From Brett Condon
Brodhead
To the editor:
The average worker, working 40 hours per week, works 2,080 hours per year, less 48 hours for paid holidays and 40 hours for at least one week's vacation pay, or about 2,000 hours, most with paid breaks.
It might surprise some to know that the average public school teacher works hundreds of hours more per year including after-school hours in planning, preparation, grading, after-school activities and community events, and attending professional development courses, which they pay travel and tuition expenses, in the thousands of dollars, themselves, to keep their license current. So much for the myth of teachers having "summers off."
This is why it is a disrespectful slap in the face to teachers when the Beloit school board this year implemented a policy that required teachers to work an extra ten hours per month in after-school hours doing anything their building principals assigned to them to "make up" for the half-hour "paid" lunch break in their school hours. Never mind that most teachers work through their lunch in their rooms.
Teachers are not hourly-paid employees, they are salaried professionals. As much, they do whatever it takes to meet their duties and responsibilities, as do all professionals. The idea that they get a "paid" half-hour lunch is, on its face, a misconception.
It's time for school boards to stop the disrespect and stop taking advantage of the "tools" Act 10 gave them and start appreciating teachers as among the most important professions in our society, and treat them as such.
Brodhead
To the editor:
The average worker, working 40 hours per week, works 2,080 hours per year, less 48 hours for paid holidays and 40 hours for at least one week's vacation pay, or about 2,000 hours, most with paid breaks.
It might surprise some to know that the average public school teacher works hundreds of hours more per year including after-school hours in planning, preparation, grading, after-school activities and community events, and attending professional development courses, which they pay travel and tuition expenses, in the thousands of dollars, themselves, to keep their license current. So much for the myth of teachers having "summers off."
This is why it is a disrespectful slap in the face to teachers when the Beloit school board this year implemented a policy that required teachers to work an extra ten hours per month in after-school hours doing anything their building principals assigned to them to "make up" for the half-hour "paid" lunch break in their school hours. Never mind that most teachers work through their lunch in their rooms.
Teachers are not hourly-paid employees, they are salaried professionals. As much, they do whatever it takes to meet their duties and responsibilities, as do all professionals. The idea that they get a "paid" half-hour lunch is, on its face, a misconception.
It's time for school boards to stop the disrespect and stop taking advantage of the "tools" Act 10 gave them and start appreciating teachers as among the most important professions in our society, and treat them as such.
