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Welcome to the official website for the Del Mar California Teacher's Association. Here you will have access to the latest information and updates for DMCTA members. If there are questions you have as a DMCTA member about the content of this website, please contact your site representative or the DMCTA Secretary. Thank you.



American Teachers Do More Work for Less   Pay Than Their International Peers

salary.hours

Ever wonder how the hours American teachers work and the salary they earn compares to teachers in other industrialized nations? Well, the picture's not pretty. In this infographic courtesy of the Future Journalism Project, American educators work the most hours of all industrialized nations, but are the fifth lowest paid after 15 years on the job. Only Luxembourg, Hungary, Iceland, and Norway pay their teachers less.

And how do we compare to the country that's number one in the world in education according to international tests, Finland? Teachers there work the fifth fewest hours and are the ninth lowest paid. Sure, no one goes into education for the money, but at a certain point doesn't it seem wrong that teachers pretty much everywhere else on this chart work less but get paid more?

hat tip Alexander Russo


Here is a link to a DMCTA Google Calendar set up by Danielle Roche. It will keep you updated on the latest DMCTA events.

http://www.google.com/calendar/render?gsessionid=kS9utYCc95ElkN9vI5Ub3g#



Here's a question for you... how did Time Banking come to be in the district?...
Why do we have minimum day Wednesdays?

The time banking was a District proposal to create time for inservices and meeting time during the work day.
A team of teachers and District personnel took our existing work day minutes and looked at ways to extend teaching minutes 4 days a week so we could create time in the afternoon on a fifth day to meet or inservice. Our school start time was 8:15 and dismissal was 2:30. We had a 20 minute recess. We had a 45 minute lunch 5 days a week.
So we changed the start time to 8:00 (creating 15 extra teaching minutes each day: 15x5 = 75 minutes
We shortened recess by 5 minutes (creating 5 extra teaching minutes each day: 5x5 = 25 minutes
We shortened Wednesday lunch by 15 minutes (15 extra teaching minutes each week: 15x1 = 15
Wednesday dismissal was to be 12:35. ( Most principals for some reason started dismissing at 12:30, but that is not our problem. The rest of the numbers will reflect the original proposal)

So our pre time bank instructional minutes per week ended up being:
8:15-2:30 (375 minutes per day) minus recess and lunch (65 minutes)
Daily instructional minutes adjusted to 310 minutes (310x5 = 1550 instructional minutes per week)

When we time banked our weekly instructional minutes were:
8:00-2:30 four days per week (390 x 4 = 1560 minutes) minus recess (15 x 4 = 60 min) and lunch (45 x 4 = 180 min) Adjusted instructional minutes 1560-240 = 1320
8:00-12:35 one day per week (275 minutes) minus 15 minutes recess and 30 minutes lunch) Adjusted instructional time 275 - 45 = 230
Time banked instructional minutes per week = 1550

Now comes the tricky part. The kids have time banked their minutes each week putting in extra time, shorter recess and shorter lunch on Wednesdays. Their reward is that they have early dismissal on Wednesdays.

The teachers have put in the same extra minutes, less recess break, fewer minutes at lunch one day a week, earlier start time, etc. Same as the kids. The reward for the teachers is that they get to stay and work more when the kids leave early on Wednesdays. Teachers have put in the same instructional minutes each week as they did pre time banking, but now work more.

At the time of the decision to time bank teachers acknowledged the importance of creating the meeting time and inservice time that the District wanted. Teachers agreed to in essence work extra to make that happen. As a concession we made the District acknowledge that we were working extra and stipulated that we would do so every other week. The District is still getting about 5.5 free hours from teachers each month when we work stay day afternoons. Plus many teachers stay and work extra even on the go Wednesdays. Teachers have been giving extra to the District. It seems that the public sees it as the teachers getting some kind of undeserved free perk if they leave on a go Wednesday, but that is not the case, as the numbers clearly show.

That is it in a nutshell. If they want teachers to stay every Wednesday then we need to get paid for the extra hours every Wednesday. Either that or do away with the current Bell Schedule and revert back to the days before we banked minutes. The consequence would be no time to meet or inservice.



Did you know that Del Mar teachers have "volunteered" over 30,830 hours of additional outside-the-duty- day time so far? This would amount to $1.2 million dollars in "overtime" or "billable hours" in the business world.



There is a Consortium Substitute Freeze due to the overwhelming amount of subs in the system. If you have a student teacher or sub you'd like to request but s/he is not in the system you can let Darlene know and she'll add that person to the system (they need to have a sub permit first).









 


 
Last Modified: Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012
 
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