But they hold the higher hand, unless you’re irreplaceable, which, as you must know isn’t the case. If you’re dissatisfied look elsewhere and don’t tell them anything until you have to.
Teaching job, neck on chopping block
- Thread starter Mythos
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But they hold the higher hand, unless you’re irreplaceable, which, as you must know isn’t the case. If you’re dissatisfied look elsewhere and don’t tell them anything until you have to.
Mythos
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I will have to within 5 weeks. That's the end of school and I'm sure they want my contract by that time or they will open the position to interviews. If they don't ask, no need to tell but they will guess what's up as soon as they hear I took a personal day.
TallTom
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Have you ever considered a position at a private school?
Mythos
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@TallTom , I interviewed at two of them before getting this job. One was 30 miles away from here. I'd consider it but I think private school pay is going to be pretty low. I've noticed the positions at the private schools I interviewed at have been open when I have a peek at Wisconsin Educators Access Network at least once at the end of each year. One I interviewed at tried to get me part time. I think they had some volunteer teachers. The administrator was teaching a digital art class. I could feel the moral was real low in that place. The person who showed me around the school pretty much told me they were in financial difficulty. I ended up sort of on a date with a teacher who was hired at that school at the same time I got this job. She told me her pay sucks.
My x sister-in-law is a parochial teacher and she has low pay. None of the parochial schools in Milwaukee called me for an interview and I sent applications to a few three years ago. From a phone pre-interview with one, I had the feeling they were looking for someone who didn't need very much money.
I don't know a lot about private schools but all experiences I've had indicate shoestring budget. Low pay in my profession for a year would be prefferable to getting fired from my profession though.
My x sister-in-law is a parochial teacher and she has low pay. None of the parochial schools in Milwaukee called me for an interview and I sent applications to a few three years ago. From a phone pre-interview with one, I had the feeling they were looking for someone who didn't need very much money.
I don't know a lot about private schools but all experiences I've had indicate shoestring budget. Low pay in my profession for a year would be prefferable to getting fired from my profession though.
TallTom
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Wow. Around here everything about our private schools is better. Amazing how geography can make it so different.
Mythos
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I have an interview back in the community where I grew up. I spoke to the principal there today and he said he would be in touch in the next few days. The cat will be out of the bag here as I haven't missed a day since I started in 2018-19. I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch but they should be able to determine if they want to hire me before they even interview me. I subbed there for three years almost every day before I came here for my current job so they already know me. I think I have a shot at this.
TallTom
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Wishing you the very best of luck!
Mythos
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I'll agree again, that pot was mighty calm before all this happened. Ida probably been happy with a thousand dollars a year pay increase for at least one more year if all this crap hadn't gone down.
The issue is more, if I'm valued. Anyone who isn't valued is replaceable or in some cases, they're just dispensable. My experience and ability as an artist who can teach what I do would be damn near impossible to replace anywhere let alone a village of 250 people. Quite sincerely, a K-12 art teacher with my abilities as an artist is unheard of and my classmates in college all noticed that. Does anyone else care? For most high school art ed jobs, employers might be looking for a lot of things other than the teacher's art skills but now I have some of those other things too. I may be replaceable but I'm also a lot more attractive as a hire than I was 4 years ago when I got this job. Not only that, I'd go somewhere else to work for less money if it was a good place to live. People don't want to come here to teach. That's one reason the powers that be should value anyone they can get if they can work with that person. A surprise improvement program isn't the way to do that. I don't believe they understand. They are not teachers. They're a school board, all of whom are fairly affluent in this tiny, godforsaken place where only affluent people enjoy a good way of life. I don't believe they understand that a basically good person with an average income who is simply willing to stay here is very valuable to the school.
A busy half of the summer and now halfway through the current year, I've come to a decision: time for somebody to shite or get off the pot and it's going to be me.
I’m planning to write my letter of resignation this weekend. Of course I intend to finish the school year but if I don’t find a new job by summer, I want to have that time to keep looking.
As for the improvement plan, I haven’t heard a peep from my supervisors. I’ve done my best to do everything I planned to do according to the general outline that was provided to me. To tell you the truth, I set up more for myself in the classroom management department than I can really handle at this point but I don’t see that there was much of a problem in that area in the first place. I have ALL of my lessons scheduled and I have more planned than the students can handle. The lesson planning has been a big help to me this year. I also dove into Adobe Creative Suite and have learned a lot about new softwares and I'm teaching it. The lesson planning and software would have been my priorities without even having the improvement plan so I guess all I had to do was to do what I normally would have chosen to do as a part of my natural development as a teacher. It helped to have a fire lit under my butt because I had a lot done in advance of the year starting so now, I am able to focus on teaching.
I will hand deliver my letter of resignation to my superintendent on Monday as well as send it by certified mail. There will be a school board meeting on Monday night. I assume my resignation will be important enough to put on the agenda at the last moment. If they want to keep me along with all of the experience I’ve gained through working for them, they will have to ask me to negotiate. I’ve decided to resign instead of ask them to negotiate incase their answer might be, “we were not planning to renew your contract anyway.” If I resign first, I beat them to the punch and they have a whole semester to decide if they want to ask me to stay… while I’m looking for a new job, that is.
I expect they will accept my resignation. If they don’t, I’m asking for a 20% increase in pay. The increase would actually be about 15% of the salary I would have had had I not been denied the standard pay increase of $1000 for the current year. Any information about an improvement plan will need to be expunged from my cum folder as well and I will need to have a letter stating that the improvement plan was a complete error. It sounds fair to me, my value has increased and I must also protect myself against the possibility of ever having my less than COLA increase be denied again. I’m ready to move on. If the job isn’t good here, there's no reason to stay and that has been born out for decades by the number of students who have left never to return.
They’ve ensured that I’m a more valuable employee. It’s time for them to pay or I'll walk. They put me in this position. If I ever have a contract not renewed for reasons other than my program being eliminated, I must report that on all future job applications. I will do my best to approach everything in the most positive light possible from now until the end of the year. That’s one reason I decided not to ask to negotiate next year’s contract before resigning. If they want to ask about negotiation, they can do that themselves. If they don’t, it avoids a big sore point.
Thoughts?
A little contradiction here, you say you won’t be negotiating a new contract before resigning (but) you also say that if they don’t accept your resignation you’ll be asking for a raise. That’s a negotiation. BTW, they can’t actually (not) accept your resignation. If you quit you quit. IMO you’d benefit more by negotiating first, w/o any threat to resign. Your request can be quite forceful w/o sounding demanding. If they comply you’ve got a got with a pay raise. If they don’t they’ll lose you and the value you’ve brought to the position.
pcs
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threatening to quit if you don’t get a raise is an ultimatum. id leave that out of the conversation. if you don’t
get your raise, you can start looking elsewhere before your shut the door at your current job. some school administrators in high up positions know a lot of other administrators from other schools, don’t want to get caught up with the “good ole boys” making it hard to into a different school. pick and choose your battles. the “attack” they dont see coming can be the most effective.
get your raise, you can start looking elsewhere before your shut the door at your current job. some school administrators in high up positions know a lot of other administrators from other schools, don’t want to get caught up with the “good ole boys” making it hard to into a different school. pick and choose your battles. the “attack” they dont see coming can be the most effective.
TallTom
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I think you should consider using your skills and get into NFT creation. It's astonishing what is going on in that space. Kids making millions creating and selling them.
My current read of the job market (a retiree's read of it) is that employers everywhere are clamoring for skilled workers. You're skilled, right? 60 mins just did a segment on what's been coined the 'great resignation', a wholesale quitting that has rippled through all sectors and, in turn, making it a worker's market at the moment.
Thus, my disconnect re your situation. You'd think they'd do anything to keep a known value quantity, else you're hot property in a hot market, no?
The Bright Side: A new job might mean a new commute. Better buy another Busa while you still have the old job - for commuting purposes, of course
Thus, my disconnect re your situation. You'd think they'd do anything to keep a known value quantity, else you're hot property in a hot market, no?
The Bright Side: A new job might mean a new commute. Better buy another Busa while you still have the old job - for commuting purposes, of course
Mythos
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It might sound like a contradiction but it's really a carefully laid plan. I'm willing to negotiate but it would be best if they asked me to do so rather than me ask them. If I ask them, they can say "you're fired." If I quit as of next school year, they can do the negotiation asking but they can't fire me. If they did fire me, at least I quit first!
Yeah, I know they can't not accept a resignation but they normally do officially accept the resignation and report it in the school board meeting minutes in which case, I'd know there would be no negotiation. I quit and they said "ok." I'm still wondering if I should attend the school board meeting on Monday.
I was initially planning to attempt to negotiate next years contract. Then it hit me, they might say they were not planning to renew my contract next year. Thus, I will beat them to it if that should be the case. I'll tell the superintendent that I'm willing to negotiate. There's going to be a letter of resignation to back it up though.
That's why I'm quitting first. It's up to them if they want to keep me. Other than the students I've gotten to know here, this place is a crappy place to teach. Good place to get some experience but as my own children say, "it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there." and they are 100% correct.
I didn't even know what an NFT was! I have thought about getting back into being a professional artist again. That could happen with all that I'm learning in the past few months. If teaching in general is what I have found it to be here, I'd go back to being an illustrator. Years back, teaching seemed like a very stable job but that's not what I have seen where I am.
Actually, I entertained the thought of a new bike if I get my raise!The Bright Side: A new job might mean a new commute. Better buy another Busa while you still have the old job - for commuting purposes, of course
My friend's wife dropped us off to pick up his new Kenworth T800(company's truck) last night, about 30 minutes to his house(been a few years since I went for a ride, about 7 since I drove local).
It's fully automatic like a car(older automatic tractors you still had to clutch into drive and reverse), fridge, microwave, lots of space and storage, awesome sound system, Big bed, he put in his new 32" smart tv, whisper quiet inside with a smooth ride, all disc brakes, automatic cruise control, phone plays through speakers, everything a modern luxury vehicle has, home weekends, a couple times during the week, no-touch freight, and all electronic logs, and makes around $90k a year.
I really like my job, and couldn't give up seeing my daughter ....but it really made me miss truck driving.
I'm 44, and a ways from retirement, and who knows the state of the world in a year, let alone a decade.
But, I really think if things are anything then like they are now, when my girl goes off to college or the military, or out on her own, I think I'm going to go back and drive for a few years, stack money and retire early.
Pros and cons to everything, It's all in what you like, good and bad companies and schedules, but it can be some of the easiest money you'll ever make.
It's fully automatic like a car(older automatic tractors you still had to clutch into drive and reverse), fridge, microwave, lots of space and storage, awesome sound system, Big bed, he put in his new 32" smart tv, whisper quiet inside with a smooth ride, all disc brakes, automatic cruise control, phone plays through speakers, everything a modern luxury vehicle has, home weekends, a couple times during the week, no-touch freight, and all electronic logs, and makes around $90k a year.
I really like my job, and couldn't give up seeing my daughter ....but it really made me miss truck driving.
I'm 44, and a ways from retirement, and who knows the state of the world in a year, let alone a decade.
But, I really think if things are anything then like they are now, when my girl goes off to college or the military, or out on her own, I think I'm going to go back and drive for a few years, stack money and retire early.
Pros and cons to everything, It's all in what you like, good and bad companies and schedules, but it can be some of the easiest money you'll ever make.
Mythos
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That thought crossed my mind too @sixpack577 but life mostly on the road would be quite an adjustment. I could adapt but what would really be tough would be the unpredictable access to gym equipment. I have all my own now and as we have discussed in the past, the truck driver alternative would be a set of dumbbells.
I've had Bowflex 10/90 lbs Dumbells for nearly 7 years now(along with basically a full gym in my basement), and they are still excellent.
They would go with me if I ever went back over the road, as there is Plenty of room in the truck to work out.
I'de use the rest when I was home.
Mythos
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Just talked to a truck driver buddy and he said you might make 90 grand if you had many years of experience and you were able to get hired to one of the better companies. He's been driving for 10 years and he makes 65 to 70. That's a lot more than I make teaching but it's only been 4 years. My neighbor's son makes 90 and he's a truck driver. I guess I'd have to have a company lay the deal out in front of me. Otherwise, I might be better to shoot for being a principal or a superintendent someday. They make 6 figures even in a one horse town like the one I live in.
It all depends on the company, and what schedule you want.
First year drivers make $40k to $70k
If you want local, home daily, 2 years experience is pretty standard because of Insurance companies.
My parents neighbor has been driving since '87, been with Walmart about 10 years now, makes over $100k
Mythos
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@sixpack577 it can't hurt to look into it. Like I said, if a company lays a deal out in front of me that I can't pass up, I'd take it. I had some experience already driving dump trucks and cement trucks way back in high school. I drove a semi with a dump box. It's something.
If you were really interested, you'de only have 2 real choices.
Go to a cdlA Driving School on weekends, or for a month/4 weeks over your summer break, then pick from countless driving jobs.
Or
Pick from many companies that say "show up"
They pay for your training, then you agree to drive for them for one year, or pay them back if you leave before.
Either way, after you get your cdlA, you'll usually have to ride with a company driver trainer for 4-8 weeks before getting your own truck and schedule.
From there, 6 months to 2 years max opens up more opportunities with better companies, meaning better trucks, schedules, and higher pay.
I started out paying to get my cdlA over 4 weeks, then went to TMC, flat-bedding.
One of the best companies out there, great trucks, home every weekend if you want it, and $60k+ your first year, and being paid a percentage of your load vs mileage pay. I drove 1200-1500 miles a week and made more than most companies paid driving double the miles.
The kicker is that flat-bedding IS Hard Work. Strapping loads, and if they need covered, that's walking on top of the load with 2, 80 lb tarps.
Gotta pay your dues somewhere.
My friend I talk about above started out at TMC a few years after I did too.
Made his money, got his time, stayed in shape from flatbedding, and now just drives and makes big money for it.
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