TEACHERS: Hours badly underestimated

In the Nov. 14 Coeur d’Alene Press a reader’s opinion stated that teachers deserve to be paid well, and then stated that they are paid extremely well for five hours a day and 170 days per year.

Mister Rubert, I don’t know who you are, what you are, what you do and that does not matter. What matters is that you are totally wrong with regard to teachers. They do not work five hours a day and only 170 days a year.

First of all their yearly contracts are for 190 days. Certainly they may teach for five hours and some actually for six hours a day, but before and after teaching, teachers are working and doing some preparation for the day ahead and after classes they also do what is needed to prepare for the next day. In addition they have to correct homework, tests, and the likes.

Actually they usually take some work home such as papers to correct, reading material to prepare lessons for the next classes, and so on. Though I haven’t had the experience of teaching in public schools, I taught at the college and university levels, and did a part-time teaching stint at the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy. After a teaching day was over there always was work to take home, such as correcting papers and preparing for the next classes.

Ask any teacher how many hours he or she actually works in order to teach the assigned classes; you will change your stance real fast! If you add the hours a teacher spends every week and divide these in the salary a teacher gets, you might be surprised.

A little over a decade ago, a teacher did this calculation and the salary per hour was just a little less than $3. Would you work for that amount? I don’t think so! Therefore before you write on the subject of teacher salaries, I suggest you research and ask teachers. Maybe you should go to volunteer in a school for a few weeks and see what teachers are up against!

GENE LeROY

Post Falls