*&@! the System

Hello dearests.  I have been remiss in writing, I acknowledge.  I come today to vent a frustration…. or a few frustrations.

It is a well known fact (I hope) that teachers are not the best paid.  If you were to break down our salary into payment per hour, you would come up with something around $2.  Add to that the fact that in a typical classroom, at least in the primary grades, the teacher provides at least 60% of the materials within that classroom.  I have well over a thousand dollars worth of books alone, that I bought and paid for.  On average I would estimate my classroom expenditure to be around $200 a month.  How many other jobs do you know of where the employee doesn’t think it the slightest bit odd to pay for the materials necessary?  

Beyond the pure financial aspect of it, there is a very real physical, mental, and emotional cost.  Its not a job you leave at 3:30 and forget about.  I spend many nights awake and thinking.  Thinking about things that happened during the day.  Thinking about how to better serve a struggling child.  Thinking about possible behavior plans to help an unruly child.   Thinking about children who I know go home to less than ideal home situations.  There are losses. Real. True. Painful losses.  I have already had reason to call CPS this year, and I know for a fact that they are at our school daily for one child or another.  

Even beyond that.  Beyond the highest cost, the physical, the mental, the emotional, there is the sacrifice of time.  I know many people have a perception of teachers as having it easy because of our built in holidays.  What they do not realize, what they don’t understand, is that a teacher never really stops working.  I spend most of the summer working in my classroom, or going to "Professional Development".  Over our other breaks I bring home work to do.  Center activities to make, assessments to complete.  Its a never ending cycle.  During the school year its typical for my days to last until 6 or even 7 or 8.  Considering that I begin working at 7:30, and often have to work through lunch and my conference time, it makes for long days.

I know that all of my dear friends and readers know this.  I know that all of my dear friends appreciate this.  But. There is a bill being presented in Texas currently that proposes an outrageous cut in the budget for Education.  It proposes an increase in class size.  I already have 21 students.  On top of that I have two children who come to me for Inclusion.  Pray tell, how many 5 year olds do you think you can squeeze into one classroom before I cease to teach and commence to "baby sit".  I can tell you, any teacher can tell you, and research supports the fact that a kindergarten classroom should have no more that 16 kids as an extreme upper limit.  

Already districts have cut their budgets to bare minimums.  Teachers are getting laid off.  As a direct result of the money crunch my own district switched to a state funded health insurance program.  I knew the plans were horrid, but I didn’t realize quite how horrid they were until I discovered that until I meet my $1,200 deductible I will be paying $128 a month out of pocket for my asthma prescription.  

The worst part? Because they "allowed" my district to join mid-term (we began coverage with them in January) I have until the last day of August to surpass this deductible so they will cover any of my medical expenses.  Then, on September 1st, I start over paying out of pocket until I meet the $1,200 deductible.  Barring any medical emergency I have a rough estimate of 12-15 months before the insurance company starts to pay for anything.  

A coworker and I were discussing this the other day, and she asked me…

"What do you think would happen if all of the teachers across Texas walked out in protest?"  

I think that’s a fairly good question.  What if all the teachers across Texas, or better yet, across the nation walked out in protest?  Here’s the kicker though.  Teacher’s care.  We care about our kids.  We love our jobs.  If we don’t, we do something else because nobody gets paid enough to do this job if they don’t love it.  So the odds of us compromising our students learning by walking out, or going on strike are minimal. 

If you are still with me, I appreciate your patience.  I shall reward it with a few gems from the last few weeks. 

During report card testing, I have to have my kids count to 100 for me.  One child was counting along, "twenty nine, dirty, dirty one, dirty two, dirty tree, dirty fo…." 

During math centers a little girl picked up two round double sided counters, she nudged the little boy next to her and said, "Hey, look!’ while holding the two counters up to her chest. 

That last one made me laugh because it reminds me of a picture my parents have of my sister when she was about that same age.  She had been drawing and using stickers, and when my mom went to check on her she found her clothed only in her underwear a smiley face sticker over each nipple.  *Grins*