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I have reread most of the posts, and I see alot of comparing of different areas. That approach will not work if you do not compare the cost of living for the areas. At $50000 a teacher in the KC metro will make a far better living than one in NYC or LA. Monster.com has a calculator that works well in this regard. Without this info it is pointless to keep comparing salaries from different geogrphical locations.
ie: Compare DSM Iowa to KCMO
cost of living is 12.2% lower in DSM therefore to maintain the same standard of living $50000 in KCMO only needs to be $43887 in DSM.
$50000 IN KCMO needs to be $51654 in Pheonix cost of living +3.3%
I think most of us are aware of different areas and cost of living.
I can tell you what I made in LA compared to what I will make here in Charlotte, NC. In LA I was at 73K on the salary scale and here I am at 49K. Here I will also get fewer benefits, so it is really more like 45K.
Housing in NC is less, but I am finding a lot of things to be very similar in price (groceries are a big one, I can't believe the prices here!)
Anyway, it is neither here nor there at this point......I think most of us would say we are not paid what we think we are worth, but I think very few CAN say, "Oh, yeah, I make plenty!"
It is ok. I am happy doing what I do and I am glad to be a teacher and a school counselor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crashcop
I have reread most of the posts, and I see alot of comparing of different areas. That approach will not work if you do not compare the cost of living for the areas. At $50000 a teacher in the KC metro will make a far better living than one in NYC or LA. Monster.com has a calculator that works well in this regard. Without this info it is pointless to keep comparing salaries from different geogrphical locations.
ie: Compare DSM Iowa to KCMO
cost of living is 12.2% lower in DSM therefore to maintain the same standard of living $50000 in KCMO only needs to be $43887 in DSM.
$50000 IN KCMO needs to be $51654 in Pheonix cost of living +3.3%
I do not get any "planning" time in my job, rarely have in any nursing job I've had. All the planning in my present job gets done on the fly. That goes for the doctors, too. Ever wonder why your doctor/nurse acts like he/she is in such a hurry? It's because s/he is in a hurry! My DH works in IT, and he doesn't, as far as I can tell, get anything like that either, at least not on a regular basis.
I cannot understand how you can be paid $31000/yr, yet if you worked in IT at your level of experience could make $75000. That just does not make sense. The starting salary for a teacher with a BA and no experience in my district is roughly $32000. The starting salary in IT around here for a BS and no experience is approximately $50-60K. This information is from my DH who is in the field, not just looking at classifieds. It's not clear where you live, or how much experience you have, but $31K seems low for an experienced teacher. Keep in mind, too, that IT, more than a lot of other fields, has a 'boom and bust' mentality and layoffs with periods of no income. In teaching, once a person is tenured, it's rare to be laid off.
It's too bad you are forced to take off a week in the spring and two weeks at Christmas. I get usually two days off at Christmas, one for New Year's and none in the spring unless I take it from my vacation pay. Likewise, it is a shame you 'must' take off days like Veteran's Day, the day before Thanksgiving, and Martin Luther King Day. These are paid holidays in my district, not 'professional development days' of which I get none in my present job and never got more that 2 or 3 in any job I have ever had in nursing. My husband seems to get a few random days every few years. When I 'choose' my vacation time, being granted the time is dependent on whether there is sufficient staff avaiable to fill in. I barely got time off to attend my daughter's college graduation!
Would I ever like to have some time off to just reflect on my job, like you do in the summer. Our office is open 52 weeks/yr, pretty much 5 days/wk except for New Year's Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, two days at Thanksgiving, and two at Christmas. Some days I work until 7:00 PM, (starting at 8 AM), when there are a lot of sick kids to be seen. Teachers' working conditions are not that bad, and there are a lot of jobs with worse.
What exactly do you need to plan? Do you need to have lesson plans each patient you see? Do you need to get papers corrected/tests worked up/corrected for your patients? No. Why do you "need" a planning period? There are also plenty of days in a hospital where your patient population is low and you don't have much to do, you never get that in a school. Also, when you go home, you are done with your job, you work your 7-3 shift and go home. For a teacher they work from 6:30-4:00 in our district then go home and finish correcting papers, grading tests, etc. If you do the math, they are working MORE hours then someone who works 40 hours/week, 52 weeks a year.
As for pay in different areas, you can't compare the salaries in one area vs another. The school pay scale may be low because the budget for that school is low. The teacher pay scale vs the pay scale of the IT workers means nothing. In our old town a starting teacher starting in the low $20K's and topped out in the low $40K range, meaning that is the MOST they could ever make. The IT people at the local businesses STARTED, fresh out of college, no experience at $50K, why, small town, needed to attract IT people.
What exactly do you need to plan? Do you need to have lesson plans each patient you see? Do you need to get papers corrected/tests worked up/corrected for your patients? No. Why do you "need" a planning period? There are also plenty of days in a hospital where your patient population is low and you don't have much to do, you never get that in a school. Also, when you go home, you are done with your job, you work your 7-3 shift and go home. For a teacher they work from 6:30-4:00 in our district then go home and finish correcting papers, grading tests, etc. If you do the math, they are working MORE hours then someone who works 40 hours/week, 52 weeks a year.
As for pay in different areas, you can't compare the salaries in one area vs another. The school pay scale may be low because the budget for that school is low. The teacher pay scale vs the pay scale of the IT workers means nothing. In our old town a starting teacher starting in the low $20K's and topped out in the low $40K range, meaning that is the MOST they could ever make. The IT people at the local businesses STARTED, fresh out of college, no experience at $50K, why, small town, needed to attract IT people.
I do not work in a hospital; I work in a doctors' office. We have our 'slow' days, but they are still busy enough. We work until all the patients are seen for the day; anyone who calls in by 4:30 who needs an appointment gets one. It is exceeding rare to get out before 5 PM. As for "plenty" of days in a hospital with a low census: in your dreams! Maybe occasionally in obstetrics (no one is in labor that day) or ICU (no one is having heart attacks), but otherwise, it's rare. You show a vast ignorance of nursing if you think all we are doing is emptying bedpans and making beds and don't do anything requiring any thought. A couple days a week I answer the phones, that is, take calls from people who call in with problems. It would be nice to have some time to research some of these calls instead of having to do it all on the fly. Do we ever have to get tests worked up for our patients - YES! We are constantly calling the labs, X-ray, other offices for information, looking up information on drugs patients are taking: is it compatible with breast-feeding, etc. Actually, it would be nice to have some time just to get away from patients for a while, and do paperwork. Do you ever wonder why it takes a week for your doctor to sign a form, or your doctor's office to print out an immunization record? We are supposed to fit that in between patients. That's why.
I was responding to a post about IT salaries. I know it's nonsense to compare salaries in different fields. In our district, a starting teacher's salary is 32637 for a Batchelors' degree and no experience; it goes to 80385 for a PhD and 27 yrs experience. My husband has a PhD and similar experience; his salary in IT is not that much higher and he works 12 months a year.
I do not work in a hospital; I work in a doctors' office. We have our 'slow' days, but they are still busy enough. We work until all the patients are seen for the day; anyone who calls in by 4:30 who needs an appointment gets one. It is exceeding rare to get out before 5 PM. As for "plenty" of days in a hospital with a low census: in your dreams! Maybe occasionally in obstetrics (no one is in labor that day) or ICU (no one is having heart attacks), but otherwise, it's rare. You show a vast ignorance of nursing if you think all we are doing is emptying bedpans and making beds and don't do anything requiring any thought. A couple days a week I answer the phones, that is, take calls from people who call in with problems. It would be nice to have some time to research some of these calls instead of having to do it all on the fly. Do we ever have to get tests worked up for our patients - YES! We are constantly calling the labs, X-ray, other offices for information, looking up information on drugs patients are taking: is it compatible with breast-feeding, etc. Actually, it would be nice to have some time just to get away from patients for a while, and do paperwork. Do you ever wonder why it takes a week for your doctor to sign a form, or your doctor's office to print out an immunization record? We are supposed to fit that in between patients. That's why.
I was responding to a post about IT salaries. I know it's nonsense to compare salaries in different fields. In our district, a starting teacher's salary is 32637 for a Batchelors' degree and no experience; it goes to 80385 for a PhD and 27 yrs experience. My husband has a PhD and similar experience; his salary in IT is not that much higher and he works 12 months a year.
Actually, my mom was an ICU nurse so I have a vast experience with nursing. I also spent many years as a volunteer in a hospital and I know exactly what nurses do. I think that that it is you that is ignorant when it comes to the duties involved in teaching. Again, most teachers put in a 10-12 hour day and 188 student contact days (in our district) that is 2,068 hours/year. Add in the 3 weeks or so of required time without students there at an 8 hour day that is an additional 192 hours/year. At a 40 hour work week for 52 weeks/year that is 2,080 hours. Now, given that most people have at least 2 weeks vacation/year that is 2,000 hours/year. So, teachers work their 12 months in 10 months, what is the difference. They certainly don't get paid overtime, holiday pay, etc.
You can't know exactly what nurses do if you think we need no time to plan. Anything.
You may have heard your mom talk about low census days, but times have changed, greatly, since I started nursing in 1970. There certainly aren't "plenty" of them. It's so hard to get in to a hospital that the acuity level is very high and most of the patients are very sick. Also, when census does go down, staff are "floated" to other areas that need help. And the staffing is usually planned to meet the bare minimum anyway.
It would be nice to have planning time to have meetings, the type of stuff the OP mentioned about planning periods. We have to do that at lunch or after hours.
The holiday pay issue has been covered before. If you get paid the same amount for working a shorter week, you are getting holiday pay. You are getting paid for a day you do not work. No one that I know of gets any extra pay for holidays, unless you actually work one and get some premium pay, say 1 1/2 times your regular rate. When I worked in the hospital, they usually figured out some way around that. Part timers didn't get assigned holidays, even if they wanted them (except for Christmas and/or New Year's b/c it was a hospital requirement), because it cost the hospital more. They (we) usually got assigned the days the full time staff got off for working the holidays.
The teachers in this district get paid comp time for conference time and probably other things as well. They are getting the first two days of Thanksgiving week off due to conference comp time, also some other days. Apparently this applies also to the teachers who aren't there at conference, sometimes due to coaching duties, sometimes due to who knows what? Comp time is a form of overtime pay.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 06-30-2007 at 09:34 AM..
Reason: addition
You can't know exactly what nurses do if you think we need no time to plan. Anything.
You may have heard your mom talk about low census days, but times have changed, greatly, since I started nursing in 1970. There certainly aren't "plenty" of them. It's so hard to get in to a hospital that the acuity level is very high and most of the patients are very sick. Also, when census does go down, staff are "floated" to other areas that need help. And the staffing is usually planned to meet the bare minimum anyway.
It would be nice to have planning time to have meetings, the type of stuff the OP mentioned about planning periods. We have to do that at lunch or after hours.
The holiday pay issue has been covered before. If you get paid the same amount for working a shorter week, you are getting holiday pay. You are getting paid for a day you do not work. No one that I know of gets any extra pay for holidays, unless you actually work one and get some premium pay, say 1 1/2 times your regular rate. When I worked in the hospital, they usually figured out some way around that. Part timers didn't get assigned holidays, even if they wanted them (except for Christmas and/or New Year's b/c it was a hospital requirement), because it cost the hospital more. They (we) usually got assigned the days the full time staff got off for working the holidays.
The teachers in this district get paid comp time for conference time and probably other things as well. They are getting the first two days of Thanksgiving week off due to conference comp time, also some other days. Apparently this applies also to the teachers who aren't there at conference, sometimes due to coaching duties, sometimes due to who knows what? Comp time is a form of overtime pay.
Again, it is different every where you work but teachers here do not get comp time for anything. They are NOT paid for holidays, etc. they are paid for their required days to be in school, that is it. They have the option of stretching that pay check through out the 12 months if they like but it doesn't mean they are getting holiday pay. The teachers in our district get 2 personal days and one sick day--that it IT. Those are the ONLY paid 'vacation' days they get.
When my mom was still working she got double time and a half for working ANY holiday. If she worked a double shift she got paid time and a half for the second shift. Most of the nurses around her work 4 day work weeks too. One friend works straight nights, 11-7's and works 36 hours/week but gets paid for 40 hours for working straight nights. She works one Saturday/month and every third holiday, for which she gets paid double time and a half.
Again, look at the hours worked and even though a teacher is only 'in school' for 10 months, they are still working a full 52 week schedule in hours, and then some.
As for the planning time, you still don't need that time as a nurse. You don't have to plan out 4-6 classes each day. Teachers have to take phone calls, have meetings with colleagues, parents, administrators, students, fill our forms, etc. all during that 'free hour" too. Conferences usually take place after school hours (individual meetings with parents, not the district wide conferences). Then they have their IEP meetings, etc. that they have to attend per federal law, yet they don't get paid for that either. All this takes place 'after hours'.
Golfgirl....let's just stop it. I haven't posted for days. I have said what I wanted to say. Obviously some people are still going to be ignorant and angry...and disbelieving of whatever is said about the teaching occupation. It doesn't matter what they THINK (opinion, and we all know about them), it matters about what WE KNOW...being in it.
It has gotten petty, especially for the same poster to continously post negatives and comparisons about teaching, yet not be a teacher. Some people have blinders on.
This whole thread has gotten petty. It's gotten worse in seventeen pages, so this one's closed.
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