Thank You Letter

There are officially two weeks left of the school year.  I did receive word that I’ll be doing summer school (don’t know if I’ve mentioned that yet) but my time at this school is officially coming to a close.  Seniors started their finals yesterday and underclass finals start next Thursday.  And, in the meantime, I’ve given up fighting with students to listen.  Some classes are sitting quietly and listening to the review I’m giving them.  Others are ignoring me.  And in those cases I’m just giving them problems to work on and ignoring them mostly.  It works for everybody!  They aren’t being malicious, just ready to finish.  Me too!

Now for two letters.  The first is a petition signed by my entire 3rd period class.  It reads thusly:

“Dear Mr. ________!!  This petition is in regards to that disturbing test we took two classes ago, in which the results seemed to have ripped out the hearts of most students in this classroom!!!  Because we haven’t been provided with the option of extra credit this quarter, we are asking you to give us the opportunity of doing TEST CORRECTIONS!!!!  If you compromise with us we will respond by crowning you the ultimate coolest, most awesome teacher in the universe!!  It’s a real good offer _____ (they use my first name) : ) pwetttty plz!!!!! : )”

It was then signed by the entire class.

My response is that, of course, I’m already the ultimate coolest, most awesome teacher, so no test corrections.

Then there’s a letter from a student entitled “What I would write in your yearbook”

“Thank you for putting up with us, Mr. _____.  Through all the adoption papers, legal documents, blogs, petitions and awkward jokes after school – well, I’m surprised you haven’t involved the authorities.  I hope you enjoy the Grand Finale.  If you ever forget about us, I will be severely disappointed.  You were the first teacher we ever showed our extreme weirdness to.  I’m glad you never ran away screaming – especially after the “take it like a man” comment I made…and the mother’s day gift…and the family album.  [This school] is the most moronic school in the universe for letting you go.  I feel so sorry for those stupid sophomores.  We will miss you so much!  Please don’t be surprised when we harass you on facebook and don’t forget to feed the family vampire.  Also search “rabbid [sic] grannies” on youtube.  It’s amazing.  PS I’m mad at you for saying unicorns aren’t real.”

I told them unicorns weren’t real.  To which they replied, “of course they are.  Voldemort killed one to stay alive.”

Of course.

Teacher Pay Scale Explained!!

In the past I’ve written about teacher pay.  I’ll explain it further because it seems to be the number one search topic that comes to my blog.  For most places in the country, teachers get paid based on two criteria.  First is the amount of education that person has and second is the number of years the person has been teaching.   For example, say you wanted to teach in New Orleans:

Yrs Exp	Bachelor’s	Master’s	Master’s + 30	Specialist in Ed	Ph.D or Ed.D
0	38794	39594	40394	41194	41994
1	39394	40194	40994	41794	42594
2	39994	40794	41594	42394	42594
3	40594	41394	42194	42994	43794
4	41194	41994	42794	43594	44394

You’d have a scale like this.  Sometimes the “years of experience” are called “steps.”  Different school districts have different levels for the education level.  In New Orleans, you can get extra money for being an education specialist.  That’s nice…cause I think I’m one (no really, I have a master’s degree in curriculum development), but that’s not standard.  Most years the entire pay scale will increase for cost of living (COLA) increases.  If you are particularly desirable and you live in an area with many small school districts, you may be able to start at a higher step than you normally would.  This is equivalent to negotiating a higher starting salary at any other job.

Next year my school system will not be giving step increases or COLA increases.  We will not get compensated for our extra year of teaching experience.  Because of this, I decided to apply for online summer school!  It’s a pretty big pay raise (I need it) with a small amount of increased summer work (I don’t particularly need that).

Questions?