Teacher salaries by state

[Tom Paris]

1. I said on site after hours work. No teacher has the demand on their time within their base contract for the commitments expected of a principal. We pay decent stipends to teachers who choose to work after hours supporting an activity/sport. We also pay based on a 40 hour week, but only require teachers to be on site/on duty for 35 hours per week. This acknowledges the take home load some teachers carry.

2. Call BS all you want. There are 3 people in my district who drive roads on weather days. Me, the transportation director and the superintendent.

No, but it’s the expectation teachers work for free outside of contract hours. Every teacher I know would challenge you on this. Especially now that we have to cover other teachers during our prep times, because we can’t get subs. Sooooo…when are we supposed to get grades and other planning done? Outside of contract time. What would administration say if teachers said, “Sorry, grades aren’t done because my entire contract time this week was with students.” ?? We sure as shit couldn’t claim “The power of I (incomplete).”

 

[stout1]

You don’t acknowledge that high level teachers can’t get it all done in those 35 hours, but get it done anyway, after hours.
Do your teachers have cafeteria duty? Do they work the school bus line?
Our little county has many more than three folks checking the roads and they are not all admins.

We expressly acknowledge that teachers have after hours off site work by allowing them 5 hours/week of pay without being onsite. Most schools around us base their work week on 35, 37.5 or 40 hours and require teachers to be onsite for all those hours. Pretty much everyone in the school world has take home work. I also know teachers (and admins) that make more work for themselves than needed. That’s nobody’s fault but their own.

In K-6 Instructional Assistants handle lunch and recess and teachers do work bus and car rider lines with the help of admins and IAs. It is not a requirement of teachers but many do rotate through lunch and recess on a regular basis. They also receive 45 minutes/day for a prep period. The only teachers required to work lunch/recess are our specials teachers who don’t have a full schedule. In 7-8 we have 3 admin who work lunches and a team of 3 (2 counselors and a social worker) who help as well. The goal is to have 3 adults in the lunch room at any given time. In 9-12 we are in a block 8 schedule. Every teacher has 6 blocks of classes, a prep period and a duty period. Duty periods are monitoring halls, covering lunch, bus duty/parking lot duty, study hall coverage, etc. Block 8 means 4 periods/day with alternating schedules of 4 90 minute classes. So if your A Day is your prep, your B day is your duty period.

 

[stout1]

I appreciate what central office people do even though it has little impact on my classroom (and that's not fair...it just has little impact on my day-to-day interactions with students). I understand - especially in a district our size - that there are things that have to get done regarding transportation and HR and all the other responsibilities you guys have. Thanks for your work.

I just had to point out that the NCGOP took away the bump for master's pay years ago. Getting a master's degree now means not one thing in terms of pay. Many still do it - including my no-pic wife - because they recognize that the benefits to their teaching outweigh the lack of pay. She retired two years ago...we're still paying on her degree for which she received no extra compensation. Why did she do that? Because she loved her work.

Yeah I’ve seen you post about that before and it sucks.

Indiana took away the ability of schools to pay one of their currently employed teachers to change lanes, but we can still recognize a masters differential. But then they also require a teacher to have a masters to teach dual credit courses.

It basically results in losing good teachers to other districts when they get a masters and then hopefully hiring a good teacher who wants paid for their masters to take their place. And they also want us to reward good teachers, but don’t give us any ability to do that. And they want us to “compete in the market” for good teachers, but if one of my current teachers gets an offer from another school, I can’t match it. It is an effed up system.

 

[stout1]

No, but it’s the expectation teachers work for free outside of contract hours. Every teacher I know would challenge you on this. Especially now that we have to cover other teachers during our prep times, because we can’t get subs. Sooooo…when are we supposed to get grades and other planning done? Outside of contract time. What would administration say if teachers said, “Sorry, grades aren’t done because my entire contract time this week was with students.” ?? We sure as shit couldn’t claim “The power of I (incomplete).”

We try to do everything in our power to avoid this, but we can’t address every issue. We pay hourly for professional development, we have an hourly rate to pay for tasks outside contract hours (it has to be approved and done with some oversight, but it is available). We offer meals and childcare for summer training along with the PD pay. We encourage and pay for attendance at outside professional development events.

We also do everything in our power to avoid covering classes on prep periods. Everyone in central office has covered classes, lunch duty, bus/car rider lines at times. We pull IAs (which isn’t ideal but better than using a teacher on prep) for emergency coverage. Also, outside of Covid year, we’ve been successful at hiring subs.

But again, you are not reading what I have said. We have 5 hours/week built into contracts that’s outside the student attendance day and outside the teacher onsite day. Except for biweekly PLCs and monthly staff meetings we try to keep that time free for teachers.

 

[RileyHawk]

It's a double edged sword that cuts both ways. Pay any employee (teacher or not) too much and you will attract people interested only in the money as well as have some current employees overstay and become outdated and ancient because the money is so good they get fat and lazy.

Teaching is no different than the rest of the world. You don't want to be the best or worst paying. Likewise you don't want too much or too little employee turnover.

That's a bunch of bullshit.

 

[RileyHawk]

Totally agree. If they feel they are being shorted in Iowa and can make more elsewhere...by all means please leave.

That's complete nonsense if Iowa wants to be a top notch educator of our youth. But there are enough people like you who espouse this garbage and we are seeing the results. Teachers leaving the profession and the quality of education deteriorating.