Easy enough.

Wednesday was pretty fast today. Kids were great.  They worked hard and were pretty funny along the way.

Got to work at 7:15.  Left at 4:30.

Hours Worked today 9.25 hours
Total hours worked this year: 134.75
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $332.34 per hour 

The amount of difference a day's work makes in the salary per hour is definitely dwindling.  :)  I'm still making a ton of money per hour according to this, but, sadly, it is only the 6th day of school this year. Yikes.

Tomorrow is Wednesday...the longest day of the week.

Got to school at 7:15.  left at 4:00.

Because I'm not squashed under piles of grading right now I've actually been enjoying my evenings of late. I'm soooooo bummed that this won't last forever. Boo.

Hours Worked today 8.75 hours
Total hours worked this year: 125.50
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $356.84 per hour

Students are still doing awesomely well, especially considering that we're really working hard and it's only been five days.  I'm a firm believer that making kids WORK in your room translates to goo things. :) Yay!

Monday, Monday.

Got to school at 7:10.  Left at 3:40. 8.5 hours.  Tonight I'm doing half an hour's worth of lesson planning, etc. Total of 9 hours.

I'm beat.
Hours Worked today 9 hours
Total hours worked this year: 116.75
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $383.58 per hour

First full week this week. I'm already READY for the long weekend. *Sigh*

Sundays at school.

First Sunday of the new year means I don't have a lot of grading to do, but I have a lot of prep to do. 

I got to school at 11:00am and will be leaving at 2:00 pm.  The departure time is a half hour from now and I have about three things left to do so that will be pretty close to the actual time I walk out the door. 

Additionally, last night I worked an extra 30 minutes on some testing scores that I didn't account for in last night's tally.

Hours Worked today 3.5 hours
Total hours worked this year: 107.75
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $415.62 per hour

Okay, week: Bring it on.

Saturday Night's Alright for Planning Lessons...

That's not exactly how Elton's song goes. Oh, well.

I started a little lesson planning at 8:30 this evening and am finishing up (more like giving up) at 10:30. I'll be at work for hours tomorrow. No sense in staying up any later to work tonight.


Hours Worked today 2 hours
Total hours worked this year: 104.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $429.58 per hour


Weekends are generally the days that make me the most upset that I can't relax and just live the hours. I'm hopeful that this year I will be able to work a little later M-Thurs so that the next week's plans will be done ahead of time.  The grading will always be a thundercloud over my head, but if the planning is finished, my stress levels are mostly calm. 

I've only TAUGHT for three days so far this year. I've already worked quite a lot considering that fact. In fact, according to my contract, I've only been working for NINE days, which means, considering the hours I've put in so far, I have averaged over 11 hours per work day so far this year.  (Remember, too, that I haven't counted upwards of 15 hours of time I've been working with student mentors.) It adds up quickly.

FRIDAY!

Got to work at 7:15. Left promptly at 3:15. No work after school on Fridays!!!

Hours Worked today 8 hours
Total hours worked this year: 102.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $437.98 per hour 

We'll see how much I work over the weekend....

Day Two...

I'm about to head out of the building. A full hour earlier than I did yesterday. Woot woot! :) That's always exciting.  Students were still pretty good even though today was kind of a boring day in some respects. We did our class mission statement and I tried to establish a bit of relevancy for the Language Arts curriculum.

I got to school at 7:30.  I'm leaving at 4:00.  It is so nice to not have anything to grade yet...*sigh* That's all going to change very soon though. :( If only the work didn't have to come home with me.

Hours Worked today 8.5 hours
Total hours worked this year: 94.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $475.16 per hour 

The First Day.

Met 120 new kiddos today.  It was pretty smooth.  I only have one class that might be a little rough because they just LOOOOVE to chat. I'd say I know well over half of the kids by name, too. Yeah!

If I end up working more tonight I will update this again, but, as of now I got to work at 7:00am and I am leaving now. It is 5:00pm. I just finished my lesosn plan and got all my materials gathered. My hope is that tomorrow will be easier since I spent my lunch supervising not eating and half of my planning helping open lockers, etc. I know that's part of my job and I do it willingly, but those types of things are why I'm still here at 5:00. :)

Hours Worked today 10 hours
Total hours worked this year: 85.75
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $522.26 per hour   

Last Day of Summer...

Got to school at 6am, but that was for my student mentor program so I won't count those first two hours.

8-5 working....    8 hours
5-6:30 Dinner
6:30-8:30 Working  2 hours
8:30-9 Travel home
9-10:30 Working   1.5 hours

Hours Worked today 11.5 hours
Total hours worked this year: 75.75
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $591.20 per hour  

I am writing this the day AFTER that LOOOONG day.  We shall see how the first day unfolds. :)

The last Monday with no students...

Got to work at 8:00.  Left at 11:45. =3.75 hours (Ate lunch the break here, AND did a school errand)
Returned at 12:30. Left at 2:30. =2.0 hours
Returned again at 7:30. Left at 9:30. =2.0 hours.

Considering that today is less than 36 hours away from THE BIG DAY, I was NOT at school for very long. I would have stayed longer, but I am arriving at school at 6:00 in the morning for a big orientation event in the morning. I will be there for A. LONG. TIME. TOMORROW.

Totals for today: 7.75 hours
Total hours worked this year: 64.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $697.02 per hour 

A weekend of work...

School is only two full days off now.  Yikes.

I didn't work at all on Saturday since I was throwing a party. Today, I went to work at 1:00 and left around 4:15.   Once home I ate and chilled out a little.  Then I read/planned/brainstormed for 3 hours.

Today I worked 6.25 hours
Total hours worked this year: 56.50
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $792.63 per hour 

Tomorrow is going to be a FULL day...I'm a bit nervous about some of the new stuff I've been pondering. Not sure what will work and what won't.  It's never easy in the first few weeks.

8.18 & 8.19...Two days to catch up on.

Yesterday. At work 8am-4:15pm. 8.25 hours at work plus an hour of at home reading/planning. 9.25 hours.

Today. At work 8am-2:30. 6.5 hours.

15.75 more hours since Wednesday's post.

Total hours worked this year: 50.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $891.22 per hour  

Tomorrow I am hosting a work party and because of that definitely won't be AT the school.  I will, however, have some time to sit down and choose some texts to read this year and (I HOPE) get them ordered! :)

Peace!

I'm tired already.

Hello!

Today was a work day with trainings and small group, department stuff. I worked at a school district building/location from 8-4. 8 hours.  Once I'm finished with this short blog post I will read/plan/get inspired by work ideas for 1.25 hours ONLY.  Got to turn the computer off and close the books by 11:00. 

Right now I'm so interested/concerned with ideas/planning because I'm trying to revamp my Advanced class's curriculum.  They need to work with more complex texts from the very beginning, I think, so I want the year to start off with a rough plan of what we will cover.  I am hopeful that I can skip some things entirely and move quickly through others that normally I spend a week or even two on. We shall see...

Hours worked today: 9.25
Total hours worked this year: 34.50
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $1,298.08 per hour  

A week from now...

One week from now I will be trying to sleep. It'll be the night before school starts. Yikes.

The last two days have been busy at school, but because most of the work was with a student group that I get a small additional stipend for, I'm not counting those hours. (I want to point out though that I worked 11 HOURS yesterday on that group. Yeah.)

Outside of that, however, yesterday I read for an hour and a half at the end of the day.  After our training today, I worked at school from 3:45-6:00 and then this evening I've been reading/planning for an hour and fifteen minutes. That's five hours over the last two days.

Today was the first true, required back to work day for teachers and tomorrow marks the beginning of Professional Development and school meetings, etc. The long days have begun.

Hours worked today: 5
Total hours worked this year: 25.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $1,773.62 per hour 

Productive Day.

I was at work finishing up the "stuff on  my walls" from 1:00-6:00.  All that's left to do in terms of the room is to decide how to squeeze all the kiddos into the space so that they aren't close enough to get on each others' nerves. I hate coming up with seating charts. It's quite a workout though. :)

At 9:00 this evening I started to read some of my teacher materials and I will finish (come hell or high water) by 11:00.  I MUST go to bed early tonight since I have to be at school tomorrow at 7:00. 

Hours worked today: 7
Total hours worked this year: 20.25
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $2,211.55 per hour

A note about tomorrow: I will be training students for a mentor program from 7:00-1:30 tomorrow.  While that time is, obviously, time that I am "working" I receive additional pay for that position. (Currently making an extra $15 per MONTH for it...)  Because of that extra money, I will NOT add the hours worked for that job into this blog.  If I work after that (which I likely will) I will include that time.

I'm a Teacher-Book Reading Fool...

I was in my classroom getting things somewhat organized and up on the walls from 4:00-6:00. The room is starting to come together, but tomorrow, my goal is to have it DONE. Then I can devote my days and hours to the content without feeling distracted.

After going to the gym, eating, and chilling for a bit, I started reading more teacher materials.  Mostly these consist of notes I've taken over past lessons or ideas from teachers/websites/books, but tonight I also reread Carol Jago's books Classics in the Classroom and With Rigor for All.  Got some good ideas, I think, but they will require some cash for books. :) I started reading at 10:00pm and just finished at 1:00am. 

Total hours worked today: 5
Total hours worked this year: 13.25 hours
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $3,379.92

Much less than yesterday. :(  But, still, that's more than Obama, I think. :)

Freedom is slipping away...

Today was the last Friday of the summer.  *Sigh*

I spent some time at school, of course, as I will for the next two days of the weekend and ALL of next week as well.

Today consisted of making lists of the things I needed to buy, reading through materials, getting some technology stuff figured out, planning for a student training early next week, and getting some forms to pay for the food for that student training. I arrived at school at 11:15 and left at 2:15. (Technically, I DID go DO the shopping, but since that was not technically ALL school related, I'm not counting it.) 3 hours.

Additionally, after I blogged last night, I read through and made notes on classroom content ideas from 12:15am until 1:30am--an additional 1.25 hours for today, bringing the total hours for 8/12 to 4.25 hours.

Total hours worked this year: 8.25 hours
Salary for the year: $44,784
I'm making: $5,428.36 per hour

Not too shabby. :)

The Beginning...

I've been thinking.

I don't make enough money for the work that I do.  I mean, I make money. Sure. I do.  I have a pretty solid salary and alright benefits.

But still...I feel like I work harder than my pay says.

You see, though, I'm a teacher. I teach 8th Grade Language Arts.  I'm beginning my 5th year (can't believe that!) on August 24th.  Teachers have been getting an awfully bad reputation of late.  They are "lazy", "selfish", and "under-educated" because, after all, "those who CAN, Do. Those who CAN'T, Teach." Hahahaha...ha..ha..h--. Yeah. That's just not nice.

I have dedicated the majority of the last four years of my life to my students.  Staying late. Coming in early. Working Saturdays. All so that my students' test scores will improve and people will stop talking smack on teachers.  I'm not going to give you all the info on me or my kiddos right now.  Some of that will wait.  I just want you to know that I'm curious about whether I'm getting paid what I'm worth.  Hence, this blog.

I am going to post about the hours that I work.  I will then divide those hours into my yearly salary so that by the end of the school year (the end of May), I'll have a count of 1) the number of hours I WORKED this year and 2) my per hour pay for that work.

I have some "rules" worked into this so that I don't over count my work, but I'll share those on a later post. :)  For now, I'll discuss today...

I arrived to school at 12:45pm and stayed there until 4:15.  Today consisted of:
Going through materials.
Unpacking cabinets and stacks of stuff from the previous year
Reading though materials deciding on content for the year

Then, once home, I sat in the chair in my living room from 5:45-6:15:
Reading materials

So, today, I worked for 4 hours.  My salary is: $44,784.

So far this year, I make $11,196 per hour. Woohoo! :)

I am eager to see where this adventure leads. I hope that I end up pleasantly surprised that I am fairly compensated for my work and my passion for my students.

Hope to see you all regularly.

*Note: In my district, teacher do not start UNDER CONTRACT until next week.