Two months off

Ladies and gentlemen, the public high school class of 2024 has graduated and left childhood behind.

Thank a teacher or a coach. Thank the principal, the front desk secretary and the janitor. Thank that sweet-tempered road crossing guard at the corner of the school and the bus driver who delivered them to and from some distant neighborhood every damn day, for years.

As May winds down, everything changed suddenly: Juniors are seniors, sophomores are juniors and freshmen are sophomores.

Teachers, like students, are older, wiser and off — unlike the parents of students, who are older, often no wiser and merely working their rear ends off.

Man, what a gig. Or more appropriately, woman, what a gig. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 77% of public school teachers in the United States are women. Where else could you work for a salary with benefits in a five-day-per-week job, clock out each afternoon long before rush hour, then every year about this time let them pat you on the back, say ‘thank you,’ and hand you eight or nine weeks — not days, weeks — of paid vacation?

Christina Chuderski and daughters Xianna, 11, and Daja, 8. COURTESY PHOTO

I hear people say that a lot. It’s dead wrong.

Start with this fact: A new report from the National Education Association ranks Florida 50th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., for average annual pay to teachers.

It’s 50 cents a day.

Just kidding. In fact, it’s a few dollars over $53,000, as this week’s lead story reports.

Dude, this shall not abide — unless the legislature lets it abide.

Some teachers make a lot more than $53,000 (and some a lot less). Take Christina Chuderski, a single mother of two adopted, special needs daughters who also supports her retired mother at home. Set to start her 23rd year in August, she teaches gifted children two days a week and serves as a resource teacher supporting other faculty three days. She typically puts in 10 hours a day and then works additional jobs to boost her income.

Roger Williams

“When I started teaching in 2002, my salary was $28,000,” she told me last week. “My current base salary is $65,000. With supplements (extra jobs) and degrees, I make closer to $80,000. That may seem like a lot, but supporting three people, it doesn’t really go far. That’s also having taught for 22 years and having a doctorate.”

A doctorate in education. You can call her Dr. Chuderski. Is she whining, as critics may suggest?

Well, The M.I.T. Living Wage Calculator estimates that in Florida, working 2,080 hours or full time to reach a modest parity with all yearly expenses, one adult with two children supporting no retired mother requires $45.36 per hour or $94,356 per year.

No, I guess she’s not whining. I guess the real whiners are people who think teachers shouldn’t complain about needing a lot more money because they have two months off.

But that’s just my opinion. I asked some people who know what they’re talking about, including Jeff McCullers, who also has a Ph.D. and recently retired from a 35-year career in public education, 14 as a teacher and the remainder as an administrator.

“I often assume this criticism is offered in bad faith since it’s so hard to believe that anyone could think such a thing,” he responded.

“For those few others who don’t really know how it works, I can assure them that teachers do not get paid for work they do not do. Instead, what’s going on is this: Teachers are not paid to work in the summer because it’s a time-honored way for the Legislature to pay less for schools. We’ve known for generations that taking summers off hurts kids, puts financial pressure on families, and stifles academic achievement — but we still have a summer break because it’s cheaper than paying teachers for a whole year.

“Moreover, paying a teacher for seven or eight hours each day but then assigning them 10 or 12 hours of work is wage theft, and that’s been the normal state of affairs for as long as anyone can remember. However, just because it’s commonplace doesn’t make it right.”

So why in the heck teach in the first place?

“As silly as it sounds, it is a calling, rewarding in ways I can’t put into words,” Virginia Grace Sisk explained to me. She just finished her 18th year teaching social studies and doing five or six other things around it to make ends almost meet.

“This sounds aggrandizing, but the saying is, you die twice. The first time, when you literally die, and the second time, the last time your name is ever mentioned.”

Wouldn’t it be great, she suggests, if you could influence enough lives so your name would never stop being mentioned as a teacher of timeless caring and inspiration?

A teacher who had enough money to live comfortably, too.

By contract, she and her colleagues start at 6:40 a.m. and can finish at 2:20 p.m. each day, “but I don’t leave school most days until 4 p.m., and that’s not enough. You can’t do what the contract calls for in the time it allows. And I have it easier than some because I teach a subject for which I have a really deep knowledge base, and I’ve taught for a while. Good teachers are always trying to reinvent the wheel, and work smarter, not harder.”

In the end, she says, “here’s the silly part of it: I was raised by educators. I was not ignorant of how the world worked and how teachers were treated.”

But she did it, anyway.

And would again. ¦

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