As a former Minneapolis teacher, I was perplexed by information regarding teacher salaries and duty days as related in a recent post by Vicky Heller and am concerned that this misinformation may become widespread. According to the latest Minneapolis contract (which is now "frozen"-- so no increases), the top salary is $72,468 for a teacher with 30 years experience and a PhD or National Board of Teaching Certification. Unless the teacher who started at 43 is now 73 and still teaching, it's hard to see how he/she could be making that salary. Also,there are 171 student instructional days/year, not 160. Teachers have at least 15 additional duty days (conferences, record-keeping, staff development) and usually put in many more that are not required by contract. The five "teaching" hours might be basic student contact instructional time, but teachers have much more student contact time throughout the day (which is longer than 5 hours) supervising halls, lunchrooms, providing additional one-on-one tutoring, etc. (You might be interested to know that teachers in Japan have only 4 student contact hours per day in order to have more time to meet with colleagues to plan lessons,etc.) The 55 minute prep time guaranteed by contract is used for planning, conferencing with parents, materials preparation, and a host of other things. The hour before the students arrive and after they leave is also used for these purposes as well as for faculty meetings, committee meetings, and staff development. Most teachers do not find this enough time to correct student work and plan effectively, so they often either stay beyond the official end of the day or take work home. It is definitely not an easy part-time job, as the recent diary excerpts of a young teacher published in the StarTribune made clear.
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