Kelso, WA. Teachers Vote to Defy a Judges Orders

[PrDubi]

I'd really like to invite anyone here to be a teacher for an entire day. Many of you with your ideas that we get paid for summers off are pipe dreaming with the same thing with Christmas breaks and other myths.
I don't get any of that as a teacher in Oregon but I ain't complaining either.

 

[Diamondback]

Let me stipulate for the record that my aunt's a paraeducator, and I spent a summer as a substitute para for her building's Summer School program. (Basically, we and HR arranged that since she was already onsite anyway and so was I volunteering and she has full teaching creds, when someone else in that building needed a sub she slid into their gig for the day and I slid into hers.)

The main quarrel here, I think, is that they are taking actions in direct contravention of state law, which if you or I were caught so blatantly doing same we'd be checked into the Graybar Inn.

 

[PBinWA]

Deport them!

Hire some illegal aliens to replace them. Seeing as teachers in general tend to vote "left" then they should be in full support of the "aliens" getting some jobs. Plus the the non-spanish kids might learn Spanish which will be useful in the future.

 

[Kid@Heart]

I'd really like to invite anyone here to be a teacher for an entire day. Many of you with your ideas that we get paid for summers off are pipe dreaming with the same thing with Christmas breaks and other myths.
I don't get any of that as a teacher in Oregon but I ain't complaining either.

Sure you get paid for Summer Break.

My Father and two sisters were teachers in Washington State. They received an annual salary, paid in twelve installments on the first of each month. Didn't need to go to work during the summer months or for any of the multitude of Federal Holidays. I believe they are required to provide 180-185 days of instruction per year, the average worker puts in over 250 days. I sat down with them one time and did the math and their hourly pay rate was higher than what our lawyer charged per hour.

 

[Kid@Heart]

That might be interesting throwing all of the teachers of the district into jail. Hmm.

Throwing the Teachers in jail wont prove anything. Just make them martyrs.

Throw the Union Officers in jail for contempt and fine them the salaries they are collecting while their "Brothers" are walking the picket line unpaid.

Strike will end in a matter of hours.

 

[Kid@Heart]

Annual salary for a teacher in the Vancouver School District= $82K
185 days of work X 8 Hours= 1480 Hours

$82,000 / 1480 Hours = $55.41 / Hour

Maybe not more than a lawyer makes per hour, but way more than most folks. Include Federal and State Holidays, Winter Break (Christmas to most normal folks), Spring Break and Summer break and it is a pretty good gig in my opinion.

 

[RicInOR]

@PrDubi - Thank you for being a teacher, it is a damn-hard job. One I could not do.




The reason teachers have to go back to school and get continuing education credits is all about keeping the threshold to employment high. To justify having an education degree. You can't be a new teacher in Oregon. You have to get some experience somewhere else first. Which of course proves you don't need all the certifications to be an effective teacher.

The major costs are now associated with administrators. I don't have a link handy but in the past few years the costs of having administrators has exceeded having teachers. They, not being stupid, tied their salaries to those of teachers. Give teachers a bump and also have to bump all the admin types. Why do we have admins? Cause the districts like to take federal money and to get it they have to account for how it was spent. And those costs come out of the federal funds, leaving less for the intended use.


To everyone else, I know the perception is that teachers just put pink smiley faces and add unicorn rainbow stickers to students work and pass them along. And to make sure we can't tell how they are doing create new stuff like common core which makes obamacare seem easy to follow.
But they do have to meet with parents, students and other teachers outside of school hours. Plus, grading is often done away from the classroom.

However, as my company says, as does the one I work around (our partner), if it takes you 60 hours to get your job done, then it sucks to be you. Figure it out.
Professional educators are saying they need to find ways to keep parents out of the process of teaching. Which is protectionist union thinking. The reality is those jobs are gone, and they ain't coming back. I'll bet $1 that by the time my grandson hits highschool, the entire education system is different. Of course, the socialists might take over and we'll have regressed.



Where is excellence in education? Private. And I don't mean St. Someone Catholic. I mean places like Chinese After School programs. Or, Khan Academy. - The Chinese are so effective that many universities take off 50 points on a an SAT score if you mark Asian as race. ( 250 points are added to the race our President would mark. )


Where I see the potential for excellence works like this:
1. Drop all administrators and take no federal funds.
2. Have students read / watch / listen / interact - getting the information at home.
3. Students do "homework" in the classroom, in small groups, mentored, facilitated by the teacher. Teacher ensures each student is leading from time to time and participating, sharing, helping.
4. Allow teachers to sell lesson plans, and keep the $$.
5. Let "boys be boys" by which I mean, recess, PE, chances to get out of the chair and run around are required, but not forced.
6. Dump the current path towards an liberal degree education - High school is high school, not college prep - and should be sufficient for many - if not most. We should not be driving all students towards a BA degree.

How might you do that, today?
"Here read this before you come to the range."
At the range, watch the guy to your left and right to ensure they are safe, help them as necessary. See Appleseed.


Much learning, interactive training, can be done by robots today, and it is. (How do you define robot? ) Watch your holiday shopping guides: Here is one Leap Frog. Here is another: Mavis Beacon. More.

 

[Morpheus]

Annual salary for a teacher in the Vancouver School District= $82K
185 days of work X 8 Hours= 1480 Hours

$82,000 / 1480 Hours = $55.41 / Hour

Maybe not more than a lawyer makes per hour, but way more than most folks. Include Federal and State Holidays, Winter Break (Christmas to most normal folks), Spring Break and Summer break and it is a pretty good gig in my opinion.

Please site your data source, because everything I see it is around 52K to 58K. Keep in mind all these are all people that have at least a Bachelor degree and many are required to have a Masters to even get their foot in the door.

This is also the average salary. Yes, many may be making a lot more, usually those are in the specialized areas which require even more training than a Masters. For example special needs instructors who sometimes even have Doctorates. Add the cost of a Bachelors and Master's degree these days. 40K for bachelors and another 40K for a Masters. And that is the cheaper side of degrees at state schools. So those starting teachers who are getting paid $33k to $36K have a LONG ways to go to reach that lofty $52K or 58K a year. And with the way things are going, may only reach that towards the end of their career. And even if it was 86K a year, those teachers have been in those jobs a LONG time and have a huge number of additional education over the course of that stay. Now you are talking Bachelors, Masters and a boat load of additional education credits. How many of you go back to college every year to get retrained in your profession? And not just willingly, but have to do it or else you might lose your job?

Even with that said, many of these negotiations aren't around the specific salary items. They are around prep time for their classes. In this case, I believe it is around 4 to 8 additional days added to the school year which can be used for Teacher In-service days to do prep and grading for the students. Yes, this does mean they get paid for the additional time. There is also a cost of living of 2% (would need to fact check again) over 3 years. 2% over 3 years... Think about that. Right now inflation is super low. So it would be a raise, but over 3 years if you use the past 3 year years it would be a 1% pay loss consider inflation was about 3% between 2013 to 2015.

I'm surprised they aren't trying to get classes down especially considering for Kelso it appears K-12 the average is 26 students. 26 students. I would love to see anyone on here handle 26 students for 6 to 7 hours a day, 5 days a week for 9 months. It would take you 1 of those 3 months off just to unwind enough to be sane again.

Yes, they choose to take on these jobs and they choose to be teachers. The average turnover rate for teachers is 17% to 20%. So those average salary's mean nothing if they don't spend time at the same school district. As they move around they lose time in seat towards higher pay. Sometimes they can lose 5 or 10 years of seniority if they move, and because of the Union they get locked into their pay schedule.

Please, anyone who think Teachers are paid too much, go volunteer at the local school. Go spend a few weeks in their shoes. Heck, spend 2 days in a classroom with a teacher. See how it goes, then ponder if they are paid too much or too little.

 

[Kid@Heart]

Please site your data source, because everything I see it is around 52K to 58K.

http://data.spokesman.com/salaries/schools/2015/22-vancouver-school-district/employees/

Shows about 400 teachers in the Vancouver School District making between $80 - $89K (by name).

 

[Morpheus]

http://data.spokesman.com/salaries/schools/2015/22-vancouver-school-district/

Uh, so it shows average being

• Average Salary: $42,607.52

Though that most likely is for the whole district. Taking a few minutes to review a few hundred teachers, didn't see any teachers over $60K. Saw a lot of principles and secondary principles in the $100K though.

 

[Kid@Heart]

See that column on the right???

 

[Morpheus]

That is total compensation, not Salary. You can't eat your medical plan. Won't pay for gas. Or the mortgage. Or should Teachers not have medical plans?

But by doing another sort, I did find a several Elementary Teachers who salary was $64K. So their total compensation was $82K. But again, Salary is only $64K. So I'm guessing the 'Average' salary is a hell of a lot less than that.

 

[USAF Medic]

So, teachers in WA want to teach that it is ok to break the law and expect to be rewarded with a pay raise??

 

[USAF Medic]

Do like they did with the air trafic controllers, fire all of them and bring in new blood

 

[Kid@Heart]

That is total compensation, not Salary. You can't eat your medical plan. Won't pay for gas. Or the mortgage. Or should Teachers not have medical plans?

But by doing another sort, I did find a several Elementary Teachers who salary was $64K. So their total compensation was $82K. But again, Salary is only $64K. So I'm guessing the 'Average' salary is a hell of a lot less than that.

The total includes bonuses and stipends, too. You are excluding that and you CAN eat your bonus.

I would love to have a job that pays over $60,000 dollars (Plus Bonuses) for nine months of work.

Equivalent to over $40.00 an hour plus benefits.

 

[Kid@Heart]

Wages and income
(Source: Employment Security Department; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Bureau of Economic Analysis; U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey)

The median hourly wage for jobs in Clark County in 2013 was $20.05, $2 per hour below the state median. There has been little change in the county median since 2002 when it was an inflation-adjusted $19.80.

The 2013 average annual wage was $45,108, well below the state and national averages. The average has risen almost every year for the past two decades. The stagnation of the median wage and increase in the average wage indicates that wages have been increasing on the upper end of the wage scale, but not in the middle and lower segments.


I still believe the teachers have an excellent pay and benefit package. They already make 40% more than the average employee in Clark County. Going on strike for more money is NOT about the kids. It is about the UNION.

 

[eightyeight mag]

How about teachers get their raises based on merit just like most people do in the real world.
Teachers are doing a great job passing on their sense of entitlement to the kids.

Oh and keep doing everything they can to squash charter schools. God forbid they have some competition and have to up their game.

 

[Diamondback]

Oh and keep doing everything they can to squash charter schools. God forbid they have some competition and have to up their game.

Don't forget the nine WEA-bought-and-paid-for crooks in black robes on the WA State Supreme Court.