I thought the whole point of PTO was so that they didn't have to mess around with someone was really sick. So you get 2 months of vacation, essentially per year. What kind of job is this?
Kim Reynolds unveils a $45 million dollar program to alleviate Iowa's teacher shortage.
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"23" doesn't think. He parrots what he hears and reads on Radical Right media.
I've never seen a logical thought.
Working til Wednesday @ school. Heading to Space Camp with a group of students in a week - unpaid time. Get back from Space Camp and have four hours to catch my flight to our technology club's national competition - unpaid time. My June is spoken for.
On the plus side, I just renewed my license for the last time so staff development is now a thing of the past.
I'm not familiar with Iowa but do they not offer full retirement at 30 years as long as you're 50...which you almost certainly would be. That's NC. Anyone graduating from college at 19 is likely not going into teaching.
You can also use the 85 rule - minimum age of 60 + 25 years.
Kids in the United States go to school year around now? Either it's true or it isn't. Do Teachers teach year around or don't they? I know several, and most of them work in the summertime, just not at school. Are they the exception?
So if that's not true get your facts out and show us Albert.
I reached the rule of 85 a few years ago. Last summer I retired and took a job in a Catholic school. I plan on teaching 2 more years.
A couple things that always grab my attention in these threads are teacher's pay and 2 months vacation. Do people understand that this so called 2 month vacation is not paid? I worked 30 years with a lawn service and took classes most summers. As for throwing money at education and teacher salaries to entice more to be teachers, this will not help. The fix is being able to hold kids accountable and having expectations that students need to meet. If I wrote a book on what goes on in public schools most would think it is fiction. Kids will follow rules when they are held accountable. Adults have truly screwed up public education. Change will come when people realize that.
A couple things that always grab my attention in these threads are teacher's pay and 2 months vacation. Do people understand that this so called 2 month vacation is not paid? I worked 30 years with a lawn service and took classes most summers. As for throwing money at education and teacher salaries to entice more to be teachers, this will not help. The fix is being able to hold kids accountable and having expectations that students need to meet. If I wrote a book on what goes on in public schools most would think it is fiction. Kids will follow rules when they are held accountable. Adults have truly screwed up public education. Change will come when people realize that.
I've always thought you were an idiot, so that proves my "logical thoughts" are always 100% spot on.
I can assure you your dumbass watches more "Radical Right" media than I do, which is zero. The Drama Queen types like you just can't help themselves.
As a point of reference the school district for Des Moines lost 500 teachers through various means of attrition at the end of this school year.
Teachers don't get summers off. They are unpaid in the summer. I realize I'm correcting a brick wall but this is a very common misconception.
Lots of teachers in low income districts already get portions of loans forgiven. So some of this is in place already.
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No doubt increased pay would help, but I think it goes so much deeper than that. The discipline in too many schools is virtually non-existent, so it's difficult for teachers to simply teach and present lessons. Then you throw in how many pressures teachers face on what they should or shouldn't teach and it's such a thankless job. Just look at the number of people that will say "teachers get the summer off" ... it just shows a lack of understanding that teachers aren't paid for the summer. The lack of true respect teachers get is really sad.
Sure would be nice…
Well, at Wells Fargo you get 18 days of PTO when hired, 23 days after 3 years, 28 after 10 and then 33 after 25. Plus 11 bank holidays. So not quite 6 weeks but pretty close after 3 years.
This is a fascinating conversation direction. Most experts generally agree Americans currently work too much and should probably take more time off than we do.
These are IPERS rules for teachers.I'm not familiar with Iowa but do they not offer full retirement at 30 years as long as you're 50...which you almost certainly would be. That's NC. Anyone graduating from college at 19 is likely not going into teaching.
You can also use the 85 rule - minimum age of 60 + 25 years.
There are three kinds of “normal retirement age” or “rules”. These are the milestones when you may collect retirement benefits without incurring a reduction for early retirement. However, you are not eligible for retirement until you are at least 55 years of age.
- Rule of 88: The member’s age at his/her last birthday and the member’s years of IPERS-covered employment equals 88 or greater.
- Rule of 62/20: The member is age 62 or older and has at least 20 years of IPERS-covered employment.
- The member is age 65.
Believe me, you're not going to entice the older, experienced ones because they're finding things to be a sh*!hole, and they're needed now, can't wait 5 years
Care to teach us more about the First Amendment? Still waiting for a response in the other thread.
He'll never answer. Or if he does, it'll be to rehash some rubbish from another Radical Right media source.
He has no ability to look at things objectively. Just a bitter, old man worried that white males are becoming a minority voting bloc in this country.
As several have noted, the primary reason I have seen many of my teaching colleagues leave the profession (before being eligible for retirement) is the lack of discipline + lack of support from Administration (both building + district). A friend of mine who subs throughout my district (Cedar Rapids) made a comment this year: "Schools are not schools anymore. They are community centers. Actual learning is about 5th or 6th on the list of priorities."
I truly believe my job has been minimized to a high priced day care provider. Teaching Math is somewhere down the line on what I do everyday. I am glad I'm at the tail end of my career. If I were in my 20's or 30's, I would leave the profession too.
District + Building Administration is too afraid of parents, and making tough decisions to create true change. It is really sad.
As for summers off, people who aren't teachers will never understand why it is necessary. Now more than ever. Kids are in charge, and they know it. The stress on teachers is overwhelming at times.
I truly believe my job has been minimized to a high priced day care provider. Teaching Math is somewhere down the line on what I do everyday. I am glad I'm at the tail end of my career. If I were in my 20's or 30's, I would leave the profession too.
District + Building Administration is too afraid of parents, and making tough decisions to create true change. It is really sad.
As for summers off, people who aren't teachers will never understand why it is necessary. Now more than ever. Kids are in charge, and they know it. The stress on teachers is overwhelming at times.
I don't need more money, really. Other than a decent raise to keep up with cost of living every few years. What I need is to be able to write off more than $250 that I spend on my classroom. What I need is consequences that mean something to major classroom disruptions. Teachers want a safe work environment where they aren't threatened, sworn at, hit, etc. That would be the number one issue for us. That and pay paraeducators a decent wage and give us more of them.
^^^^^^From someone that has a close relative in education, she echoes this POV.
The radicals who have recently inserted themselves into the curriculum and discipline approaches of existing schools have ruined it.
The trickle down of our ever widening national political divide is truly the major reason.
The parents deserve the lion's share of the blame. I respect your thoughts, but when I hear that the administration is afraid of teachers I hear that half assed, under involved parents are in charge. This giant lie coming out over curriculum that parents are being kept out of their kid's educations is reinforced all over the country. Then you have activated parents demanding changes. These are the same people who don't show up for parent / teacher conferences, or would never think to read the notes from a school board meeting. All they want is to drop off their kids at school, and 13 years later get a fully formed adult returned to them.
My boss will rarely go against a parent. I've actually done that more than she has.
Tom- when did you start to see the shift towards the inmates and their parents running the asylum? Not sure you would be able to specify an exact year, but do you remember the first WTF moment where a student did something completely egregious and was not disciplined?
Let’s guess the low education job you have.
most people with degrees I know have 4-8 weeks of vacation. Most of my friends that have more vacation than teachers have jobs requiring no degree.
About 6-8 years ago when standards based grading and no child left behind became the overriding concern of administrators.
how do we make sure everyone graduates despite knowing very little.
I completely agree that we should be able to hold students accountable as well as their parents. Unfortunately we have decided it is better to simply pass them on so the current teacher/school doesn't have to deal with the problems anymore. Teachers should also be permitted to discipline students when needed as well, we have completed handcuffed teachers and the students know it.
Lastly, I don't know how you determined that teachers aren't paid for the summers off? A teacher is hired knowing what he/she will be paid and how many weeks they will work. So they are paid for the weeks they work. All that was being said was you can't say teachers are underpaid compared to other professions when one considers they work 10 months not twelve, so hour for hour they are not drastlcally underpaid as is the talking point.
It's kind of a hard question to answer considering my first 5 years I taught middle school kids with behavior disorders. I then taught PE in a middle school in another high poverty area. I think 2 things stood out. First, a pretty big kid open handed smacked a woman teacher in the middle of the back and it hurt. The next day the kid was in my classroom and I thought, "What the hell?"
The other one, and I knew I had seen it all at that point -told this story here before - was a legitimate crazy kid. He would leave by police or ambulance every single day. Parents sued the district so he couldn't be suspended.
The principal kicked AEA people out of their office to put this kid in this office. He stacked all of the furniture up against the door and sat under it. "You open this door everything is going to fall on me and I'll sue!!" The next day they put him in there in an empty room. He busted one of the windows, took off his clothes and ran around in the middle of a busy street. The next day I walked by the room before school and all the windows had been boarded up.
His para, or the principal would sit there every day holding onto the unlocked door handle to make sure he couldn't escape. I watched the kid throw a punch at the superintendent who tried to talk to him. The kid then started kicking holes in the drywall so he could reach into the office next to that room. Again, cops or ambulance he would be taken out daily for weeks.
Finally they kicked me out of my small gym, gave the gym to the kid, with a one on one guy and the kid spent the entire day in there doing whatever he wanted to do.
The talk was he was a child of something out of a porno. Mom banged a pizza delivery guy while the crazy dad watched. Not even kidding. Nothing like any of that should be happening in our schools anywhere. This would have been back around 2007.
I agree with what many have said about the discipline problems and "siding with the parents". This has to be high up on the list of problems for teachers...
How much of an issue/complaint is the standards based grading and giving students MANY retakes of exams? This would frustrate me as a teacher, because you have to put in a lot more work and is something that is definitely abused by students.
As a parent, I WANT my kid to have deadlines to reach accomplishments and goals.
In my opinion, the disciplining of students and standards based grading is failing BOTH our students and teachers.
How much of an issue/complaint is the standards based grading and giving students MANY retakes of exams? This would frustrate me as a teacher, because you have to put in a lot more work and is something that is definitely abused by students.
As a parent, I WANT my kid to have deadlines to reach accomplishments and goals.
In my opinion, the disciplining of students and standards based grading is failing BOTH our students and teachers.
Tell me you know nothing about teaching without telling me you know nothing about teaching. Hour for hour. LMFAO.
Teacher's salaries are paid by days worked. The only paid day during the summer is the 4th of July. My understanding from teachers older than me is the salary is divided by 12, not 10 so teachers can't get unemployment during the summer. Yes we get paid during the summer, but not for those days off.
It’s amazing how many people think teachers apparently do nothing between 6/1 and 9/1.
Or after 4:00. Guys will be happy next year because my schedule/job changed and I'll actually be "working" and not posting during the day. No more online office hours or online classrooms for me. Just working with students all day long, in our special, which is what we asked for the last 10 years or so.
Agreed with the comments on lack of parenting + Standards Based Grading.
A large majority of the time, a phone call (or email) is met with a defensive + a critical parent Not critical of the kid, critical of me or the school. More of "what I did wrong" type thing. Like most teachers, a give a kid too many chances for most things. A phone call home is the last resort. The only thing I'm not lenient on is dropping the F-Bomb in class. I'm probably like most of the posters on this board - if my father got a phone call from a teacher or principal, I was dead that night. Needless to say, those phone calls were very few + far between. Those days are long gone.
Standards Based Grading (SBG) has devalued education. Homework is optional + not factored into grades, so kids don't do it. You can retake a test until you get the grade you want. It's a joke. Nothing used to get a kids attention (and their parents) than a big fat F. Go back to traditional grades, required summer school for "x" amount of F's,. and retention - then school becomes more important + behavior issues decline rapidly. It's not that damn hard to figure out, but we are in a place in society where "Failure" is seen as a negative. Overcoming adversity is a big part of life. SBG has taken that out of school. The pendulum should swing back, but not before I retire. Admin likes to use the term "in the best interest of kids". No one will EVER be able to convince me that SBG is good for kids.
A large majority of the time, a phone call (or email) is met with a defensive + a critical parent Not critical of the kid, critical of me or the school. More of "what I did wrong" type thing. Like most teachers, a give a kid too many chances for most things. A phone call home is the last resort. The only thing I'm not lenient on is dropping the F-Bomb in class. I'm probably like most of the posters on this board - if my father got a phone call from a teacher or principal, I was dead that night. Needless to say, those phone calls were very few + far between. Those days are long gone.
Standards Based Grading (SBG) has devalued education. Homework is optional + not factored into grades, so kids don't do it. You can retake a test until you get the grade you want. It's a joke. Nothing used to get a kids attention (and their parents) than a big fat F. Go back to traditional grades, required summer school for "x" amount of F's,. and retention - then school becomes more important + behavior issues decline rapidly. It's not that damn hard to figure out, but we are in a place in society where "Failure" is seen as a negative. Overcoming adversity is a big part of life. SBG has taken that out of school. The pendulum should swing back, but not before I retire. Admin likes to use the term "in the best interest of kids". No one will EVER be able to convince me that SBG is good for kids.
And why might this be happening win1? Have you attended a school board meeting where "the public" show up en masse and specifically attacks a reacher or a situation....which more oft than not, they have incorrect information? As kids often disrespect and "shun" teachers because "it's cool".......Teachers are constantly lambasted because of school schedules / calendars which more oft than not (especially in Iowa) they have practically ZERO input....;;and then for the past 40 yers, the state government has concentrated on UNDERFUNDING state schools at ALL levels while exercising themselves to cut taxes for Iowans who should be paying their most taxes.....
This "crisis" is nothing more than a self-fulling prophecy by Reynolds and the political right as they have dedicated themselves to defunding and destroying public education in Iowa for years.
Where do teachers get “summers off”? When all is said and done maybe 8 weeks off. But summers is when teachers go back to school for certification programs abs advanced degrees. It’s really not having the summer off from teaching/school obligations. It’s a common argument but a false one.
How else you gonna do it? He/she is not getting sane pay and “accrued benefits” will increase with “time on job”…
Where this is gonna get messy is with individual school districts mandating to school teacher associations (unions) what is being offered and to whom. I have seen where some local school boards, in an sttemppt to be fair to all” havevroyally screwed experienced teachers and had them go elsewhere.
