MYTH – TEACHERS BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL

Many teachers take considerable umbrage to the characterization of their job as “part time employment”. Their usual response is that there is nothing part time about it, since they spend many hours working late into the night, grading papers, preparing lesson plans and getting ready for the next day of school. This is nothing more than a great myth.

Lets break down the arduous and strenuous 6 and ½ hour work day into minutes, and then see whether in fact the typical school day allows or does not allow for grading papers, doing lesson plans and getting ready for tomorrow's battle. 6.5 hours turns out to be 390 minutes (i.e. 6.5 multiplied by 60). High school and junior high school teachers with full work-loads teach 5 subject periods per day and each period consists of one 40 minute class. This means that 200 minutes (i.e. 40 times 5) out of the 390 minutes are used for actual platform time. This leaves 190 minutes, that's more than 3 hours out of the 6.5 hour work day, to do the grading of papers, preparing tomorrow's lesson plan and getting ready for the next day's battle. If the teachers are grading papers and doing lesson plans at home, then what in the world are they doing at school during those 3+hours when they are in the school building but not teaching classes?

Elementary school teachers don't have it quite as good since their school day is not structured around 5 periods per day. However, they too get some free periods each day when the children are in music or gym or lunch, and these periods can be devoted to grading of papers and doing lesson plans. And let's be honest the grading of a 2 nd grader's spelling words for example, can be done at a considerable faster speed than let's say grading physics, chemistry or calculus papers in high school.

Because many of our teachers have never worked in the real world, which consists of 8+ hour days, and the number of days that you actually have to show up for work in any given year is 235 or more, many have lost sight of just how unreal their work schedule really is.

Our Cornwall teachers were given a 5 year contract with 5% annual pay increases in 2007, which puts the average annual package of salary plus benefits for a Cornwall teacher at well above $100,000. In some very twisted form of logic, which is only comprehensible to the school board, they now use the 2007 pay increases that they gave to the teachers, as the reason to justify the new Budget increase. These increases are in addition to the longevity raises that the teachers get for every 3 years of service.

Incidentally, did you know that many of our teachers hold only an undergraduate degree? The exact number is, like the salaries, a closely guarded secret. But according to an inside source, as many as 40% of our teachers hold only undergraduate degrees. Don't expect Mr. Rehm or our school board to ask any real probing questions on this issue, however.

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