taximomfor4 said:
Maybe it was an exclusive private school? Maybe he also coached several sports? (Would have to be quite a few, unless their coaches make a LOT more than ours do, lol).
I think the only way it could be done would be if he taught at a city (the cities have slightly higher supplements - see below), coached four sports, taught summer school and after school enrichment programs and received a signing bonus for teaching in an Equity Plus II school. If he did all that, I could maybe see it raising his salary by $17K (big, BIG maybe), but other than that, can't imagine it. BTW, we pay as much in rent here as we did when we lived in Astoria, NY, and the grocery bills are higher here, so I don't think the cost of living savings would be significant. We were actually able to save more, living in the city, b/c we didn't have to have cars. Metrocards are a LOT cheaper than gas & car insurance.
Usually the private schools pay less than the public ones, and if the pay is so high, I still would question why they would hire a first year teacher, with so many experienced ones available and desperately wanting to get into that school.
taximomfor4 said:
Wait...the public school teachers in NC have the same pay scale, across the districts?
They're not exactly the same; most are the state scale, but some, like the district I'm in, pay their own annual "supplement" to the salary. Mine is a whopping $900! The urban districts pay more, with Charlotte being the highest in the state, but that's only an additional $3400, not the $17,000 difference that could account for it. I am very skeptical of that number.
taximomfor4 said:
Then he told dh, "you know, we pay taxes here so WE PAY YOUR PAYCHECK. You work for US." and hung up on dh. Wonder if teachers ever lose their tempers, and why?
C'mon, who wouldn't want to be a teacher with parents like this! This goes back to my first point: everyone and his brother thinks they can tell teachers how to do their jobs. If some wacko tried to get into my husband's office at Wachovia to hassle him about the marketing research he's doing, he wouldn't get past security. But parents with a 6th grade education sail right into school, claiming that they're paying my salary, so I need to do what they tell me to, and if their darling lambykins tells them that she doesn't do her work because I'm a cruel person, then that's what they believe, because Lambykins doesn't lie.
My personal favorite of the year was the parent who called the principal to complain that I was preaching to the children about Jesus, because that's what her son told her. My principal, knowing I'm Jewish, had a good laugh with me about that one...
Or maybe it was the mother who burst into my clasroom in front of all my kids, shrieking and cursing me, because I had "humiliated" her spaghetti-strap wearing, cleavage showing, hot pants-clad daughter, by sending her to the office to get a change of clothing for being in violation of the dress code. Her daughter's ASTHMA is the reason why she has to wear clothes like that to school, and we shouldn't be humiliating an asthmatic child.
I think I'm going to stop posting now, b/c I pretty much made my point in the first post, and now it's down to quibbling over semantics. It boils down to two opposing philosophies: those who respect teachers, campaign to raise their salaries, and treat us like professionals, and those who denigrate teachers, feel that their own children can do no wrong, and think that teachers should be grateful for the pittance we're paid. Unfortunately, as things now stand, the latter category make up the majority of taxpayers, at least here in the South - the numbers don't lie. One can always dream, and meanwhile, I'll keep on working with my 100+ kids, all of whom are lovable, even when misguided
Cheers!
Heather W
She's even contemplating a career change, which is sad, because she reaaly is a good and caring teacher...
