Letter: Teachers work hard more than 180 days a year

Thursday, May 20, 2004 | 8:36 a.m.

Last week the Clark County School District gave a 15 percent pay increase to the school district police. They now have a starting pay of more than $36,000, with a top-out of about $66,000. The educational requirement is a high school diploma or equivalent GED.

But the starting pay for a teacher with a four-year degree is less than $28,000, with a maximum pay of $56,000. Teachers received a 2 percent increase for the past two school years and this seems to be OK with the community, the politicians and the school district. The usual comment is that "teachers only work 180 days each year."

Let me set the record straight.

We have a 184-day contract, which does not include the time spent after school and on weekends grading papers, keeping a mandatory grade book, calling parents and researching to write educationally and age-appropriate lesson plans. This personal time, which can be as little as 10 hours and as much as 40 hours a week, is spent at home on school-related activities without pay. When you add the time spent, without overtime or any extra incentives, our year comes to well over the number of days worked by every major profession in the United States.

So next time anyone wants to make an excuse for not giving raises to the more than 15,000 dedicated teachers, they should just say so without leading the community to believe the 180-day-a-year myth.

ROBERT ZAMBON