This group always reminds me of how fortunate I am when I'm grumbling about issues at my school. It's not that we don't have some of the same issues, but definitely not on the same scale. My heart goes out to you.
When I'm talking to my coworkers and saying our school isn't that bad, it's not because we don't have problems. We certainly have some pretty significant issues. However, the problems aren't unique to our campus and don't approach the severity of some I see posted about here.
Same.
Yes we had a suicide....one in 15 years.
We had a 13 years old that came at school drunk at 8 am.....one if at least 5 years.
We have severe physical fights. Maybe one per school year, if that.
Each year, we have maybe a dozen of students (out of 900) that are disrespectful. And maybe and handful of parents that are trying.
Sure it ruins your day, your week or even ylur year when one happens.
But overall, we're good and lucky.
We're still working with human. We will always have to face human failings, no matter what we do. But IMO, we're still on a normal scale, that doesn't show sign of our community is ill.
I love listening to my coworkers complain at my current school.
Them: "You'd think they'd prioritize ordering printer paper! We're a school! We have assignments and tests and letters home! Where do they expect us to get this stuff if it doesn't arrive on time???"
Me having taught at schools from hell: "They at least ordered it for us instead of saying we had to buy our own paper for the rest of the year..."
If you’ve never been a Special Ed teacher with students who come in hours after surgery and a nurse who won’t send them home because it’s safer at school so you need to take care of them on top of providing adequate care and education to everyone else, you shouldn’t get to be deciding how much teachers make.
I teach severe disabilities in a special school, and the amount of times I’ve chosen to keep a sick or injured student at school rather than send them home to their facility because I know they’ll be better taken care of with me is so disheartening.
I truly believe that rights and protections for people with disabilities is the greatest civil rights issue of our generation.
I got my nose broken this week by one of my students.
One of my students got their head split open this week by a chair thrown by another student.
One of my students is a Ukrainian refugee who saw horrible things back home, and who only speaks Ukrainian and Russian. I’m learning an entirely new language for my student.
Teaching is a thousand different jobs, and people who don’t teach don’t understand that.
The people who decide the payrates for your district would prefer an uneducated voter. If they gave you money, you might help these kids succeed and think for themselves, what they really want from the school system in the U.S. is a mindless consumer
* When parents are working to keep food on the table and a roof over the family's head, there is nobody home to take care of a child who needs medical supervision,
* When parents are really neglectful or abusive, an injured child is safer at school,
* When the home is so dirty that a wound risks becoming infected, it's better for the kid to be at school where someone will notice if the wound gets infected,
* If the family don't have the means to heat their home all day, an injured kid is better off in a warm school.
That's just a few of the reasons.
Some of the students live in facilities that are understaffed, and they don’t get the attention they need. Some facilities are straight up abusive. Some parents are too overwhelmed to properly care for their children, and need help.
There are some kids that I don’t worry about sending home at all, because they have an amazing parents/guardians. But there are always a few who don’t.
Mine too. I brought an air mattress for our “home area” and she would come to school and our other students would “care” for her. It was awful, but we knew she’d be better cared for by her friends than her guardian. She was non-verbal autistic.
This hurts my soul on so many levels. I had one last year and it was a hard recovery for a lot of reasons (many of them not really what you'd expect) and I teach an adaptive choir, so a lot of my kids are mostly nonverbal (but they sing, which is such a joy to hear) and the thought of any one of my kids going through that with no home support system and no real understanding of what is happening just makes me mad.
That's crazy; I guess it was arthroscopic surgery, also she is young. Why was a young person having that surgery? Mine was almost 20 years ago and I have the hip-to-hip scar to show for it!
Her guardians were older and since she was completely disabled, they were allowed to have it done. A lot of parents choose this for their children with severe disabilities. Also her cycle was painful and heavy. It was really sad.
Yup. One I can think of was a foster kiddo. A couple were not. And with the instances I can think of, the concern was more neglect (which is awful) than anything but who knows. Many of these kids can’t even verbalize or often make much noise at all. They get dropped off so we could feed, diaper, care for, even if it was just like 45 mins and then they usually get on the bus.
I have had students arrive the DAY of their shunt surgery…parent reports the child would be ‘bored at home’. But I think the parent needs a break and we are actual safe place- with teachers and nurses available. Sometimes school is the best place, rather than not attended to at home
That deeply disturbs me. I have one (though it’s been unnecessary lo these many years) and received excellent care, both at the hospital and at home. Then again, my mother didn’t have to find childcare because she didn’t work outside the home.
This student actually had the shunt replaced several times, so I think it wasn’t as consuming as the first few times? And, both parents were at home, which is actually why I think they needed the break? It’s a lot to carry all the time…now when the student was vomiting and we feared shunt failure earlier, would have been nice if they had come to pick the kid up early, but it is what it is.
They might have been in need of respite care, which is a legitimate concern, but school is not the place for it. I had brain surgery 5 times and am proud to say that I am a lawyer and political aide today, against the odds. Love lit my way ♥️
THIS! I mentioned something about how teachers really don't like it when [something or another], and my ex said that he didn't know any teachers who said that except my family... when I asked him how many teachers he personally knew besides my family, he replied that he didn't, so I asked how he knew how teachers in general felt about ,[something or another], and his reply was among my favorite ignorant replies:
"Well, I've been to school..."
HA!
I hope you are well now. The job almost killed you and glad you had that doctor.
I know of a veteran who works in education and their PTSD has been triggered at work by work conditions within an educational setting
Thank goodness. Glad to hear it. Stay well and thanks for sharing as others need to know that they might just need to take medical leave and not let any job kill them
I had to quit the middle school I worked at due to my army PTSD. it's crazy to me that I got triggered at a middle school, but now I stick to lower elementary
I had to leave after 3 years of working in childcare as a young adult because the stress literally physically affecting me in my 20s. Yea, that's how stressful things can be sometimes.
If you've never had to stop a child from clawing their own skin off, then you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make.
If you've never had to dress yourself defensively so that you don't get injured from being bitten, then you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make.
I was basically this child in my 8th grade year. Went through some traumatizing stuff a year prior. One day in biology class I ripped the skin off of all my knuckles and was bleeding a lot. I was nervous and pinching myself and picking at my skin sort of helped, but then there was the tiny thought in my head that I had to rip it all off because my skin was uneven or something. My biology teacher walked up to me with a box of bandaids and said “you may think I don’t understand what’s going on, but I do. If you look closely I don’t have any eyelashes. If you need to get that nervous energy out I’ll let you go outside.”
I mean I still struggled with skin picking (even still do, but it’s gotten better) but at least I had someone there for me with a box of bandaids and a few hugs.
Thanks Miss L. I love you so much <3
This sounds like you've had a hell of a week and I'm so sorry. I can easily see others jumping onto your list to add their own and soon it will be a mile long....
If you've ever heard the heart-breaking stories of little students taking care of their stumbling blind-drunk moms, you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make.
If you've ever witnessed the rage and despair of a sexually abused student by his brother, you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make.
...
The one about your student and their mom hits home. That was me. I didn’t have a single teacher I felt comfortable enough with to tell them that. I got into this job to be that teacher I needed. You are amazing for being there for that kid.
I only had him for a short while; it was the special ed teacher that told me the story. She had given him a striped stocking hat for cold weather, but he didn't wear it the next day so she asked him about the hat. ...Here goes....
He put the hat on his mom that night because she was bald and bleeding. She was bald because she was drunk and had fallen asleep in her son's bed and peed it. She then managed to get up and for some reason was using a razor to drunkenly shave her head, but kept cutting her scalp. He managed to help her to the couch, where this little guy shaved her head FOR her so she wouldn't bleed so much. Then he covered her head since it was cold, tucked her in on the couch and slept in his pee bed.
It broke my heart and i still get tears thinking about this. But BEST OF ALL-- he managed to get his mom to come to parent-teacher conferences, wearing the hat so she wouldn't be embarrassed --coming to school for THE FIRST TIME and the mother broke down and cried and was so happy the teachers still accepted her and cared so much for her boy.
I was so sad when they moved away. Wished he could have stayed for his entire middle school years.
Wow. That is entirely heartbreaking. Props to that kid for not giving up on his mom. He is stronger than me. I hope that kid and his mom are somewhere thriving.
If you’ve never had to sit in a cramped classroom closet with 20+ students during an active shooter drill, or in a cramped bathroom with 20+ scared kindergarten students during an actual tornado…
If you've never been on a field trip with 4th graders, watch the presenter suffer from heat exhaustion, call an ambulance in front of kids and the chaperones, keep them calm and casually pick up where the presenter left off while they're being loaded into the ambulance, you shouldn't get to decide how much teachers make.
This happened once while I had 2 fifth grade classes on a field trip. Guy presenting was considerably older, and actually had a dehydration related stroke in the middle of his presentation!
Yep sounds about the same. We were on a field trip to the local one room school house. It's Florida. To keep it authentic, none of the rooms had A/C. This lesson was actually outside. The elderly lady who was talking about branding cows, started sweating profusely. I was the only one who had a water bottle/cup with them. She got dizzy and was incoherent. I had a couple of students stand by her to keep her from falling out of her chair. I asked another adult to call 911. I spoke to the operator. While another adult was helping to find a cooler spot (there really wasn't one), I improvised her lesson. We broke for lunch a few minutes later as the ambulance showed up. Students were horrified to see this old lady being loaded into the ambulance over lunch. I found out she had suffered heat exhaustion and was in the hospital for several days. We made get well cards when we got back to the classroom. I'm glad she survived, but I couldn't bring myself to drink from that cup again.
If you've never had to do quarterly trainings with the police on how to respond when someone tries to commit a mass shooting at your workplace, or had to practice getting your class of 30 kids into their hard-corner silently, in under a minute, while you cover all the doors and windows, you don't deserve to decide how much money teachers make.
At our training last year, the cop in charge advised us not to try to move or save a kid who was frozen in fear if a shooting happens. He recognized that we care a lot for our students, but that in these situations it's about survival, "survival of the fittest." I wanted to throw my chair at him. I get the advice to prioritize myself and the kids who are moving, and to not put us in jeopardy for one frozen kid, but to pretend that a kid's trauma response of freezing somehow means they are not fit to survive in our environment, when the problem is the environment, not the kid, made me furious.
On the other side of the coin- at our most recent meeting our SRO said, "Your first priority is to protect the kids. The second is to protect yourself."
If you’ve never lost your job because a student you gave a bad grade to, falsely accused you of impropriety towards them, you shouldn’t get to decide what teachers make.
Most of the issues (at least in my school district) teachers have little to no say in. It’s all the administrations. The “kids can’t have consequences” and “you can’t discipline kids” and the “if a kid stand up to a bully, they get into trouble but the bully doesn’t” are all from the boards, administrators, and state officials. Teachers don’t get a say.
This! I’m not a teacher but when I was at school, I was being bullied by this girl because I was disabled and the teachers tried their hardest to help me, they truly did everything they could, but the heads and the administrators kept refusing to anything about it, because the girl’s mum worked for the school district, so up until I left the school to go to college, I was being tormented by this girl.
If you’ve never been a teacher for a minimum of ten years, you should never get to be an administrator, regardless of how many degrees you have, telling teachers how to teach.
Not a bad idea. Or, if in Middle or High School, have them teach one class. Just one period a day. They could use the plans from another teacher of the same subject. Hell, another teacher could even be responsible for the grade book for that class.
As a teacher who has experienced most of those things. I would gladly take a pay cut to not experience those things. I don’t want higher pay. I feel like my pay is actually pretty good for what I’m supposed to be doing.
I want the money to go to better programs to make my students lives better.
A couple to add to your list that I hope I never experience again.
Sitting with your student at their only parent’s funeral wondering what’s next for them
Getting a call on a weekend that your student is on a ventilator and may not live
Planning an IEP meeting and finding out the student’s guardian got arrested and they are now living with their sister who doesn’t have educational rights
Getting yelled at by parents arbitrarily.
Being called groomers and told we are indoctrinating kids because it’s not our job nor is it appropriate for us to say they can’t identify however they want.
There isn’t much I can do to help you OP. There could be a lot more reasons to tack onto your list, however, instead I am sending you all the digital hugs I can. My thoughts are with you!
If you’ve never had to comfort a student whose family doesn’t support them
If you’ve never had a student thank you for listening because they would have otherwise taken their own life
If you’ve never held a student as they bled profusely from their head (not my personal story)
If you’ve never had to disarm a student
If you’ve never done the million different things teachers do on a daily basis, all while maintaining some semblance of sanity… you shouldn’t have the authority to decide what a teacher should make
The most common thing at my school is putting myself between two students who seem like they are about to start swinging because I'm gambling that neither of them is willing to hit me.
The whole system is designed to prevent you from educating the students and the salaries are linked to that. I hate what y’all go through, it is a nightmare. Thank you for doing what you do!
My God, reading theses comments makes me genuinely concerned, what in the actual fuck is going on in schools these days? Almost sounds like you're being locked in a cage with a bunch of sociopaths, drug addicts, and psych patients. I thought school was supposed to be about LEARNING!
Yea you guys really don't get paid enough 😞
I work at summer camps and tutor and coach so it's actually more like 110k!
If I still had my job in the Bay Area I'd be up to like 105k base!
Meanwhile my sister in GA is the VP of her school and makes 53k. Wooffff
105k is far too low for teaching in the Bay Area. I base at 70k and make close to 100k in Texas. I believe that California teachers are significantly underpaid, especially in the coastal areas. I worry that incoming teachers in California will never be able to afford their own house. It's a future housing crisis when they retire.
>I worry that incoming teachers in California will never be able to afford their own house. It's a future housing crisis when they retire.
Yea, we were never going to make the jump from 2 bedroom condo to small house. 2 BR condo was 500kish which two teachers making 100k can swing pretty easy. Small house was 1.3 million or more, which is a lot bigger ask. Our new staff were always miserable about housing.
I was living in a studio in San Bernardino. Moved to Texas in 2016 and bought a 3 bedroom house the next year (cost 170k at the time). Real estate values have gone crazy, so I used the equity in 2021 and bought a much larger house in a better neighborhood. It's something I could never do in California because the pay is far too low. Two teachers here could afford a 500k house, which is a lot of house in Texas. The job is still teaching, but my quality of life is so much better.
I have a teacher friend here who's working in a different district making around 50k, and he's still able to buy a house.
Honestly, I would rather be here. My average classroom size is 14 and I'm well funded. I service a 93% minority Title I school, which means I'm really making a difference. I'm close to NASA, corporate HP, and multiple energy companies. I can't imagine a better place to be (aside from the Bay Area or Boston maybe), but I'd be living in a sea train to make ends meet.
The way the the teaching community thinks about Texas simply doesn't meet reality. However, I'm perfectly fine with those stereotypes. We don't need teachers coming here and lowering salaries.
I’ve personally known teachers who’ve taught in Texas (and moved to California) and I’ve read accounts from teachers who taught/teach in Texas and the complaints are not unfounded. There is a large portion of Texas that does not appreciate teachers. I mean Houston got rid of their libraries for detention centers. The banning of books is hitting them hard. You all almost had to legally post the Ten Commandments in your classroom.
I guess it depends where in Texas you work.
The general public believes that’s exactly what teaching is for every teacher, and it’s simply not. I would say you’re in the vast minority in your position. You’re incredibly fortunate.
Easy there… I don’t agree with you. Doing their job? Ignoring the conflicts in the classroom, closing the door and sitting at my desk while kids are assaulted in the hallways, ignoring a girl who comes to class on Monday after being date raped “off campus” by her boyfriend last Friday.
All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg; if you think teaching is an easy six hour a day 180 days a year, making big bucks, you know nothing about teaching.
>Ignoring the conflicts in the classroom, closing the door and sitting at my desk while kids are assaulted in the hallways, ignoring a girl who comes to class on Monday after being date raped “off campus” by her boyfriend last Friday.
Don't do any of that. Not sure why you felt the need to add that.
>if you think teaching is an easy six hour a day 180 days a year, making big bucks, you know nothing about teaching.
Also didn't say that. Did you respond to the wrong person by mistake?
10/12 of those I've experienced. Never saw a kid overdose in the hallway (but had a kid get black out drink right before my class) and I haven't taken FMLA yet, but the rest I'm with you on. It blows my mind when I'm out with friends and (because it's become the norm) I mention something I've experienced as a teacher, and my friend's jaws drop. You don't get this kind of stress in most other jobs.
How did we get here? Not just in schools but all of society. This dysfunction extends in some cases all the way up to 40 somethings. Compassion and empathy are gone, kids are live streaming violent acts and laughing in their commentary. Someone screams at a cashier in a busy store because the cashier couldn't guess their pronoun. There are thousands of civil homeless folks but there are people who have the comfort of shelter that have become feral in their behaviors. Everyday there's a story about a teen assaulting an educator, schools have become unsafe for staff and students. Bullying has become a sport but everyone is surprised when a victim snaps and shoots up a school.
I’d say I dealt with 7 of those just last week, and it was only 4 days with the kids since Monday was a staff development day. Good luck OP, keep fighting the good fight.
I honestly almost had a student OD on weed, came in super tired, and she put her head down, I let her rest, came around, welcomed her to class, and then she wouldn’t respond outside of a shrug. Mentor came over, hit the binder on the desk and he said she was too deep asleep later, weed bloomed off of her, and I just, like I don’t know what to say, it’s just another reason why I don’t think I can do this after everything
Teaching is a mentally and emotionally hard job. But there are many other jobs out there that are equally hard or even harder. Safety services jump to mind (social work, police, prison guard, ems, etc...). Why make this about money? Do folks who work hard jobs get to decide how much they make?
The rant makes sense. The work is impossibly hard. Connecting it to money makes no sense to me.
Hope you have a better day tomorrow.
If you've never been electrocuted, you don't get to determine how much electricians make!
Yes, your job has its downsides. Every job has its downsides. Everyone has a boss who determines how much they make unless you own the company. While I agree that teachers don't make enough in general, this post was a poor way to justify it.
Eh, it's a public job. Despite being hard, the taxpayer has a say whether we like it or not.
Plus, a lot of the stuff you said shouldn't be part of the job in the first place. I signed up to teach and am happy with my solid middle class salary to do so. I don't want 200k to be shot at or be a therapist.
I think the idea is that, while making that middle class salary, we are still expected to “be shot at or be a therapist.” So since that’s the expectation, why can’t we also expect to be compensated more? I don’t want to be shot at or be a therapist, but as my curriculum coordinator recently said to me, that’s the current reality of this job.
Im really, really happy that you don’t have those same expectations or fears. Im glad you just get to teach the curriculum. I don’t work in an inner city school, but we still have violent kids, kids who don’t have their needs met, and we had an active shooter two years ago. I’ve called CPS for more issues than I care to discuss. The community I work in is either very supportive of teachers, or they think we make too much money and think many of the things stated throughout this thread are just part of the job.
So, back to what you said… I don’t want 200k to be shot at or be a therapist, but if I have to have both of those things happening, then sure, I’ll take that 200k.
Except no one is forcing you to work under those conditions. The sooner teachers stop accepting unacceptable work conditions, the sooner they'll change.
Hazard pay just isn't a realistic solution. It's a short-term fix at best, and thinking about how to actually put it into effect is a nightmare.
I think the whole point of this post is until you’ve experienced it yourself, you shouldn’t be able to pass judgement that impacts us. In this case, the judgement stated is our pay.
Again, I’m glad you haven’t had these experiences, but my school isn’t “bad” and doesn’t need to be fixed. The teachers and admin work with what they’ve got, and we do a damn good job. The issue is the behaviors and choices of students that are stemming from trauma or a mental health crisis. This isn’t the school’s fault. It falls on the shoulders of society and irresponsible adults, or adults that do their very best but could use some help themselves. Whether I leave or stay in this profession, the same issues will still be there. At least I can love these kids for as long as they are with me.
>I think the whole point of this post is until you’ve experienced it yourself, you shouldn’t be able to pass judgement that impacts us. In this case, the judgement stated is our pay.
I have experienced it myself. Both poor work conditions and poor pay. Why do you feel the need to assume others' work experience?
>gain, I’m glad you haven’t had these experiences
I have, you made that up. Again, why do you feel the need to assume others' work experience?
>This isn’t the school’s fault. It falls on the shoulders of society and irresponsible adults, or adults that do their very best but could use some help themselves.
now you're getting it! Yep, and hazard pay as OP suggests won't make these problems better.
If youre appropriating tragedy and equating that to salary, you shouldn’t be posting online. Go work on your health. You’re implying that there’s a certain dollar amount that makes tragedy acceptable. Go schedule a therapy appointment.
If you've never been doxxed by a student because they earned a poor grade, then called in for disciplinary shit for "swearing on the internet" because that student decided to publicly broadcast your private information...
Getting in trouble for swearing on the internet cracks me up. (I'm imagining like swearing on Reddit not posting on your school's Facebook page a long rant about a student with profanity every other word.) I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time, but I'm also pretty sure I won't get in trouble for swearing in my district unless I intentionally swear at my second graders or something like that.
I'm curious, where does the OP (and respondents) live? My SO was a teacher and I'm sure she never dealt with kids ODing in the halls, or having hysterectomies or being assaulted or... these seem like the extremes of society to me. Just... oh my god. Where do you live and work?!
I dunno. I volunteered to learn some of those things as a community member and parent. If anybody doesn't know narcan training I find them to be ignorant in this day and age - and the other issues are definately going to come along with teenagers.
I still think teachers should be paid more for, you know, teaching.
If you've never been licensed by the state to practice law AND done so in front of a judge, you should have no opinion on any legal matters period.
There, fixed it for y'all 🥰
If you've never experienced school as a child, you shouldn't decide. Because all this is what students experience as well, and they don't get paid to be there.
I get that people do not understand how hard the job can be, and can sympathize with you when people just blow off the difficulties of the job to validate a (i agree it's far too low) wage.
but the message this relays is that i should not advocate for better teachers salaries because i've never had a student.
Meanwhile, the McDonald's worker is also dealing with overdoses in their minimum wage job. This isn't a teacher payment problem. This is a system wide failure to support those in need. I am always interested in those teachers who have never had a job outside the classroom acting like our profession is among the noblest. Clearly going to be an unpopular opinion here, but I've been a soldier and a waitress and a teacher, and teacher is by far the easiest of the jobs. EVERYONE deserves a fair, living wage. You are not a Saint.
I didn’t start teaching until after 40. It is far from the most difficult job I ever had, but it is the most mentally and emotionally draining job I ever had. It is also the only one where the outcome of my job was more than putting more money into the hands of already disgustingly wealthy people. The guy OD’ing at McDonalds is just some adult junkie off the street. In your classroom it is a child whose welfare was entrusted to you.
Daycare workers also have children entrusted to their care but they make a heck of a lot less money. ECEs are hard working and often treated poorly on top of being paid less than us. Teachers are not saints.
Your comment about "just some adult junkie off the street" is very telling.
It depends on your location. I worked at daycares in North Dakota and Virginia. In both states (at least at the time), most daycares only required the teachers to have high school diplomas.
So people who didn’t commit 4 years of their life (and all the financial costs and sacrifices that entails) to furthering their education make less money. OK.
McDonalds jobs are also difficult. Teachers can be wonderful, hard workers. They can be wonderful people. But they can also be lazy and terrible at their jobs. It isn't an inherently nobel job and the pay is comparable to other jobs in the same difficulty level. Many, many proffessions are overworked and underpaid. Teachers are not special in this regard.
Point to the part where OP said teaching is the most noble profession, because I can’t find it. Just because someone else may have it as bad or worse doesn’t mean others’ opinions are invalid. People should be allowed to express their issues without you telling them to shut up.
If you have never been screamed at by your Superintendent about how you choose to celebrate who you are as one of the few POC in theor predominantly white personnel district of predominantly BIPOC student body, you should not be deciding how much a teacher makes.
I’ll get flack for this, but this is a stupid post. For everyone on this sub who isn’t a teacher, I’m a teacher who despises crap like this. Someone has to decide how much teachers make. If they left it up to teachers, then it would be a million dollars a year. Also, keep this simpering whiny stuff on Facebook. It’s so dramatic and over the top and off putting. This is why people complain about teachers.
If you choose to put up with an abusive job, that's your choice. The job isn't going to magically change and the salary isn't going to go up 400%. What you do about it is up to you.
It’s one of those things that sounds nice, but doesn’t actually make practical sense. Did OP write all that just to suggest that teachers should determine their own pay rates? That’s not how jobs work. You could write a similar post about everything nurses, custodians, social workers, prison guards, cops put up with.
It's a weird post. In addition to what you said about salary, all those points are things teachers *shouldn't* be putting up with in general.
I don't want to be paid to do all those things, I want to be paid to teach. It's a backwards way of looking at things.
Yeah it’s kind of like they’re saying teachers do all these things that aren’t teaching, and therefore should Be paid a ridiculously inflated salary that encompasses being a nurse, social worker, counselor, etc. when really school support staff should be doing their jobs and not dumping things on teachers.
Why the HELL do we have to administer narcan when there’s a nurse? Why do we have to call home about attendance when there’s an attendance secretary, sometimes multiple?
I dunno, I did 10 years in Oakland CA with gangs and Narcan and it was enough for me. The salary was never going to be worth the stress, and the problems were only getting worse, so now I work in a school in the suburbs of CT.
I guess I could have made a similar post to OP, but I don't really see the point. I didn't want to be paid 300k, I just wanted to teach.
That’s in their job description and they receive specific training. I’ve never seen a single description for a teaching position that entails anything other than teaching curriculum and record keeping.
I kinda agree, kinda disagree.
Yes, teachers should be deciding on their own salaries but if you have conditions as OP mentioned, I wouldt work as a teacher; I have to have the education that would allow me, in the private sector, to earn 10-15k easily a month while I make, currently, about 6k as a teacher.
The benefit is, that I get to do something I enjoy and work with students that respect me as well as their school and fellow students. As soon as this goes out the window (like in the US), I'd want one hell of a raise, otherwise I am gone. Similarly many of my colleagues would do it.
Yeah, I dont get to decide how much a teacher earns but if you go too low, you'll be out of teachers rather quickly.
Wdym? Like I get paid to teach 25 lessons (45minutes each) and for every lesson there is about as much time to prep, getting me around the regular work hours.
However I get to schedule and plan a lot of that for myself but then on the other hand I am also expected to keep up with the curriculum, visit other teachers, grade exams, parent teacher meetings, be available for emails and other problems.
Fall break, winter break, spring break, summer break. I spend over 100 extra days per year with my family that my working class friends don't. That's a huge perk.
If you’ve never been spit on, sworn at, pinched, hit, kicked, called fat, ugly, lied to, lied about, been stolen from, had your integrity questioned, been given a task without the tools to do it, shamed, overworked, under-appreciated, misunderstood, depended upon without a choice…
I don't think that that is very sound logic. Completely understand the difficulty of the job and the frequently insufficient remuneration though and that resonates with me.
Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that people without firsthand experience of the difficulties of the profession should not unjustly impose a low ceiling on compensation. Or perhaps it is fair to say that regulators of the profession should be required to have more grounding in its modern practical application.
To be fair, one of the silly things about our society is that "value" and therefore compensation is often determined by people and groups with almost no first-hand experience of the subject under consideration. Paramedics are probably a group even more disadvantaged by this than educators (although I admit that I am neither myself). There are a lot of professional groups in this boat. While this commonality does nothing to invalid your points or perceptions of injustice, it does perhaps contextualize this within the unfortunate norm.
It is shameful that education has been allowed to atrophy and the public system is increasingly [chronically] under-resourced. I am always surprised that people can support policies so fundamentally against their holistic self-interest, but here we are.
Ultimately, the role of educators in society is extremely important but that does not inherently provide justification for a level of self-determination beyond any other profession in a free market economy. But I agree that there currently exists a gross mismatch in expectations from teachers and support personnel and their compensatory salary and benefits.
This group always reminds me of how fortunate I am when I'm grumbling about issues at my school. It's not that we don't have some of the same issues, but definitely not on the same scale. My heart goes out to you.
When I'm talking to my coworkers and saying our school isn't that bad, it's not because we don't have problems. We certainly have some pretty significant issues. However, the problems aren't unique to our campus and don't approach the severity of some I see posted about here.
Same. Yes we had a suicide....one in 15 years. We had a 13 years old that came at school drunk at 8 am.....one if at least 5 years. We have severe physical fights. Maybe one per school year, if that. Each year, we have maybe a dozen of students (out of 900) that are disrespectful. And maybe and handful of parents that are trying. Sure it ruins your day, your week or even ylur year when one happens. But overall, we're good and lucky. We're still working with human. We will always have to face human failings, no matter what we do. But IMO, we're still on a normal scale, that doesn't show sign of our community is ill.
Jeez where do you work?!?! This sounds like heaven
I love listening to my coworkers complain at my current school. Them: "You'd think they'd prioritize ordering printer paper! We're a school! We have assignments and tests and letters home! Where do they expect us to get this stuff if it doesn't arrive on time???" Me having taught at schools from hell: "They at least ordered it for us instead of saying we had to buy our own paper for the rest of the year..."
When you have to attend seminars on how to disarm a shooter and practice how to stop heavy bleeding so a student doesn’t die from a knife or gun shot.
If you’ve never been a Special Ed teacher with students who come in hours after surgery and a nurse who won’t send them home because it’s safer at school so you need to take care of them on top of providing adequate care and education to everyone else, you shouldn’t get to be deciding how much teachers make.
I teach severe disabilities in a special school, and the amount of times I’ve chosen to keep a sick or injured student at school rather than send them home to their facility because I know they’ll be better taken care of with me is so disheartening. I truly believe that rights and protections for people with disabilities is the greatest civil rights issue of our generation. I got my nose broken this week by one of my students. One of my students got their head split open this week by a chair thrown by another student. One of my students is a Ukrainian refugee who saw horrible things back home, and who only speaks Ukrainian and Russian. I’m learning an entirely new language for my student. Teaching is a thousand different jobs, and people who don’t teach don’t understand that.
The people who decide the payrates for your district would prefer an uneducated voter. If they gave you money, you might help these kids succeed and think for themselves, what they really want from the school system in the U.S. is a mindless consumer
Bro :(
I agree doing everything to help the disabled community
Why is it safer for them?
* When parents are working to keep food on the table and a roof over the family's head, there is nobody home to take care of a child who needs medical supervision, * When parents are really neglectful or abusive, an injured child is safer at school, * When the home is so dirty that a wound risks becoming infected, it's better for the kid to be at school where someone will notice if the wound gets infected, * If the family don't have the means to heat their home all day, an injured kid is better off in a warm school. That's just a few of the reasons.
Some of the students live in facilities that are understaffed, and they don’t get the attention they need. Some facilities are straight up abusive. Some parents are too overwhelmed to properly care for their children, and need help. There are some kids that I don’t worry about sending home at all, because they have an amazing parents/guardians. But there are always a few who don’t.
I had a student come in after a hysterectomy. Three days after a hysterectomy. THREE FUCKING DAYS.
jesus christ. i’m having one soon and the doc said 8 to 10 weeks for recovery.
Mine too. I brought an air mattress for our “home area” and she would come to school and our other students would “care” for her. It was awful, but we knew she’d be better cared for by her friends than her guardian. She was non-verbal autistic.
you are an angel. i know you don’t believe it, but you are.
No, I’m a teacher. No more. No less. But thank you.
This hurts my soul on so many levels. I had one last year and it was a hard recovery for a lot of reasons (many of them not really what you'd expect) and I teach an adaptive choir, so a lot of my kids are mostly nonverbal (but they sing, which is such a joy to hear) and the thought of any one of my kids going through that with no home support system and no real understanding of what is happening just makes me mad.
I was still in the hospital 3 days after mine!
I didn’t get out for five days! She had Surgery on a Wednesday (thank goodness it was robotic) and was on the school bus Monday morning
That's crazy; I guess it was arthroscopic surgery, also she is young. Why was a young person having that surgery? Mine was almost 20 years ago and I have the hip-to-hip scar to show for it!
Her guardians were older and since she was completely disabled, they were allowed to have it done. A lot of parents choose this for their children with severe disabilities. Also her cycle was painful and heavy. It was really sad.
Appalling.
What?! Is this disabled kids, who have had surgury, and they are not safe with their parents?!?
Yup. One I can think of was a foster kiddo. A couple were not. And with the instances I can think of, the concern was more neglect (which is awful) than anything but who knows. Many of these kids can’t even verbalize or often make much noise at all. They get dropped off so we could feed, diaper, care for, even if it was just like 45 mins and then they usually get on the bus.
So sad :( but thank you so much for all you do for the kids <3
I have had students arrive the DAY of their shunt surgery…parent reports the child would be ‘bored at home’. But I think the parent needs a break and we are actual safe place- with teachers and nurses available. Sometimes school is the best place, rather than not attended to at home
That deeply disturbs me. I have one (though it’s been unnecessary lo these many years) and received excellent care, both at the hospital and at home. Then again, my mother didn’t have to find childcare because she didn’t work outside the home.
This student actually had the shunt replaced several times, so I think it wasn’t as consuming as the first few times? And, both parents were at home, which is actually why I think they needed the break? It’s a lot to carry all the time…now when the student was vomiting and we feared shunt failure earlier, would have been nice if they had come to pick the kid up early, but it is what it is.
They might have been in need of respite care, which is a legitimate concern, but school is not the place for it. I had brain surgery 5 times and am proud to say that I am a lawyer and political aide today, against the odds. Love lit my way ♥️
There, but for the grace of God, go I 🙏🏻
If you've never been a teacher...
THIS! I mentioned something about how teachers really don't like it when [something or another], and my ex said that he didn't know any teachers who said that except my family... when I asked him how many teachers he personally knew besides my family, he replied that he didn't, so I asked how he knew how teachers in general felt about ,[something or another], and his reply was among my favorite ignorant replies: "Well, I've been to school..." HA!
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I hope you are well now. The job almost killed you and glad you had that doctor. I know of a veteran who works in education and their PTSD has been triggered at work by work conditions within an educational setting
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Thank goodness. Glad to hear it. Stay well and thanks for sharing as others need to know that they might just need to take medical leave and not let any job kill them
Did you take a new job?
I had to quit the middle school I worked at due to my army PTSD. it's crazy to me that I got triggered at a middle school, but now I stick to lower elementary
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They really are. Teachers need hazard pay
I had to leave after 3 years of working in childcare as a young adult because the stress literally physically affecting me in my 20s. Yea, that's how stressful things can be sometimes.
What did teaching do to you that disabled you?
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I was a great teacher til it broke me. The mental and emotional labor is unreal for the pay.
If you've never had to stop a child from clawing their own skin off, then you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make. If you've never had to dress yourself defensively so that you don't get injured from being bitten, then you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make.
I was basically this child in my 8th grade year. Went through some traumatizing stuff a year prior. One day in biology class I ripped the skin off of all my knuckles and was bleeding a lot. I was nervous and pinching myself and picking at my skin sort of helped, but then there was the tiny thought in my head that I had to rip it all off because my skin was uneven or something. My biology teacher walked up to me with a box of bandaids and said “you may think I don’t understand what’s going on, but I do. If you look closely I don’t have any eyelashes. If you need to get that nervous energy out I’ll let you go outside.” I mean I still struggled with skin picking (even still do, but it’s gotten better) but at least I had someone there for me with a box of bandaids and a few hugs. Thanks Miss L. I love you so much <3
This sounds like you've had a hell of a week and I'm so sorry. I can easily see others jumping onto your list to add their own and soon it will be a mile long.... If you've ever heard the heart-breaking stories of little students taking care of their stumbling blind-drunk moms, you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make. If you've ever witnessed the rage and despair of a sexually abused student by his brother, you shouldn't be deciding how much teachers make. ...
The one about your student and their mom hits home. That was me. I didn’t have a single teacher I felt comfortable enough with to tell them that. I got into this job to be that teacher I needed. You are amazing for being there for that kid.
I only had him for a short while; it was the special ed teacher that told me the story. She had given him a striped stocking hat for cold weather, but he didn't wear it the next day so she asked him about the hat. ...Here goes.... He put the hat on his mom that night because she was bald and bleeding. She was bald because she was drunk and had fallen asleep in her son's bed and peed it. She then managed to get up and for some reason was using a razor to drunkenly shave her head, but kept cutting her scalp. He managed to help her to the couch, where this little guy shaved her head FOR her so she wouldn't bleed so much. Then he covered her head since it was cold, tucked her in on the couch and slept in his pee bed. It broke my heart and i still get tears thinking about this. But BEST OF ALL-- he managed to get his mom to come to parent-teacher conferences, wearing the hat so she wouldn't be embarrassed --coming to school for THE FIRST TIME and the mother broke down and cried and was so happy the teachers still accepted her and cared so much for her boy. I was so sad when they moved away. Wished he could have stayed for his entire middle school years.
Wow. That is entirely heartbreaking. Props to that kid for not giving up on his mom. He is stronger than me. I hope that kid and his mom are somewhere thriving.
If you’ve never had to sit in a cramped classroom closet with 20+ students during an active shooter drill, or in a cramped bathroom with 20+ scared kindergarten students during an actual tornado…
If you've never been on a field trip with 4th graders, watch the presenter suffer from heat exhaustion, call an ambulance in front of kids and the chaperones, keep them calm and casually pick up where the presenter left off while they're being loaded into the ambulance, you shouldn't get to decide how much teachers make.
This happened once while I had 2 fifth grade classes on a field trip. Guy presenting was considerably older, and actually had a dehydration related stroke in the middle of his presentation!
Yep sounds about the same. We were on a field trip to the local one room school house. It's Florida. To keep it authentic, none of the rooms had A/C. This lesson was actually outside. The elderly lady who was talking about branding cows, started sweating profusely. I was the only one who had a water bottle/cup with them. She got dizzy and was incoherent. I had a couple of students stand by her to keep her from falling out of her chair. I asked another adult to call 911. I spoke to the operator. While another adult was helping to find a cooler spot (there really wasn't one), I improvised her lesson. We broke for lunch a few minutes later as the ambulance showed up. Students were horrified to see this old lady being loaded into the ambulance over lunch. I found out she had suffered heat exhaustion and was in the hospital for several days. We made get well cards when we got back to the classroom. I'm glad she survived, but I couldn't bring myself to drink from that cup again.
If you've never had to do quarterly trainings with the police on how to respond when someone tries to commit a mass shooting at your workplace, or had to practice getting your class of 30 kids into their hard-corner silently, in under a minute, while you cover all the doors and windows, you don't deserve to decide how much money teachers make.
At our training last year, the cop in charge advised us not to try to move or save a kid who was frozen in fear if a shooting happens. He recognized that we care a lot for our students, but that in these situations it's about survival, "survival of the fittest." I wanted to throw my chair at him. I get the advice to prioritize myself and the kids who are moving, and to not put us in jeopardy for one frozen kid, but to pretend that a kid's trauma response of freezing somehow means they are not fit to survive in our environment, when the problem is the environment, not the kid, made me furious.
On the other side of the coin- at our most recent meeting our SRO said, "Your first priority is to protect the kids. The second is to protect yourself."
If you’ve never lost your job because a student you gave a bad grade to, falsely accused you of impropriety towards them, you shouldn’t get to decide what teachers make.
This is also why you shouldn't get to decide if teachers have unions to protect themselves.
Bingo! This should be at the top of the list!
Unfortunately this list reads more as a list of reasons to not be a teacher.
Most of the issues (at least in my school district) teachers have little to no say in. It’s all the administrations. The “kids can’t have consequences” and “you can’t discipline kids” and the “if a kid stand up to a bully, they get into trouble but the bully doesn’t” are all from the boards, administrators, and state officials. Teachers don’t get a say.
This! I’m not a teacher but when I was at school, I was being bullied by this girl because I was disabled and the teachers tried their hardest to help me, they truly did everything they could, but the heads and the administrators kept refusing to anything about it, because the girl’s mum worked for the school district, so up until I left the school to go to college, I was being tormented by this girl.
If you’ve never been a teacher for a minimum of ten years, you should never get to be an administrator, regardless of how many degrees you have, telling teachers how to teach.
I also think they should have to do a semester of teaching ever 5-7 years to make sure they actually understand the things that have changed.
Not a bad idea. Or, if in Middle or High School, have them teach one class. Just one period a day. They could use the plans from another teacher of the same subject. Hell, another teacher could even be responsible for the grade book for that class.
As a teacher who has experienced most of those things. I would gladly take a pay cut to not experience those things. I don’t want higher pay. I feel like my pay is actually pretty good for what I’m supposed to be doing. I want the money to go to better programs to make my students lives better. A couple to add to your list that I hope I never experience again. Sitting with your student at their only parent’s funeral wondering what’s next for them Getting a call on a weekend that your student is on a ventilator and may not live Planning an IEP meeting and finding out the student’s guardian got arrested and they are now living with their sister who doesn’t have educational rights Getting yelled at by parents arbitrarily. Being called groomers and told we are indoctrinating kids because it’s not our job nor is it appropriate for us to say they can’t identify however they want.
Why not have both better working conditions, AND higher pay? We’re more than worth it!
This is beautifully written. I could add to the list, but I’m going to leave it as is. Thank you for sharing what so many of us are going through.
There isn’t much I can do to help you OP. There could be a lot more reasons to tack onto your list, however, instead I am sending you all the digital hugs I can. My thoughts are with you!
The revolution will not be televised
I've never experienced any of these things, but I've always thought teachers should be paid as much as doctors.
Without teachers, there’d be no doctors
If you’ve never had to comfort a student whose family doesn’t support them If you’ve never had a student thank you for listening because they would have otherwise taken their own life If you’ve never held a student as they bled profusely from their head (not my personal story) If you’ve never had to disarm a student If you’ve never done the million different things teachers do on a daily basis, all while maintaining some semblance of sanity… you shouldn’t have the authority to decide what a teacher should make
The most common thing at my school is putting myself between two students who seem like they are about to start swinging because I'm gambling that neither of them is willing to hit me.
Teachers deserve to make more. We see and go through and support a lot more than we’re given credit for.
The whole system is designed to prevent you from educating the students and the salaries are linked to that. I hate what y’all go through, it is a nightmare. Thank you for doing what you do!
A lot of these comments are giving “If I haven’t experienced this where I work, then it doesn’t affect me.”
Yeah my first day was also rough
It sounds like no one is qualified to decide what teachers make….
Could you not say this about literally any job?
This subreddit breaks my heart.
My God, reading theses comments makes me genuinely concerned, what in the actual fuck is going on in schools these days? Almost sounds like you're being locked in a cage with a bunch of sociopaths, drug addicts, and psych patients. I thought school was supposed to be about LEARNING! Yea you guys really don't get paid enough 😞
Yea….no.
Yes we should. Our tax dollars pay for it. I’m all pay for teachers well. In my area they are paid well
I want this on a t-shirt.
Idk this is too much for me.
Yea I don't want to be paid for all that stuff. I'm happy with my 90k to teach the curriculum.
Been teaching 21 years, MA+60 I’d like to make 90k.
90k??!
I work at summer camps and tutor and coach so it's actually more like 110k! If I still had my job in the Bay Area I'd be up to like 105k base! Meanwhile my sister in GA is the VP of her school and makes 53k. Wooffff
105k is far too low for teaching in the Bay Area. I base at 70k and make close to 100k in Texas. I believe that California teachers are significantly underpaid, especially in the coastal areas. I worry that incoming teachers in California will never be able to afford their own house. It's a future housing crisis when they retire.
>I worry that incoming teachers in California will never be able to afford their own house. It's a future housing crisis when they retire. Yea, we were never going to make the jump from 2 bedroom condo to small house. 2 BR condo was 500kish which two teachers making 100k can swing pretty easy. Small house was 1.3 million or more, which is a lot bigger ask. Our new staff were always miserable about housing.
I was living in a studio in San Bernardino. Moved to Texas in 2016 and bought a 3 bedroom house the next year (cost 170k at the time). Real estate values have gone crazy, so I used the equity in 2021 and bought a much larger house in a better neighborhood. It's something I could never do in California because the pay is far too low. Two teachers here could afford a 500k house, which is a lot of house in Texas. The job is still teaching, but my quality of life is so much better. I have a teacher friend here who's working in a different district making around 50k, and he's still able to buy a house.
All the old teachers in my school "just marry a tech dude!'
Lol... My wife tried that. I ended up becoming a teacher.
My bestie CS teacher friend now works at Apple=((
Yes, but I’d rather be a teacher in California than Texas.
Honestly, I would rather be here. My average classroom size is 14 and I'm well funded. I service a 93% minority Title I school, which means I'm really making a difference. I'm close to NASA, corporate HP, and multiple energy companies. I can't imagine a better place to be (aside from the Bay Area or Boston maybe), but I'd be living in a sea train to make ends meet. The way the the teaching community thinks about Texas simply doesn't meet reality. However, I'm perfectly fine with those stereotypes. We don't need teachers coming here and lowering salaries.
I’ve personally known teachers who’ve taught in Texas (and moved to California) and I’ve read accounts from teachers who taught/teach in Texas and the complaints are not unfounded. There is a large portion of Texas that does not appreciate teachers. I mean Houston got rid of their libraries for detention centers. The banning of books is hitting them hard. You all almost had to legally post the Ten Commandments in your classroom. I guess it depends where in Texas you work.
The general public believes that’s exactly what teaching is for every teacher, and it’s simply not. I would say you’re in the vast minority in your position. You’re incredibly fortunate.
You have to be a troll or a really crappy teacher. Who gets to just teach the curriculum and not deal with all of this other stuff?
Imagine calling someone a bad teacher or a troll because they enjoy doing their job. Woof. You need to take a break from Reddit and step outside.
Easy there… I don’t agree with you. Doing their job? Ignoring the conflicts in the classroom, closing the door and sitting at my desk while kids are assaulted in the hallways, ignoring a girl who comes to class on Monday after being date raped “off campus” by her boyfriend last Friday. All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg; if you think teaching is an easy six hour a day 180 days a year, making big bucks, you know nothing about teaching.
>Ignoring the conflicts in the classroom, closing the door and sitting at my desk while kids are assaulted in the hallways, ignoring a girl who comes to class on Monday after being date raped “off campus” by her boyfriend last Friday. Don't do any of that. Not sure why you felt the need to add that. >if you think teaching is an easy six hour a day 180 days a year, making big bucks, you know nothing about teaching. Also didn't say that. Did you respond to the wrong person by mistake?
If you've never heard the details about what a parent did to their child, you shouldn't be deciding how much they make.
If you've never found a gun on a student, you don't get to decide what teachers make.
What school are you working at?
10/12 of those I've experienced. Never saw a kid overdose in the hallway (but had a kid get black out drink right before my class) and I haven't taken FMLA yet, but the rest I'm with you on. It blows my mind when I'm out with friends and (because it's become the norm) I mention something I've experienced as a teacher, and my friend's jaws drop. You don't get this kind of stress in most other jobs.
market decides how much teachers make
How did we get here? Not just in schools but all of society. This dysfunction extends in some cases all the way up to 40 somethings. Compassion and empathy are gone, kids are live streaming violent acts and laughing in their commentary. Someone screams at a cashier in a busy store because the cashier couldn't guess their pronoun. There are thousands of civil homeless folks but there are people who have the comfort of shelter that have become feral in their behaviors. Everyday there's a story about a teen assaulting an educator, schools have become unsafe for staff and students. Bullying has become a sport but everyone is surprised when a victim snaps and shoots up a school.
I’d say I dealt with 7 of those just last week, and it was only 4 days with the kids since Monday was a staff development day. Good luck OP, keep fighting the good fight.
But most teachers have never seen all these things, should they have no say?
I honestly almost had a student OD on weed, came in super tired, and she put her head down, I let her rest, came around, welcomed her to class, and then she wouldn’t respond outside of a shrug. Mentor came over, hit the binder on the desk and he said she was too deep asleep later, weed bloomed off of her, and I just, like I don’t know what to say, it’s just another reason why I don’t think I can do this after everything
If you get to decide how much should you get paid?
Teaching is a mentally and emotionally hard job. But there are many other jobs out there that are equally hard or even harder. Safety services jump to mind (social work, police, prison guard, ems, etc...). Why make this about money? Do folks who work hard jobs get to decide how much they make? The rant makes sense. The work is impossibly hard. Connecting it to money makes no sense to me. Hope you have a better day tomorrow.
But then here's the counterpoint: If it's not your money, you don't decide how it's spent.
If you've never been electrocuted, you don't get to determine how much electricians make! Yes, your job has its downsides. Every job has its downsides. Everyone has a boss who determines how much they make unless you own the company. While I agree that teachers don't make enough in general, this post was a poor way to justify it.
Eh, it's a public job. Despite being hard, the taxpayer has a say whether we like it or not. Plus, a lot of the stuff you said shouldn't be part of the job in the first place. I signed up to teach and am happy with my solid middle class salary to do so. I don't want 200k to be shot at or be a therapist.
Sounds like you got a good placement. Don’t punch down on the teachers who didn’t.
>Sounds like you got a good placement. Yep! >Don’t punch down on the teachers who didn’t. Never would.
I think the idea is that, while making that middle class salary, we are still expected to “be shot at or be a therapist.” So since that’s the expectation, why can’t we also expect to be compensated more? I don’t want to be shot at or be a therapist, but as my curriculum coordinator recently said to me, that’s the current reality of this job. Im really, really happy that you don’t have those same expectations or fears. Im glad you just get to teach the curriculum. I don’t work in an inner city school, but we still have violent kids, kids who don’t have their needs met, and we had an active shooter two years ago. I’ve called CPS for more issues than I care to discuss. The community I work in is either very supportive of teachers, or they think we make too much money and think many of the things stated throughout this thread are just part of the job. So, back to what you said… I don’t want 200k to be shot at or be a therapist, but if I have to have both of those things happening, then sure, I’ll take that 200k.
Except no one is forcing you to work under those conditions. The sooner teachers stop accepting unacceptable work conditions, the sooner they'll change. Hazard pay just isn't a realistic solution. It's a short-term fix at best, and thinking about how to actually put it into effect is a nightmare.
If you are in a school in America, you go in everyday with a risk of being shot.
True, but I'm at far more risk driving to school than working there. And again, I want the dangerous schools to be fixed, not hazard pay.
I think the whole point of this post is until you’ve experienced it yourself, you shouldn’t be able to pass judgement that impacts us. In this case, the judgement stated is our pay. Again, I’m glad you haven’t had these experiences, but my school isn’t “bad” and doesn’t need to be fixed. The teachers and admin work with what they’ve got, and we do a damn good job. The issue is the behaviors and choices of students that are stemming from trauma or a mental health crisis. This isn’t the school’s fault. It falls on the shoulders of society and irresponsible adults, or adults that do their very best but could use some help themselves. Whether I leave or stay in this profession, the same issues will still be there. At least I can love these kids for as long as they are with me.
>I think the whole point of this post is until you’ve experienced it yourself, you shouldn’t be able to pass judgement that impacts us. In this case, the judgement stated is our pay. I have experienced it myself. Both poor work conditions and poor pay. Why do you feel the need to assume others' work experience? >gain, I’m glad you haven’t had these experiences I have, you made that up. Again, why do you feel the need to assume others' work experience? >This isn’t the school’s fault. It falls on the shoulders of society and irresponsible adults, or adults that do their very best but could use some help themselves. now you're getting it! Yep, and hazard pay as OP suggests won't make these problems better.
So only teachers should decide how much teachers get paid? Stronger unions would probably be a good start.
If youre appropriating tragedy and equating that to salary, you shouldn’t be posting online. Go work on your health. You’re implying that there’s a certain dollar amount that makes tragedy acceptable. Go schedule a therapy appointment.
On the one hand, teachers don't make enough. On the other, it is our tax money...so pay them more and use my tax money for lwsa frivolous things.
If you've never been doxxed by a student because they earned a poor grade, then called in for disciplinary shit for "swearing on the internet" because that student decided to publicly broadcast your private information...
Getting in trouble for swearing on the internet cracks me up. (I'm imagining like swearing on Reddit not posting on your school's Facebook page a long rant about a student with profanity every other word.) I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time, but I'm also pretty sure I won't get in trouble for swearing in my district unless I intentionally swear at my second graders or something like that.
I'm curious, where does the OP (and respondents) live? My SO was a teacher and I'm sure she never dealt with kids ODing in the halls, or having hysterectomies or being assaulted or... these seem like the extremes of society to me. Just... oh my god. Where do you live and work?!
Counterpoint: If you pay property taxes, you should be deciding how much teachers make (by voting).
If you don’t the complex set of trade-offs involved in determining salaries, you shouldn’t be teaching economics. :-)
I dunno. I volunteered to learn some of those things as a community member and parent. If anybody doesn't know narcan training I find them to be ignorant in this day and age - and the other issues are definately going to come along with teenagers. I still think teachers should be paid more for, you know, teaching.
Teachers and cops, the two most self-lionizing professions in the U.S. Get over yourself.
I guess I can't complain about CEO pay because, "I've never XYZ."
If you've never been licensed by the state to practice law AND done so in front of a judge, you should have no opinion on any legal matters period. There, fixed it for y'all 🥰
Forgot never in ninth and eleventh paragraph
I understand what you’re saying. Remember though that we all decide what teachers make by voting on property taxes.
If you've never experienced school as a child, you shouldn't decide. Because all this is what students experience as well, and they don't get paid to be there.
I get that people do not understand how hard the job can be, and can sympathize with you when people just blow off the difficulties of the job to validate a (i agree it's far too low) wage. but the message this relays is that i should not advocate for better teachers salaries because i've never had a student.
This could be the most upvoted post in Reddit history and it'd still be underappreciated. Thank you for this and for everything you do, OP. 🙌
teachers and nurses continue to be locked in a non-stop battle for the title of whiniest, most self-righteous profession
So, teachers should be able to just decide their own pay? Sure, why not?
If you work a public school you’re a public employee. So yes, the taxpayers should decide how much you make.
Meanwhile, the McDonald's worker is also dealing with overdoses in their minimum wage job. This isn't a teacher payment problem. This is a system wide failure to support those in need. I am always interested in those teachers who have never had a job outside the classroom acting like our profession is among the noblest. Clearly going to be an unpopular opinion here, but I've been a soldier and a waitress and a teacher, and teacher is by far the easiest of the jobs. EVERYONE deserves a fair, living wage. You are not a Saint.
I agree with you - there are some really ignorant takes in here.
Ive had a ton of difficult jobs and it was the hardest I ever had. I made it one year. Glad u have survivor bias tho
I didn’t start teaching until after 40. It is far from the most difficult job I ever had, but it is the most mentally and emotionally draining job I ever had. It is also the only one where the outcome of my job was more than putting more money into the hands of already disgustingly wealthy people. The guy OD’ing at McDonalds is just some adult junkie off the street. In your classroom it is a child whose welfare was entrusted to you.
Daycare workers also have children entrusted to their care but they make a heck of a lot less money. ECEs are hard working and often treated poorly on top of being paid less than us. Teachers are not saints. Your comment about "just some adult junkie off the street" is very telling.
Daycare workers aren’t required to have a college degree.
Um… they were at any place I worked…
It depends on your location. I worked at daycares in North Dakota and Virginia. In both states (at least at the time), most daycares only required the teachers to have high school diplomas.
So people who didn’t commit 4 years of their life (and all the financial costs and sacrifices that entails) to furthering their education make less money. OK.
I don’t get the whole comparing jobs thing when posters compare jobs where the requirements are so different.
Please don't invalidate teacher trauma. Not talking about our experiences contributed to where we are now. Not cool.
McDonalds jobs are also difficult. Teachers can be wonderful, hard workers. They can be wonderful people. But they can also be lazy and terrible at their jobs. It isn't an inherently nobel job and the pay is comparable to other jobs in the same difficulty level. Many, many proffessions are overworked and underpaid. Teachers are not special in this regard.
Point to the part where OP said teaching is the most noble profession, because I can’t find it. Just because someone else may have it as bad or worse doesn’t mean others’ opinions are invalid. People should be allowed to express their issues without you telling them to shut up.
Teacher trauma? Fucking cringe
If you have never been screamed at by your Superintendent about how you choose to celebrate who you are as one of the few POC in theor predominantly white personnel district of predominantly BIPOC student body, you should not be deciding how much a teacher makes.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment but I don't understand why you are getting down voted? Seems like there is a racist in the comments.
I’ll get flack for this, but this is a stupid post. For everyone on this sub who isn’t a teacher, I’m a teacher who despises crap like this. Someone has to decide how much teachers make. If they left it up to teachers, then it would be a million dollars a year. Also, keep this simpering whiny stuff on Facebook. It’s so dramatic and over the top and off putting. This is why people complain about teachers.
Also teacher. I too think this post is silly and melodramatic. Also totally misses the point in the problems with our profession.
Nope- not melodramatic- just being hinest
If you choose to put up with an abusive job, that's your choice. The job isn't going to magically change and the salary isn't going to go up 400%. What you do about it is up to you.
Doesn't matter, there's going to be some kind of stress no matter where you go.
Yep. All jobs have some level of stress. Doesn't mean you need to put up with that giant list OP posted.
Yea, true.
It’s one of those things that sounds nice, but doesn’t actually make practical sense. Did OP write all that just to suggest that teachers should determine their own pay rates? That’s not how jobs work. You could write a similar post about everything nurses, custodians, social workers, prison guards, cops put up with.
It's a weird post. In addition to what you said about salary, all those points are things teachers *shouldn't* be putting up with in general. I don't want to be paid to do all those things, I want to be paid to teach. It's a backwards way of looking at things.
Yeah it’s kind of like they’re saying teachers do all these things that aren’t teaching, and therefore should Be paid a ridiculously inflated salary that encompasses being a nurse, social worker, counselor, etc. when really school support staff should be doing their jobs and not dumping things on teachers. Why the HELL do we have to administer narcan when there’s a nurse? Why do we have to call home about attendance when there’s an attendance secretary, sometimes multiple?
I dunno, I did 10 years in Oakland CA with gangs and Narcan and it was enough for me. The salary was never going to be worth the stress, and the problems were only getting worse, so now I work in a school in the suburbs of CT. I guess I could have made a similar post to OP, but I don't really see the point. I didn't want to be paid 300k, I just wanted to teach.
I totally agree. Imagine making this post when a cop is sitting over there making the same salary. In many departments, the pays are not far off.
That’s in their job description and they receive specific training. I’ve never seen a single description for a teaching position that entails anything other than teaching curriculum and record keeping.
Teachers receive training on all this stuff too. Asirt training, mandated reporter training, deescalation training, etc.
Never asked to determine my own pay rate. Where did you see that in my post? Just want a livable wage.
You implied several times that only teachers should have a say in teacher’s pay, that was the one point you made over and over.
I kinda agree, kinda disagree. Yes, teachers should be deciding on their own salaries but if you have conditions as OP mentioned, I wouldt work as a teacher; I have to have the education that would allow me, in the private sector, to earn 10-15k easily a month while I make, currently, about 6k as a teacher. The benefit is, that I get to do something I enjoy and work with students that respect me as well as their school and fellow students. As soon as this goes out the window (like in the US), I'd want one hell of a raise, otherwise I am gone. Similarly many of my colleagues would do it. Yeah, I dont get to decide how much a teacher earns but if you go too low, you'll be out of teachers rather quickly.
Also, the time off is unheard in any other job. That’s worth a lot.
Wdym? Like I get paid to teach 25 lessons (45minutes each) and for every lesson there is about as much time to prep, getting me around the regular work hours. However I get to schedule and plan a lot of that for myself but then on the other hand I am also expected to keep up with the curriculum, visit other teachers, grade exams, parent teacher meetings, be available for emails and other problems.
Fall break, winter break, spring break, summer break. I spend over 100 extra days per year with my family that my working class friends don't. That's a huge perk.
Yeah, I’m a CPA. I understand working outside of normal business hours (or, in your case, contract hours). I get 10 days vacation a year.
I’m in the US and have many respectful students. I don’t experience any of what this person has described (except one.)
I think OP is speaking about the general public’s opinion that teachers are paid too much
Don’t be a teacher if ur gonna bitch about it… you knew all this before coming in… suck it up, you’re not the only one with a hard life
Sounds like maybe you switch schools.
This reasoning doesn’t hold any water, but I appreciate it. I’m also a teacher btw. This reads like slam poetry from the 90s.
I don't understand why teachers are expected to perform medical interventions. Calling 911 should be the end of responsibility.
Sure, and then I will sit there and watch a child die because it isn’t my job?
Professors who come to this forum be like: solidarity but also shit thank you.
If you’ve never been spit on, sworn at, pinched, hit, kicked, called fat, ugly, lied to, lied about, been stolen from, had your integrity questioned, been given a task without the tools to do it, shamed, overworked, under-appreciated, misunderstood, depended upon without a choice…
If you pay taxes, you should get to decide how much teachers make.
I don't think that that is very sound logic. Completely understand the difficulty of the job and the frequently insufficient remuneration though and that resonates with me. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that people without firsthand experience of the difficulties of the profession should not unjustly impose a low ceiling on compensation. Or perhaps it is fair to say that regulators of the profession should be required to have more grounding in its modern practical application. To be fair, one of the silly things about our society is that "value" and therefore compensation is often determined by people and groups with almost no first-hand experience of the subject under consideration. Paramedics are probably a group even more disadvantaged by this than educators (although I admit that I am neither myself). There are a lot of professional groups in this boat. While this commonality does nothing to invalid your points or perceptions of injustice, it does perhaps contextualize this within the unfortunate norm. It is shameful that education has been allowed to atrophy and the public system is increasingly [chronically] under-resourced. I am always surprised that people can support policies so fundamentally against their holistic self-interest, but here we are. Ultimately, the role of educators in society is extremely important but that does not inherently provide justification for a level of self-determination beyond any other profession in a free market economy. But I agree that there currently exists a gross mismatch in expectations from teachers and support personnel and their compensatory salary and benefits.
Not how it works cupcake.