12 ms·

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributions and importance to society.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
francisofascii 7y ago
At many schools the before care/after care staff is not comprised of teachers. But I bet some might sign up for extra hours either before or after school for extra cash.
- _coveredInBees 7y ago
  Sure, but all the activities the OP complains about - parent teacher conferences, kindergarten/classroom tours, etc. all require the actual teachers involvement so it seems perfectly reasonable that those activities would occur during regular working hours. Plenty of schools offer before/after care for families with working parents so that they can drop-off/pick up their kids before/after work. I don't think that is an issue for anyone. But I think it is unreasonable to expect teachers at schools to work outside normal hours just for the convenience of parents with jobs who can't even take a few hours off work for things that they obviously deem important. That's an unreasonable burden to place on teachers, and in general seems like a waste of taxpayer money if they had to be paid overtime just to accommodate a small fraction of parents.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    Are parent/teacher conferences not built into the schedule as working hours? If I recall correctly from my mother, who was a school teacher, they did these twice a year and those eight hours were counted as one of the days that they worked in their contract. Maybe that is not universally negotiated. As she was a special ed teacher, she also had a whole slate of other meetings with parents to go over IEPs and testing, and if those were before 8 am or after 3 pm, she was paid an hourly rate for those meetings.
    - rockinghigh 7y ago
      Overtime pay for IEP meetings is definitely not the norm everywhere.
  - watwut 7y ago
    It is unreasonable to work with assumption that parents don't work or penalize kids for parents (moms to be precise) working.
TuringNYC 7y ago
That assumes a single school employee covers the entire span. Our school in NYC had different shifts — so 7am class teachers were not the same ones doing late afternoon classes.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  To me this sounds line a great way to give teachers non-curricular overtime pay. It’s good for all parties involved to have a face-to-face relationship, and a way for our public school teachers to supplement their income if they so desire.
  - _coveredInBees 7y ago
    That sounds great, but where is that extra money to pay the teachers going to come from? Propose raising property taxes to cover things like this and a large portion of the people wanting this will suddenly vanish.
    - paulie_a 7y ago
      That sounds great. Property values will vanish too and be realistic instead of the current bubble in some areas of the US. cough silicon valley.
gundmc 7y ago
I'm not saying teachers don't deserve to be paid more, but I was surprised to see how much Bay Area teachers make. It's public info for public schools.[1] In Santa Clara County, with no experience, starting salary is $71000. It increases on a schedule each year up to over $131000. Honestly, the job security, structured pay, and 3 months vacation per year is a pretty darn good deal. [1] - https://www.santaclarausd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=1212&dataid=4345&FileName=TEACHERS%20188%20DAYS-3_1-8-19.pdf https://www.santaclarausd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ash...
- rockinghigh 7y ago
  You picked an outlier. Most schools districts in the Bay Area (including San Francisco) have starting salaries for teachers in the $50k-$60k range. And in my experience, teachers work a lot more than 40 hours a week. I picked 3 randomly below: Redwood City: https://www.rcsdk8.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=2086&dataid=35170&FileName=RCTA%202019.07.01.pdf https://www.rcsdk8.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?modul... San Mateo: http://www.smfcsd.net/en/assets/files/Employment%20and%20HR/Salary%20Schedules/19-20%20SMETA%20Salary%20Schedules%20Final%20Board%20Approve%20Jan%2010%202019.pdf http://www.smfcsd.net/en/assets/files/Employment%20and%20HR/... San Francisco: https://archive.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20salary%20schedules/19-20%20salary%20schedule%20K-12%20teachers.pdf https://archive.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20a...
  - gundmc 7y ago
    Thanks for the additional data points!
  - archi42 7y ago
    Enen with tech workers complaining about the high rents, I wonder how bad teachers fare? Or are these districts in "cheap" areas?
    - chris11 7y ago
      San Mateo and Redwood City are both expensive, but not as bad as SF. One article reported median rents were about 2.4k, which makes sense. There a few places advertising lower rents, but not many, and at that price you are giving stuff up. SF is worse. Another issue is the commute. Traffic is really bad, so finding a cheaper place farther away from work will cost you in time and energy, especially if you have to cross a bridge. It's so bad that some districts, including San Mateo, are building their own housing for teachers. https://edsource.org/2019/in-need-of-teacher-housing-more-california-school-districts-building-their-own/611220 https://edsource.org/2019/in-need-of-teacher-housing-more-ca... https://sf.curbed.com/2019/8/20/20814179/housing-crisis-teachers-educators-san-francisco-average-rent https://sf.curbed.com/2019/8/20/20814179/housing-crisis-teac...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rdlecler1 7y ago
There’s a 20:1 to 30:1 ratio so are you suggesting it’s better for 20-30 working, single parent families? Maybe the government should pay teachers more and pay less on defense and we’d have a more productive society.
- archi42 7y ago
  In an ideal world, routing money from defence anywhere makes for a more productive society (except maybe black jack and hookers - and I am not even sure on that). Of course investing into the future (kids and environment) has the biggest long-term impact and should be top priority.
- pentae 7y ago
  I think lately western governments (other than the obvious example) have figured out that it's a much better short term play to simply allow immigration to boost the economy rather than longer-than-their-term ideas like education.
  - 0xcafecafe 7y ago
    I doubt that is true in the current xenophobic administration.
- cobookman 7y ago
  I've read multiple studies that the biggest influence in a kids success in school is their parents involvement. Don't make the assumption that throwing more money at teachers will improve our schools. Zuckerberg tried that with little success, as have many before him. I'd rather a focus on ensuring every kid has a healthy meal at the table. A support group who's invested in tbe individual kids success. A family that encourages and supports during the best and worst of times. Arguably the "advantage" well to-do middle class families get.
  - streb-lo 7y ago
    A quick peruse of Google scholar’s highly cited journal articles suggests it’s not as clear cut as you suggest: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004727270600140X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...
gpapilion 7y ago
I can’t speak to administrators, but for teachers factoring(especially pensions) in total benefits and a 10 month work year this isn’t really true.
dangerface 7y ago
School is publicly funded child care, thats how it started and it hasn't changed since inception. School needs to cater to working parents better since thats its whole point.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

francisofascii 7y ago

At many schools the before care/after care staff is not comprised of teachers. But I bet some might sign up for extra hours either before or after school for extra cash.

_coveredInBees 7y ago
Sure, but all the activities the OP complains about - parent teacher conferences, kindergarten/classroom tours, etc. all require the actual teachers involvement so it seems perfectly reasonable that those activities would occur during regular working hours. Plenty of schools offer before/after care for families with working parents so that they can drop-off/pick up their kids before/after work. I don't think that is an issue for anyone. But I think it is unreasonable to expect teachers at schools to work outside normal hours just for the convenience of parents with jobs who can't even take a few hours off work for things that they obviously deem important. That's an unreasonable burden to place on teachers, and in general seems like a waste of taxpayer money if they had to be paid overtime just to accommodate a small fraction of parents.
- thrower123 7y ago
  Are parent/teacher conferences not built into the schedule as working hours? If I recall correctly from my mother, who was a school teacher, they did these twice a year and those eight hours were counted as one of the days that they worked in their contract. Maybe that is not universally negotiated. As she was a special ed teacher, she also had a whole slate of other meetings with parents to go over IEPs and testing, and if those were before 8 am or after 3 pm, she was paid an hourly rate for those meetings.
  - rockinghigh 7y ago
    Overtime pay for IEP meetings is definitely not the norm everywhere.
- watwut 7y ago
  It is unreasonable to work with assumption that parents don't work or penalize kids for parents (moms to be precise) working.

TuringNYC 7y ago

That assumes a single school employee covers the entire span. Our school in NYC had different shifts — so 7am class teachers were not the same ones doing late afternoon classes.

dev_dull 7y ago
To me this sounds line a great way to give teachers non-curricular overtime pay. It’s good for all parties involved to have a face-to-face relationship, and a way for our public school teachers to supplement their income if they so desire.
- _coveredInBees 7y ago
  That sounds great, but where is that extra money to pay the teachers going to come from? Propose raising property taxes to cover things like this and a large portion of the people wanting this will suddenly vanish.
  - paulie_a 7y ago
    That sounds great. Property values will vanish too and be realistic instead of the current bubble in some areas of the US. cough silicon valley.

gundmc 7y ago

I'm not saying teachers don't deserve to be paid more, but I was surprised to see how much Bay Area teachers make. It's public info for public schools.[1] In Santa Clara County, with no experience, starting salary is $71000. It increases on a schedule each year up to over $131000. Honestly, the job security, structured pay, and 3 months vacation per year is a pretty darn good deal. [1] - https://www.santaclarausd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=1212&dataid=4345&FileName=TEACHERS%20188%20DAYS-3_1-8-19.pdf https://www.santaclarausd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ash...

rockinghigh 7y ago
You picked an outlier. Most schools districts in the Bay Area (including San Francisco) have starting salaries for teachers in the $50k-$60k range. And in my experience, teachers work a lot more than 40 hours a week. I picked 3 randomly below: Redwood City: https://www.rcsdk8.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=2086&dataid=35170&FileName=RCTA%202019.07.01.pdf https://www.rcsdk8.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?modul... San Mateo: http://www.smfcsd.net/en/assets/files/Employment%20and%20HR/Salary%20Schedules/19-20%20SMETA%20Salary%20Schedules%20Final%20Board%20Approve%20Jan%2010%202019.pdf http://www.smfcsd.net/en/assets/files/Employment%20and%20HR/... San Francisco: https://archive.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20salary%20schedules/19-20%20salary%20schedule%20K-12%20teachers.pdf https://archive.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20a...
- gundmc 7y ago
  Thanks for the additional data points!
- archi42 7y ago
  Enen with tech workers complaining about the high rents, I wonder how bad teachers fare? Or are these districts in "cheap" areas?
  - chris11 7y ago
    San Mateo and Redwood City are both expensive, but not as bad as SF. One article reported median rents were about 2.4k, which makes sense. There a few places advertising lower rents, but not many, and at that price you are giving stuff up. SF is worse. Another issue is the commute. Traffic is really bad, so finding a cheaper place farther away from work will cost you in time and energy, especially if you have to cross a bridge. It's so bad that some districts, including San Mateo, are building their own housing for teachers. https://edsource.org/2019/in-need-of-teacher-housing-more-california-school-districts-building-their-own/611220 https://edsource.org/2019/in-need-of-teacher-housing-more-ca... https://sf.curbed.com/2019/8/20/20814179/housing-crisis-teachers-educators-san-francisco-average-rent https://sf.curbed.com/2019/8/20/20814179/housing-crisis-teac...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rdlecler1 7y ago

There’s a 20:1 to 30:1 ratio so are you suggesting it’s better for 20-30 working, single parent families? Maybe the government should pay teachers more and pay less on defense and we’d have a more productive society.

archi42 7y ago
In an ideal world, routing money from defence anywhere makes for a more productive society (except maybe black jack and hookers - and I am not even sure on that). Of course investing into the future (kids and environment) has the biggest long-term impact and should be top priority.
pentae 7y ago
I think lately western governments (other than the obvious example) have figured out that it's a much better short term play to simply allow immigration to boost the economy rather than longer-than-their-term ideas like education.
- 0xcafecafe 7y ago
  I doubt that is true in the current xenophobic administration.
cobookman 7y ago
I've read multiple studies that the biggest influence in a kids success in school is their parents involvement. Don't make the assumption that throwing more money at teachers will improve our schools. Zuckerberg tried that with little success, as have many before him. I'd rather a focus on ensuring every kid has a healthy meal at the table. A support group who's invested in tbe individual kids success. A family that encourages and supports during the best and worst of times. Arguably the "advantage" well to-do middle class families get.
- streb-lo 7y ago
  A quick peruse of Google scholar’s highly cited journal articles suggests it’s not as clear cut as you suggest: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004727270600140X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

gpapilion 7y ago

I can’t speak to administrators, but for teachers factoring(especially pensions) in total benefits and a 10 month work year this isn’t really true.

dangerface 7y ago

School is publicly funded child care, thats how it started and it hasn't changed since inception. School needs to cater to working parents better since thats its whole point.