Lazy teachers getting paid for nothing..... (RANT) (updated)

(What follows is a pissy rant. You have been warned.)


Yup... all summer off with pay. Yessireebob that is a sweet deal, and pisses off many tax payers.

Now I are one, (teacher) and I have come to realize it's pure and utter BS.
Teachers do NOT get all summer off with pay. They get paid for their work during the school year, and can elect to have that paid over twelve months. They EARN it during the school year, but get the money later. Without interest. The school district (and tax payers) get the labor up front, and the teacher gets paid for it later. The school has the money in the bank all year, earning interest on it, and doles it out to the teachers long after they have earned it.

I also notice there is no long line of people waiting to be teachers, despite the fantastic pay. Especially in my field, technical education. Here each instructor first has a successful career in their particular industry, then gives it up to take a lower paying job as an instructor.
Those I have approached to take part in this madhouse have (a) laughed at me or (b) told me I was nuts to do the job and wanted no part of it.

Now, lets talk about the lazy part.

I write this as I sit at my desk, having arrived early for a school open house. It's unpaid time right now, but being here early allows me to get caught up on paperwork, and begin planning
changes for the next school year. Let me clue everyone in about 'lazy teachers' ..... I had 'My Forty Hours' done when I walked in this morning. I'll be at fifty four before I'm over today, and still have tomorrow to finish the week.

When I started teaching I wondered what I would do with a whole summer off. Now I know.... it's called 'recovery'. Oh, and that 'whole summer off' thing? More BS. We get from sometime the first week of June till sometime the middle of August. Just for fun, during that time almost all teachers have to fit in required college courses and also plan and prepare for their next school year. Few school districts actually allow the contracted preparation time. Throw in mandatory voluntary conferences and 'outreach' sessions, and summer planning gets problematic.

Oh... I now understand sabbaticals too. I used to think that was pure bovine excrement.
Now I know the truth. Sabbaticals (extended paid time off) keep experienced instructors from quitting. It's a chance to recover from burn out. So far, every instructor I have seen take a sabbatical needed it badly, and was ready to just quit otherwise. Oh.... and taking a sabbatical is not really a long vacation. The school demands (at least ours does) it's pound of flesh, and the instructor has to do development work while on sabbatical. Work output equal to the hours paid. Our three schools have about fifty instructors, and two contracted sabbaticals a year now.
Teachers are eligible after seven years. You do the math on that.... I have never seen someone get a sabbatical who hadn't put in over fifteen years, and every one of them was totally fried.

They get fried, not by working with the children, but by things like I had to do today.
A binder is required of us called 'best practices' each year. It's a two inch thick pile of excrement they demand of every instructor here. There is a three page detailed list of what must be in it.
Why do we have to compile it? So they can prepare for our required year end individual review mandated by state law. The review I have not had in years, as they are way too busy going to lunch or something. It takes hours to assemble, they will never read it, and they will just give it back to us next year as they demand a new one to assembled. Last year I inserted over fifty empty pages, without getting a comment. Yup... important work. Must be, if they require I stop teaching to do it.

Ok... enough whining. I have to get back to my unpaid work on my 1950's surplus bomb shelter desk, while I wait to meet next years crop of 'special little angels'.... AKA knuckle dragging mouth breathers who have been shoved off on us after being ruined by a failed school system with no standards.

Growl.

(Rant OFF)

Update: The funny thing is.... once i got started this evening, and people began rolling in with next years students.... it was all Okay. I got happy, enjoyed myself, had fun talking to them, got a kick out of meeting the kids and their parents, and found energy that hadn't existed an hour before. That happens every year. Must be the water or something. I think they put happy drugs in it.