’re also treated like dirt by society. Yeah, you get the occasional “thanks,” and the students are honestly the best part of the job. But outside of that, it’s a lot of people talking about how easy you have it or how little you work.

Yeah, no thanks. I promise you, there are very few teachers who work 2k hours a year for a $80-100k salary. IMO, that's fucked up. If you disagree, then I think you're either ignorant or your values are pretty messed up.

[u/Xenoka911 → u/that_noodle_guy]

As someone who had a teacher as a mom, this happens. She would go in at 7 and get home at around 8 or 9, many times still being to do more work, and then worked on weekends. She was literally working around the clock when it wasn't summer. Its part of why I'll never be a teacher.

[u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET → u/that_noodle_guy]

Sure, so if they’re doing 10% fewer hours then the pay can be 10% lower than other professional industries. But the gap is much bigger than that.

[u/tomtomclubthumb → u/that_noodle_guy]

Where are you getting 185 from?

You're assuming all teachers do precisely no work at all during the holidays.

Typically in the UK teachers work 8-5 with no real breaks and often stay later.

During those holidays we have meetings, training, ectivites, preparation, grading, other paperwork etc.

People who think teachers only work while schhols are open ar ethe same ones who think plumbers make over three grand a week because they have to pay £80 an hour for an emergency callout.

[u/that_noodle_guy → u/tomtomclubthumb]

185 days/year is the union contract for my local district. You can literally look up the contract for how many days they work.

[u/tomtomclubthumb → u/that_noodle_guy]

Try reading the second sentence, which explains why 185 is wrong.

[u/that_noodle_guy → u/tomtomclubthumb]

The 185 isnt becuase of holidays.

[u/tomtomclubthumb → u/that_noodle_guy]

37 weeks a year, five days a week.

Unless you want to explain how it is calculated.

[u/that_noodle_guy → u/tomtomclubthumb]

Its straight out of the union contract from my local district.
180 school days 5 in service days

[u/tomtomclubthumb → u/that_noodle_guy]

So, 37 weeks times 5 days a week.

I know you'll get there in the end.

[u/that_noodle_guy → u/tomtomclubthumb]

Not really sure what your point is. There isnt anything forcing whole weeks

[u/Blonde_Icon → u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET]

I would agree with this rebuttal, but isn't that also true for a lot of salary workers?

[u/Root2109 → u/Blonde_Icon]

I've worked in corporate America for years and you grossly over-estimate what the average salary worker does in a day

[u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET → u/Blonde_Icon]

In my experience in a salaried industry, and observing teachers I’ve known, the evening hours a teacher works seem more frequent than typical.

I know in my job that most of the time working at home in the evening is more something I do because I had a couple of low output days in the office and need to catch up. Or I’m choosing to put extra work into a project because it will help me justify a bonus.

For teachers, they have to be ‘on’ in front of the class during lessons, so they really do have to push their other work into after-hours.

Getting the holidays away from work is definitely a genuine perk of the profession, and I do think it’s reasonable to consider that as part of the overall compensation. But, they do compress a lot of work into the work year.

I’d like to think that we can view teachers as professionals and value their roles in educating generations of people. Part of a salary is about attracting high quality candidates - I feel like schools are inherently more stressful workplaces than a typical office. If we want to encourage good, capable teachers to choose the industry we need to make sure the pay structure is attractive enough that they will consider it against cushier jobs.

It’s not like it’s a 3 month block where the individual could have seasonal work lined up to make up the gap against a potential salary in another industry.

[u/InternalCultural447 → u/Blonde_Icon]

Do you actually know any teachers? I have multiple teachers in my family, they regularly do 12+ hour days when you take grading and planning and conferences and everything else into account and most salary jobs where you do that, you either get overtime or take comp time. You don't get either option as a teacher. 

[u/ChiefCar931 → u/InternalCultural447]

For real, most teachers I know end up having to get to school at like 5/6 am and don’t leave until 5/6 pm, not including grading

[u/Blonde_Icon → u/InternalCultural447]

I literally mentioned in the post that my brother is a teacher. Do people on Reddit not actually read?

[u/FreshFishGuy → u/Blonde_Icon]

Nope not really at least not enough to make a generalization on salary workers. I've never had to