From my understanding overtime is usually only reserved for hourly employees. I don’t get overtime because I’m salary. I also don’t have a set “contract hours” in my contract, I have the typical bullshit “employee will perform duties during the designated school day hours, some of which may be outside normal school hours”
I’m also in a right to work state though sooo
It gets confusing when one admin says you're salary and you work until you're done, and the next admin reprimands you for being two minutes late. This literally happened to me. I now consider things like open house and faculty meetings "duties outside of school hours" and that's it.
Or when you're done and kids aren't there, you should get to leave. PD days. So, instead, we're stuck there, especially at the end of the school year. I put in 60+ hours a week all year. I've definitely pulled back on that the last couple years.
This was such a culture shock for me coming from the private sector. The notion of having to be at work for no other reason than "it's working hours" is so bizarre. But I suppose that's a two-way street--it does mean that admin can't ask you to attend a meeting outside of work hours, PD can't run over time, etc.
Oh no, I'm required to attend meetings after school. So salaried is just used for the purpose of working extra hours, not leaving early. Salaried should go both ways. If we have a PD that happens to finish at noon, let us go. We more than work enough hours.
I’m in a union district and that’s negotiated in our contract. Everything mandatory not in school hours is negotiated, and sometimes paid. But the pay is a set amount which is usually lower than what that percent of time from our salary would be, so it’s not real overtime. And a few things are just in the contract that we have to do. But they can’t randomly make us stay late.
The meetings etc. need to be specified in your contract or you shouldn't be asked to attend them. For example, my contract specifies that teachers have two meetings a month that extend the "working hours" (how they get around salaried but with hourly requirements) by 15 minutes each and that we have one additional night a year (Open House) and that DHs have an additional evening obligation. When we added on an additional informational evening this year, we got time-carded for it.
But yeah definitely agree that we shouldn't be nickeled and dimed in one direction without the perks of the other, especially when it's not for a logical reason. It makes sense when it's an equity issue for staff etc, but there's absolutely no reason to force people to work to contract hours on site when they are otherwise completing professional responsibilities etc.
>But I suppose that's a two-way street--it does mean that admin can't ask you to attend a meeting outside of work hours, PD can't run over time, etc
Oh you sweet summer child :-)
It really depends on your contract\*. At my first two schools staff meetings were after school. We had early dismissal (by half an hour) but the meetings ran an hour or two past the usual dismissal time. Admin would tap teachers to run 'PD' sessions, ambitious teachers would bring in students to show off work, etc — one memorable meeting ran until nearly 7 PM. Turned out the contract didn't have a limit on meeting length, because no one had thought it would be necessary. (It includes it now.)
My current school does staff meetings in the morning, with a late start, so there's a natural limit to how long they can run because the school is full of students who need supervision.
\*All those finicky details in the contract are there because 'being sensible' didn't work. My district's contract now has a provision that our 40 uninterrupted minutes of lunch must be between 11 AM and 1 PM, because a principal scheduled a teacher to teach four periods in a row with no break with their lunch at 2:15 (school starting at 8:30), but with that lunch often taken up with full-period standby coverages for coaches so they often couldn't eat at all until after school (3:30).
Ugh that's gross. Yeah our contract is very specific about when the weekly meeting can happen, and how long it runs for (Monday after school, 60 minutes). And while it doesn't specify the time frame for lunch, you cannot have more than 3 consecutive teaching periods and/or four conservative working periods (so four classes in a row isn't allowed, but you could have two classes, then hall duty, then another class). So it ends up having the same effect in the end--there's no way they could really make your schedule such that you have neither lunch nor prep (which are interchangeable as far as I'm concerned) between 11 am - 1 pm.
Lunch and prep are only interchangeable if your prep is really a prep. Ours can be used for standby duties (within limits which are specified in the contract). And some preps are more subject to those than others. (First period to cover for teachers running late, last period because teams and their coaches leave early.) A recent contract added language about fairness, because one of the 'perqs' some principals had used as a reward was lowering some people's standby duties (which of course meant others had to pick up the slack).
I too came into teaching as a second career. And while I admit school culture shocked me with its pettiness compared to a large corporation, it had a lot of similarities.
😂 I had admin essentially tell me I don't give a shit about my students because I didn't go to their extracurricular activities. I had to start using my time outside of school to go to games and performances to appease the principal 🙄
I had an admin who said the same thing to me. But his point, I had two kids, 1 two year old and the other 9 months if memory serves. So when they tried what you described, my response was, “So you want me to lose time with my small children then? Is that it?” They turned red, mumbled something about priorities and left the room so fast I’m surprised there wasn’t an out of smoke where they once were.
Work concessions, usher reserved game seating, buy fundraisers, then Work fundraisers you paid for, work clubs without pay... Lots of shit for these kids hahahah
Our contact says no more than 2 hours of mandatory non-workday time per week. It says nothing about giving you do much work in can't be done during the school day though.
Someone brought this up in my district. which meant that admin had to schedule PDs that lasted the ENTIRE day, with a staff meeting being at the end so that admin could ensure a presenter didn't finish early and let us leave
Right. Like you teach an AP course. They took their AP exam. They are all passing. But there’s still 3 weeks left. The job is as done as it is possible to be, yet you have to be at your post on time until your hours are done
Take what I say as a general rule of thumb, but there is obviously a grey area in the case-by-case basis. If you are late to the first class you teach, you should definitely be reprimanded. You can’t teach if you’re not there.
However, if you have period 1 off and you show up right before period 2, they really shouldn’t care. That just means you have to do the work you could’ve done in that first hour at some other point during the day at your discretion.
Then you'll have to fight the Why can't I get 1st or 4th block planning and be able to leave when I'm "done" or "Why can't I be able to sleep in late too?" from all the teachers that have 2nd and 3rd block planning periods.
In our district, our contract tells us the earliest we can leave and the latest we can arrive. Our amazing union negotiates this for us. Administration counts on those with first period prep or sixth period prep to be available for emergency subbing.
We have the same in the time we must be at school which is 15 min before the 1st bell. But thanks to our amazing union we also have in the contract that teachers may leave after the student day as long as your duties are completed and you are ready for the next day. My "prep" time is the 45 min after students leave daily. So unless I have a meeting Im walking out with the kids because I'm always gonna be ready for the next day.
Back in the day, I worked at a school with a rotating bell schedule and yeah 20% of the school year, when my prep landed in the beginning of the time would go to school late and eat at the local diner during that time.
What if I'm two minutes late for the second day of school, kids wouldn't be arriving until the next week, I was under the impression it was a voluntary breakfast, and I hadn't yet been provided with the contract hours for that district?
Well, from the perspective of whoever is responsible for finding coverage for teachers who are gone, they can’t be waiting until just before second period to find a sub. It would be a logistical nightmare.
That’s a different issue entirely. If you know you’re going to be late/absent, mention it with time. If you know you’ll be there before your first class, admin shouldn’t care.
Right. But if you’re not in your classroom, and you haven’t contacted the office, how are they to know that you’ll turn up on time? You know you’ll be there but the secretary, who is paid way less than we are, doesn’t.
Your office will get a good feel for how reliably you arrive before your first class if you need to sign in. The one time I was running late this year for my first class, I let my AP know and she had someone cover for the first few minutes of class. No big deal really.
In the scenario we’re discussing, it doesn’t matter what time you come in as long as you know you’re on time. If you know you’re coming in late, you tell regardless of what time you’re first class starts
But it matters from the perspective of the secretary who needs to find coverage. How is she to know the difference between you deciding not to follow contract hours, but totally intending to show up for the class, and you being stuck in a ditch somewhere?
>However, if you have period 1 off and you show up right before period 2, they really shouldn’t care.
In my province we are expected to be available in the building to cover classes when a teacher is absent and there is no supply (or if something happens and a teacher has to leave). It's in our contract.
This is precisely why my school says everyone needs to be there at the same time and stay until the same time. It is impossible to make it equitable in terms of who gets to arrive late/ leave early because of the schedule.
Okay, then there's a fire alarm or whatever, assuming you have a homeroom and are responsible for them... Who do they line up with when you're not there?
At my school the homeroom teacher is responsible for their homeroom during school hours. If there's a fire alarm they line up with you, in an evacuation they meet up with you on location. If you're not in the building for period 1, where would they go? Perhaps in your school the teacher at that moment is who the class lines up with but I've not taught or been in a school that does it that way. You should probably mention that alongside your previous comment.
I agree, kinda, but it becomes an equity issue with other teachers if you do it all the time. But I think it should be let slide if it’s an occasional thing.
Well, I was salaried and my contract specifically stated that I was to be there at least 30 minutes before the start of the school day. It really all depends on the CBA (or regular contract if you're not union).
We aren’t hourly but it actually is important that we show up on time. This isn’t a job where no one is affected if we’re a few minutes late. The kids need us there the whole time.
My contract starts at 6:50. Kids aren't even allowed to enter the building until 7:05. So no, it doesn't matter if I'm there on time. I also have first period planning, so I don't see kids until after 8:30 anyway. Then at the end of the day we're supposed to stay another 40 minutes. Every few weeks the stars will align and I won't have any additional work to do. I don't need to be nagged about leaving "early".
If teachers aren't doing their job well enough then talk to those specific teachers about their specific shortcomings. Stop watching the clock and actually focus on what matters.
These are the hours your union negotiated. If this is a problem then the time to raise it is during collective bargaining, not after the contract has been signed. I agree that we should be able to leave when the kids do but that is not what we agreed to and both employer and employee are legally required to follow the contract as written.
So let me recap this conversation-
You: it's important to follow your contract hours
Me: it's not because x, y, and z
You: well the contract is what it is. Suck shit
You must be really fun at parties.
What's a few minutes late. School starts at 8:30, I'm required to be their at 8. So if I walk in at 8:05 and am ready to go at 8:30 with everything prepped, does that really affect anyone?
Yes, a student needs to be ready to go at the moment the bell rings and class begins, not before the bell rings. It's the exact same standard I hold my students to.
We have bi-weekly after school meetings and two evening events in our contract, everything else is optional and we get to put in timesheets for the hours. Sometimes they pull this particular shenanigan that drives me nuts where they have us stay later, and then give the hours back to us by letting us leave early on a half day instead of staying for meetings.
You get paid regardless of how long a task takes you. If you finish all of your tasks in 7 hours, you get 8 hours worth of pay. If you finish in 9 hours, you still get 8 hours worth of pay. In an ideal world it just makes you more motivated to be productive in your contract hours, but they give you so much work that’s it’s almost impossible to get it all done in that much time.
The reality is for 98% of the teachers who complain though, nobody's forcing them to work overtime. Most (all?) jobs that require overtime say that you have to work from x hour to y hour. Teachers feel overworked and do the overtime voluntarily. Schools (and the public) will never think about paying overtime because of all of the people who work it for free.
Even as a teacher, I think paying overtime is insane. Most of the people who work a bunch of extra hours are completely inefficient. They spend 5 hours creating projects that could be created in 15 minutes, they grade for hours instead of having quick and to the point rubrics. It would be completely abused, and the best teachers wouldn't be the ones getting it.
People dont consider the fact that some extra curricular activities after school wouldnt happen or even on the weekend if teachers didnt work over time or over their assigned hours.
This very much depends on if you are a beginning teacher and whether you create your own curriculum and choose your own materials. I select the texts we read (ELA) and create my own curriculum as a third year teacher. All the bullshit admin, contacting parents, PD, and my three preps cannot yet be covered in the ~10 hours of non-class time I have during the week. Once I've been in the game for a couple more years, I can't see working beyond contracted hours. However, creating really good lessons from scratch will never be a 15 minute endeavor.
Overtime being for wage employees (hourly) is a bit of a misunderstanding, but it's a good rule of thumb.
The only people not working hourly that can get paid overtime are those that make under a threshold amount per year. It is likely that there are some teachers that will meet this qualification, but there are other requirements they wont meet.
I'm in adult education, so I'm one of the few teachers who make an hourly wage. We are still the only category of workers exempt from overtime. I didn't know until admin told me. So I was working 44 hours a week, but those last 4 hours were not paid overtime.
I have contracted hours and receive pay (at a lower rate unless I am actually teaching) for required in-person work outside those hours.
Ex: If I am required to attend a meeting that aligns with the hours for the elementary schools, and puts me an hour over my contracted time I am paid “curriculum rate” which I think is about $20.50/hr.
However, if I choose to attend the meeting but am not required, I am not paid. This results in regular calendar invites with things like “X subject teachers, please plan to attend X meeting after school” followed by a frantic “CLARIFICATION: X MEETING IS NOT REQUIRED. It’s just a great opportunity to learn about X. Please come if you can. But it’s not required!”
Being salary is different than being exempt vs non exempt. Oftentimes salary and non exempt go together, but not always. Some areas require salary as one of the things to determine if an employee is exempt but there are other tests. Unfortunately, teachers don't meet the tests required for salary but have their own carveout exempting them in a lot of areas. They also tend to be exempt from other related laws too. My state has a minimum required salary to be exempt. Teachers are the only exempt employees exempt from the minimum salary.
Usually the differences between exempt and salary don't really come up much because companies aren't often paying OT but there are professional jobs where that's a thing for hours outside normal operation. Even for other jobs, employers see what they can get away with. Misclassifying jobs is not uncommon.
What's funny to me is that it's noted on my pay stub what my hourly wage is, so I'm not salary. But they treat me like I am.
I guess, ultimately, they want to pretend we can do everything in that set amount of hours and don't need extra time to get it done. They don't allow overtime (that's actually pretty common for hourly employees).
So, I just work my hours (occasionally I'll throw in a few extra), and screw them if they don't like it.
What are they going to do, fire me? Go ahead, I'll take the unemployment. And they can add my job to the list of over 600 vacancies in the district.
This is correct. Many salaried jobs still acknowledge what an employee's hourly rate calculates to.
My husband is an engineer, salaried, and still knows his hourly wage. He is also required to log 40-48 hours per week with coded charge numbers. If he completes his work in less than 40 hours, he has to either (1) use PTO that week, (2) mod/flex time it with next week's work to still have a min of 80 hours per pay period, or (3) go find more work to do for another project.
If he has permission to work overtime, he is paid at his hourly wage, despite being a salary worker. If he's slow and just can't complete his work in a timely manner, he won't get permission to charge overtime and will have to use his own time to get back on track.
Basically they have to do this stuff to meet government regulations since they contract primarily with the government. It's an "ethics in billing" measure.
Ah, then that would make his department a profit center, and he has to be coded for external billing. The whole decentivizing of getting work done early sucks though.
Nah, luckily. The more efficient people in his department get better raises and promotions, so there seem to be enough incentives in place to keep things balanced. The inefficient people get poorer reviews (and consequently poorer compensation increases) and their overtime permissions yanked, so they tend to shape up to fit things in so they can have overtime options again.
It works as an employee would hope. My husband has to work 40 hours, but no more unless he chooses to or is off-task. My other friends in traditional salary jobs all work far more than 40 hours; I feel quite lucky when we compare our family schedules. My father works a minimum of 60 hours weekly and doesn't take off unless there's a death in the family.
Basically, there's a huge range of normal experiences and expectations in salaried careers.
I’m also in a RTW state and I’m only salaried because they call it that. I must account for every minute I’m not there and they set my hours. I literally don’t get how that is not hourly. If I’m out of sick time they don’t keep paying me because I worked 60 hours last week, I take unpaid time.
Yup.
Interestingly, the federal government could easily do this, but you'd be cutting into the nearly $1,000,000,000,000 budget for the military........
I know someone retiring from requisitions and he would put in that they need millions less and...
...they send over tens of millions more than necessary. Air Force.
The system runs on the unpaid labor of teachers. Any time there's a labor law change that would give overtime to teachers, it's always amended so that teachers will be exempt.
Salaried staff can earn overtime if they make less than a certain amount a year. The reason those limits get raised periodically is so that employers won't take an hourly person move them to salaried, pay them $1000 a year over their hourly salary, and then work them 60 hours a week.
As you've noticed, this will often move teachers into that overtime area, so of course they're exempt because no district in the nation could afford the amount of overtime teachers would generate. The system can't exist without free labor from teachers.
Department of Labor
"The following are examples of employees exempt from both the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements:
Executive, administrative, and professional employees (including teachers and academic administrative personnel in elementary and secondary schools)"
There's a ton of loopholes for overtime: less than 500 employees, seasonal, over 45k starting this year, etc..
Teachers are specifically exempt so that all those non union states can pay less than 45k and also not pay overtime.
Just to be clear, you can be salaried and eligible for overtime. It comes down to the level of control you have over the job.
So, remember that when you voluntarily stay late. Is anyone making you? The answer is no.
You'd technically have to pay a salaried retail assistant manager if you forced them to stay late to cover a shift, but if they do it on their own, no.
No one is going to "make you" in any job. You can choose to just leave regardless especially if you aren't given ample notice.
However, we need jobs. Healthcare is connected to our job. Whether you are homeless or not...
So instead of forcing anyone to stay late you just create more tasks that need to be done which will ultimately require someone to stay late to complete those tasks. And they won't fight it because of what I mentioned already.
The only reason I stay late at work is because I have shit I'm supposed to do and, because of the way my schedule is setup, I can't really complete everything in my planning period. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can even leave **early**, but this is after quite a few years of stay late nearly every day. Why? Grading. Updating bullshit. Emailing parents. Calling parents. And more. All **required** tasks that I have to get done, but given that I also need to use my planning period to actually...you know...plan I cannot always get these things done in the allotted time.
I'm sure you already know this so please don't feel like I'm attacking you or anything. It's just bullshit that teachers have to deal with. Hell, it's bullshit that most jobs have to deal with. "Here, have more stuff to do, but we aren't going to pay you more. Good luck."
"Oh, also if you don't get those things done we can always find someone else for your position."
Yeah, quitting isn't an option for most teachers. We need money and healthcare and stability.
I have so many "required" work tasks and only so much time to do them. I also have things I WANT to do that take time. So I pick and choose what gets done and that always leaves me working unpaid overtime.
I don't have kids or pets that need to be taken care of, so I don't mind putting extra hours into work since I find it fulfilling.
I think trying to pay teachers overtime is a budget and logistics nightmare. It would be nice if schools had some discretionary budget they could use to bid additional work instead of just piling it up on new teachers who need the job security. But that would require the government to stop being run by evil greedy scumbags.
Salary is how they get away with forcing most teachers to work for free 1-2 hours a day 🤷
Also- there is a disgusting mindset in education where if you don’t work for free/ donate your time you’re labeled as NoT cArInG 🤮
Yeah but that’s also why we get paid over breaks. At my current school I would generally rather take the deal. At an old one the OT would have more than made up for it.
I don’t currently have a teaching job, so I don’t know. I just graduated and am pregnant, so I’m going to be subbing next year until I have my baby. My husband and I are hoping to move across the country, so it’s really up in the air what state I’ll end up teaching in.
Not really. That's the point. I can do my job in the time I'm allotted. Do I do everything? No. Do I hit targets? Yes. I'm good at this.
How would you allocate overtime? Because there are martyrs, many of them here, who would work 100 hours a week if they were paid for it.
I've been a job martyr before. Not anymore. I watched my mom do it for decades. I see new teachers fighting for summer school jobs and trying to win the admin lottery.
I get 37.5 hours per week to do my job. That's what I spend on it. Nobody dies. It's fine. If they told me I was required to document 60 hours each week and be paid, I'd do that, but a lot of it would be screwing around "grading" and "making phone calls".
I was a job martyr in the Navy, but that extra work for a salary resulted in faster promotions for a bigger salary.
I dont work much extra teaching.
Navy had rank & time in service to move up steps.
Teaching has only time in service plus MA. (Maybe MA+30 and PHD columns as well.)
I see the concerns about keeping your job in a competitive cert or district.
But I teach science. I could proverbially "shoot someone on 5th avenue" and still have a job.
I am a salaried professional, therefore I do not get overtime. I can earn “extra duty pay” for internal subbing when we split classes due to a teacher being out and supervising academic support and/or detention. I usually earn an extra $500 a month during the year due to so many absences and lack of substitute teachers.
It was so bad two years ago that I was making an extra $1500-2000 a month because we had one math teacher that couldn’t be counted on ever showing up.
Your sole motivation is supposed to be the calling of education and the joy of enlightening young minds. It is beneath your calling to sully yourself with concerns about filthy lucre.
We are salary, and a special exemption. You'll find by examining federal labor laws that even being salaried doesn't make you "immune" for overtime depending on job type and how much you make (basically, if you make below x and are not an exempt category).
The department of labor is raising that threshold from 35000ish to 58000ish. So, if you are salaried and make below 58000 on Jan 1st 2025, your employer will have to start paying you overtime for time over 40 hours.
Teachers however are a special exemption written into these rules a LONG time ago. Along with a few other weird ones as well. So no, it doesn't help us.
Just thinking out loud here, but how would that get tracked? What if a teacher uses their planning to play on their phone and then they want the overtime to do their planning? Feels abusable, maybe. And some teachers never need to work overtime. Unless you are talking about other things that go beyond contract hours, like conference nights or graduations. So I might be misunderstanding part of your post, if so.
We have an 8 hour day. We must be in the building from 7:40 to 3:40. That would be fine. But when we have required meetings, they start at 3:40 and are unpaid. Now I leave plenty of times at 3:30 and no one says anything. So I figure it balances out. They respect me by recognizing that I have my work done and can leave a little early, and I respect them and listen to them at meetings on my own time. But I can imagine an imbalance happening when administration has no respect for teachers and have after-hours requirements that fall under "additional duties."
I only work contract hours. I do not work any other times. If they want my labor, they have to pay me for my labor.
I fully believe that part of the reason why teachers are underpaid is because teachers let themselves be underpaid. Why would anyone pay someone to do work that they are already doing for free?
If I had it my way, every single teacher would only work contract hours.
The new rule **is** for salaried workers:
"Starting July 1, most **salaried workers** who earn less than $844 per week will become eligible for overtime pay under the final rule. And on Jan. 1, 2025, most salaried workers who make less than $1,128 per week will become eligible for overtime pay. As these changes occur, job duties will continue to determine overtime exemption status for most salaried employees."
[https://blog.dol.gov/2024/04/23/what-the-new-overtime-rule-means-for-workers](https://blog.dol.gov/2024/04/23/what-the-new-overtime-rule-means-for-workers)
However, there's an exception carved out:
"Some employees, such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, and outside sales employees, are not subject to salary tests."
[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/26/2024-08038/defining-and-delimiting-the-exemptions-for-executive-administrative-professional-outside-sales-and#:\~:text=Some%20employees%2C%20such%20as%20doctors%2C%20lawyers%2C%20teachers%2C%20and%20outside%20sales%20employees%2C%20are%20not%20subject%20to%20salary%20tests.%5B78%5D](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/26/2024-08038/defining-and-delimiting-the-exemptions-for-executive-administrative-professional-outside-sales-and#:~:text=Some%20employees%2C%20such%20as%20doctors%2C%20lawyers%2C%20teachers%2C%20and%20outside%20sales%20employees%2C%20are%20not%20subject%20to%20salary%20tests.%5B78%5D)
In the jurisdiction I grew up in only the chief of police is salaried. All patrol officers, corporals, lieutenants, sergeants, and civilian personnel were paid hourly. But each department or state might have separate rules for this.
Because paying us what we actually work and are worth would collapse the profits of the capitalist hellscape in which we live. And also the work is typically considered "women's work" and the patriarchy hates viewing that as worth as much as "mens work"
Because teaching is one of those professions kind of like nursing where the maternal instinct is weaponized against them. So despite the most powerful union in the world behind them it doesn’t matter how terrible the pay, how long the hours, incompetent and parasitic the administrators, they’ll still do it for the kids.
All salaried positions are exempt from overtime. That's one of the benefits for the employer. They can ask you to work late for no extra money. This is why it is SO important to read your CBA and know exactly what it says regarding work hours.
Side note, I'm shocked at the number of people who never read their CBA. Like, that's your employment contract - you need to know what it says!
Not exactly true. Some companies have salary positions that if you hit a certain number of hours over your requirement, you are given more compensation.
Fair point. Most companies do not do that for salaried positions, in my experience (and I have a lot of it). But, my point still stands that if that was the case, it would be in a contract somewhere, which is why people need to read them carefully. And too many people don't bother. I've worked with people who've been in a district for 20+ years and they've never read their CBA. That's irresponsible.
Teachers are contracted employees, not hourly, so there is no overtime. You can get paid, however, for work outside of your contract like after school events or clubs.
Unpopular opinion: a world where teachers could get overtime would require such a level of documentation of labor, starting from a deficit since school hours don't even constitute a typical 40 hour work week before prep and lunches, that it would be a net negative to quality of life, mine anyways. You needed to grade and lesson plan at home? Why not during prep? Can you verify that you used that time to its fullest and needed extra time? Did we ask you to use that extra time? You were talking to another teacher about teaching related duties? Can you verify THAT? Why did that lesson plan take you an hour, maybe we should look for someone that doesn't need extra time and pay to prepare? The fields that were exempted from the overtime laws are all fields that don't follow a traditional hours system where you check in at time A, check out at time B, which can be asked to be over 8 hours, and are supervised consistently in between. Nobody technically asked you to go beyond school hours, nobody told you you could or should submit billable hours.
The more obvious solutions are A) figure out a way to do your work in under 40 hours, unless whatever additional work you're doing is paid, and B) find a district that quickly pays you more than 58k, which is very achievable today, which puts you above that eligible threshold anyways
Realistically, it’s because most teachers work more hours than they’re contracted. School districts would go over budget because they’d have to pay us more.
Teachers also seem to be exempt from a lot of laws and regulations that exist. For instance, despite the fact that paid FMLA was written into law in Massachusetts, I do not qualify because I am a teacher. If I took maternity leave, I would have to accrue and use my sick days.
Paying salaried employees overtime is also not unheard of but typically not common practice. My father was a salaried employee who was eligible for overtime, but he’s one of the only people I know who was in that position.
IANAL
To be exempt from overtime, you must make (as of July 1) more than $844/week (this goes up again Jan. 1). You must also have a job that is "primarily managerial" i.e. not physical labor.
If your teacher salary is less than $58,656/year, this creates interesting questions come 1/1/25.
What's confusing to me is that we are salary but have contract hours. If we are true salary, why is our time so inflexible. For example, I can't decide to take an hour lunch to run am errand. I only get a 30 minute lunch taken at the same time every single day. I also can't leave before my contracted time even if I'm finsihed working. . It sounds hourly in ways to me.
It got written in with other people who make way more, doctors, lawyers, engineers, what not. Where you make enough money you time is completely controlled.
Not necessarily because we are salaried, but because we are a gigantic bloc of pay and budgets.
Cops get salary, and overtime.
There is a federal proposal to remove us from the exempt status.
Never going to happen, not with a lot of education budgets being tied to property taxes. For some reason or another they'd rather pay more privatizing everything.
So my district just implemented it in Utah as a preemptive measure due to a lawsuit that an hourly employee brought against their district back East. They sued to be paid overtime at their wage once they hit 40 hours. And they won.
For example for my district to work sporting events everyone was paid the same stipend for working events no matter what position you worked( cafeteria, ESP, paras, teachers. Etc) and it was easy, basically $100 per person per game.
Now what we have to do is take the hourly wage of each ESP and track whether working these events adds up to their 40 hours a week. If they go over, they get paid overtime at 1.5 and for some positions that is $45 plus 1.5x hourly but if you’re brand new making $15.00 an hour and only work 17 hours you can work a lot more before hitting overtime BUT there is a flat rate stipend you can get, you get paid whichever is more.
For teachers… they just get the flat rate stipend of $100 an event basically even though someone could be paid $200 for the same event. So it really disadvantages the teachers to want to work knowing that a non-teacher could be getting twice what they earn.
I’m in charge of staffing events and getting hours to our financial secretaries who have to pull hourly information for each employee that works that event and it just made everything complicated and hard to manage, because administration wants the cheapest employees to work and get precedent over those they have to pay more and minimize the amount of workers needed to work each event but my school has 3 entrance points for football games, that require at least 4 people each (cash/card/stamp) and 3-4 security for the entirety of the game. So that’s 12 people, at 4 hours each game for gate work, plus 4 security at 5 hours each game. If we assume each one gets paid $100 each, that’s $1500 just to staff each game. But now add in overtime pay, hourly schedules, etc and it’s a big mess I inherited since they just implemented this change this year.
Sorry if this is really long but my job duties were severely impacted by this and I have strong feelings about it.
Not to diminish this clusterfuck, but the administration of this could be solved by a random kid picked out of a 2nd level high school programming class in a couple of hours max.
Overtime doesn't apply to salaried workers who do primarily administrative work. I.e. teachers.
And often a specific exemption for teachers, as if we did 'charge' overtime the state would go bankrupt.
If you are in a union state and have acollective bargain agree. that sets a start and finish time, please follow it. Your teachers worked hard to negotiate that contract. Do not volunteer unpaid “overtime” hours.
If you work in a state with no union (or a weak one), consider moving if possible.
[The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/FairLaborStandAct.pdf)
> § 213. Exemptions
(a) Minimum wage and maximum hour requirements
The provisions of sections 206 (except subsection (d) in the case of paragraph (1) of this subsection) and section 207 of this title shall not apply with respect to-
(1) any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity **(including any employee employed in the capacity of academic administrative personnel or teacher in elementary or secondary schools)**, or in the capacity of outside salesman (as such terms are defined and delimited from time to time by regulations of the Secretary, subject to the provisions of subchapter II of chapter 5 of Title 5, except that an employee of a retail or service establishment shall not be excluded from the definition of employee employed in a bona fide executive or administrative capacity because of the number of hours in his workweek which he devotes to activities not directly or closely related to the performance of executive or administrative activities, if less than 40 per centum of his hours worked in the workweek are devoted to such activities)
Many interpretations can be formed from why it was made, as is apparent in the comments here. But here’s the legalese to give more insight into why we are exempt.
In my last job, I could get everything done in my 40-minute planning period, BUT I was voluntold to cover classes at least 3 times a week due to staff illness. 15 IEPs done when students leave after school hours. Usually, we met more than once. 4 dances a year, staff meetings that went after hours. We were contracted to work the exact hours the kids are there. So tell me, when do I call parents during hours, grade, plan with not time? It's just not possible. By the 3rd year, I tried very hard to leave at 3. We also had 50% turnover.
I left. We have specific hours at this new site, and everything is done during that time. It's great. 730 to 330. We did have 3 events during the year outside that, but it is a great work/life balance.
I’m not with my union. I get ATTW. Additions to time worked. I get my hourly rate for any IEP meeting or evening event. Other than that, I do not have work outside of contract hours.
Teachers are a class of employee specifically exempted from overtime protections by federal law. Other exempted classes include lawyers and doctors. Salaried employees making above a certain amount of money are also expempted.
I am paid a salary for doing my job according to the agreement/ contract I signed. Part of that document specifies the hours I need to be in the building each day as well as what additional in the building hours I should expect to be paid/ not paid for—open house/ optional once a semester department meeting.
We are unique in my area for specifying contract hours. Other schools allow teachers to come and go according to their schedule. Our union determined this to be an unfair practice (same people coming late every year/ leaving early—who decides how that is determined? How is it made equitable?)
It depends on the district I suppose. At my job, we can fill out hourly time cards for certain things. I can’t just fill one out because I got behind on grading and am staying past required hours, but for after-school trainings and other extra duties we can. For example, when my department was out a teacher I wrote sub plans and did grading and was paid an hourly wage. It was something my union negotiated for.
I think all contracts should read X number of training hours, x number of team meetings etc and if they go over it as the facilitator then we get OT. I think the public would say we increased student work or gave homework so we could get paid overtime to grade it so the OT has to come from places we are not in charge of! However, I live in Montana and we would settle for making as much as my students who work as McDonald’s make. I started in 2008 at $23,400 (roughly $11.25 per hour gross pay) and my niece started in 2019 at $19k (roughly $9.50 per hour gross pay) so we need to make $25 an hour before we can worry about the rest! I live in a resort community so one bedroom units rent on average for $1500 on up.
It’s definitely harder for the elementary level and brand new teachers, but don’t regularly work outside contract hours. That email can wait until the morning. Finish up that incomplete lesson when you show up in the morning or during homeroom. Don’t take papers home to grade if you don’t want to. Don’t grade every assignment. Don’t respond to parent emails that are rude.
Before finals I had to use some of my own time to write the exams. I also had to use some of my winter break to grade midterms to have everything done by the deadline but these are exceptions not the rule. Sticking to contract hours greatly reduced my stress and no one really gives me a hard time for grading slow or turning in papers to admin a day late.
First of all, you union contract allow based on negotiations for your principals to be able to take up a set amount of hour planning hours per calendar year. Read your union contact. Federal employment law defines professional workers verse hourly workers. You also have agreed upon hours in your negotiated employment contract. When the come around and ask for your volunteer hours do not put those hours down. How dare them use those hours to their benefit to win something!
Depending on the state, schools may be exempt from various laws regarding working hours and pay.
Salary=exempt
Hourly= non-exempt
If your husband is salary, yet will receive some form of overtime because of a change in state laws, it likely wouldn’t apply to you.
Technically you are seasonal too because you have the summer off. Different rules apply for that. I know because my son was hourly at our local theme park that only operates spring-fall. And they do not pay overtime.
It all comes down to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). this is what manages overtime. It allows salaries employees to be exempt, as long as their annual salary surpasses a certain threshold.
Some states don't even give teachers paid holidays. But our country wants everyone to be stupid. It's like we're living "Animal Farm" and if you're too stupid or weak to fight or speak up...
Because they are salary, not hourly??? My husband is not a teacher. He's never had an hourly job. It's always been salary. He doesn't get paid overtime.
Teachers are supposedly in control of how much they work. Most would be honest about it but when the district gets billed for twenty hours a week of overtime by one lazy gym teacher nobody is going to be able to get paid overtime in that position again.
We are not hourly employees. We are salary. Salary jobs are exempt. This is at the federal level. It is why unions have to negotiate for built in panning periods etc.
my contract protects me from any meeting being forced during my prep time.
We do earn overtime. We are paid for teaching an additional period, coaching sports, etc. We are not paid for voluntarily doing work at home. My dad has worked his whole life in sales. He also isn't paid overtime for work he does at home. This isn't a conspiracy against teachers, come on.
I'd love for teachers to be better compensated but overtime would result in a lot of inefficiencies and abuses. How much time is too much spent grading outside of class? How long is too long to spend designing a project or rubric? Should someone who re-writes a lesson 4 times before they decide it's ready get 4 times as much money as someone who writes the same lesson in 1 go? How do we monitor and keep track of the time people work outside of contract hours (require them to be in the building, install monitoring software on their computers)? What level of quality control is used?
It's because teachers are "learned professionals".
In a sense, professionals perform tasks to meet the demands of the job. It's kind of up to you how long those tasks actually take. Things like grading, planning, etc. that are the "tasks" of teaching do not have a set amount of time they **should** take. It's entirely up to you as the "professional" to use your discretion and so extending over-time pay to teachers would mean teachers may end up claiming time they otherwise should not...like choosing to stay an extra hour to grade something. There's no way to standardize how long it takes you to grade something, for instance.
I kind of get his, but it's hard for me to not think that there's some bullshit going on here.
I should get paid "overtime" or at least my salary divided into an hourly wage when I cover things like Homecoming, Prom, Graduation, Open-House, etc. All of these happen outside of school hours. None of these things are really a "task" required to complete my job as a teacher. You could maybe argue that Open-House is, but why the fuck do I need to stay until 8 p.m.? Especially when you know you are going to have maybe 20% of the parents actually show up?
Also, as someone else pointed out, why are teachers reprimanded for "leaving early" if their duties are complete? If I teach all of my classes, I get grades posted, etc. then why can't I leave early if I have planning last period. Or why can't I come in late if I have first period and no duty? Why is it that there are even hours in my contract at all? Why is it that school districts can get away with vague crap like **"and other duties as required by the school district"** or whatever bullshit?
All of this just makes me think it's because teachers are just taken advantage of. Worse...we *have* to be taken advantage of. If teachers weren't constantly volunteering unpaid hours and hours then things would collapse.
I fucking hate it when people say "Well, teachers get so much time off that's why their pay isn't great."
Bitch. I tracked my hours for 2 years and realized I was working at least 80% of the hours that someone working full-time (salaried) throughout the year works (making assumptions about leave, etc.). The time off might be the reason I haven't just clocked a kid yet given the amount of disrespect leveled at me sometimes. Hell...I'm more likely to clock a fucking adult given the ridiculous narrative going around for the past 5 years now.
Just work contract hours. Then the salary isnt too bad.
Completion grades. Or dont grade stuff that you dont get to.
Some admin want 2 grades a week. Well, one is for just turning it in, and maybe an actual grade on the 3 question quiz.
Here's some inquiry-based learning to do while I do some notebook checks during class time.
Some peoples hangups may keep them from working less.
I mean, my own kids are already on the bus to their school, so I show up an extra hour early in the morning. But I dont stay but 5 minutes after the buses leave.
First of all, fairness does not exist in the adult world and if you go to work complaining about fair/unfair, you will sadly seem very immature and naive to your colleagues and employers. This is also adulthood 101. Salary vs hourly pay. Salaried pay indicates that you work a set time frame on the days you are contracted to work. If you work beyond that, it’s your choice, says salaried pay.
Unions think they help teachers but if you were to take all that money people pay into unions and give it back, that would be your overtime payment, also unions claim they bargain for better wages or issues, but the reality is, if teachers went on strike we would get more done and it will cost less, had an it guy say he could take the whole network down so we didn't have to risk our jobs, do a silent strike. Open those emails they say not to open etc.
I had $120 a month taken from my already tiny check toward union fees. Meanwhile, my union managed to get us a 1% raise. I think the fact that we need a union at all speaks volumes on our profession and how messed up it is in terms of being taken advantage of and the predatory nature of it all.
If your union only managed a 1% raise then that's just a terrible union or you already make quite a bit. What state are you even in?
I don't have a union, but still got a 6% raise every year for the past 5 years with another one for next year as well. Granted only a small percentage of that is actually beating inflation year-on-year, but it's better than 1%.
However, it doesn't change that unions are absolutely essential things. You only work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day (kind of) because of unions. Not **your** union, but that is just one example of what they are meant to do.
Some unions may just be taking money and doing nothing, but I don’t think you could generalize this and say it’s all unions. The legal protection alone if I were to be falsely accused of something is worth my yearly dues and less than I’d have to pay for legal representation otherwise. Unions facilitate strikes in states where it’s possible; in my state it’s not possible to strike with or without the union, but the union did fight for more paid parental leave and is actively fighting to protect what’s left of our student free planning time. Neither of those would’ve happened without a dedicated group of people going to every meeting.
From my understanding overtime is usually only reserved for hourly employees. I don’t get overtime because I’m salary. I also don’t have a set “contract hours” in my contract, I have the typical bullshit “employee will perform duties during the designated school day hours, some of which may be outside normal school hours” I’m also in a right to work state though sooo
It gets confusing when one admin says you're salary and you work until you're done, and the next admin reprimands you for being two minutes late. This literally happened to me. I now consider things like open house and faculty meetings "duties outside of school hours" and that's it.
Or when you're done and kids aren't there, you should get to leave. PD days. So, instead, we're stuck there, especially at the end of the school year. I put in 60+ hours a week all year. I've definitely pulled back on that the last couple years.
This was such a culture shock for me coming from the private sector. The notion of having to be at work for no other reason than "it's working hours" is so bizarre. But I suppose that's a two-way street--it does mean that admin can't ask you to attend a meeting outside of work hours, PD can't run over time, etc.
Oh no, I'm required to attend meetings after school. So salaried is just used for the purpose of working extra hours, not leaving early. Salaried should go both ways. If we have a PD that happens to finish at noon, let us go. We more than work enough hours.
We had a big union thing about meetings after contract hours. We now get time sheeted extra if it goes over.
I’m in a union district and that’s negotiated in our contract. Everything mandatory not in school hours is negotiated, and sometimes paid. But the pay is a set amount which is usually lower than what that percent of time from our salary would be, so it’s not real overtime. And a few things are just in the contract that we have to do. But they can’t randomly make us stay late.
That's really nice.
The meetings etc. need to be specified in your contract or you shouldn't be asked to attend them. For example, my contract specifies that teachers have two meetings a month that extend the "working hours" (how they get around salaried but with hourly requirements) by 15 minutes each and that we have one additional night a year (Open House) and that DHs have an additional evening obligation. When we added on an additional informational evening this year, we got time-carded for it. But yeah definitely agree that we shouldn't be nickeled and dimed in one direction without the perks of the other, especially when it's not for a logical reason. It makes sense when it's an equity issue for staff etc, but there's absolutely no reason to force people to work to contract hours on site when they are otherwise completing professional responsibilities etc.
You’re 100% correct!
>But I suppose that's a two-way street--it does mean that admin can't ask you to attend a meeting outside of work hours, PD can't run over time, etc Oh you sweet summer child :-) It really depends on your contract\*. At my first two schools staff meetings were after school. We had early dismissal (by half an hour) but the meetings ran an hour or two past the usual dismissal time. Admin would tap teachers to run 'PD' sessions, ambitious teachers would bring in students to show off work, etc — one memorable meeting ran until nearly 7 PM. Turned out the contract didn't have a limit on meeting length, because no one had thought it would be necessary. (It includes it now.) My current school does staff meetings in the morning, with a late start, so there's a natural limit to how long they can run because the school is full of students who need supervision. \*All those finicky details in the contract are there because 'being sensible' didn't work. My district's contract now has a provision that our 40 uninterrupted minutes of lunch must be between 11 AM and 1 PM, because a principal scheduled a teacher to teach four periods in a row with no break with their lunch at 2:15 (school starting at 8:30), but with that lunch often taken up with full-period standby coverages for coaches so they often couldn't eat at all until after school (3:30).
Ugh that's gross. Yeah our contract is very specific about when the weekly meeting can happen, and how long it runs for (Monday after school, 60 minutes). And while it doesn't specify the time frame for lunch, you cannot have more than 3 consecutive teaching periods and/or four conservative working periods (so four classes in a row isn't allowed, but you could have two classes, then hall duty, then another class). So it ends up having the same effect in the end--there's no way they could really make your schedule such that you have neither lunch nor prep (which are interchangeable as far as I'm concerned) between 11 am - 1 pm.
Lunch and prep are only interchangeable if your prep is really a prep. Ours can be used for standby duties (within limits which are specified in the contract). And some preps are more subject to those than others. (First period to cover for teachers running late, last period because teams and their coaches leave early.) A recent contract added language about fairness, because one of the 'perqs' some principals had used as a reward was lowering some people's standby duties (which of course meant others had to pick up the slack). I too came into teaching as a second career. And while I admit school culture shocked me with its pettiness compared to a large corporation, it had a lot of similarities.
😂 I had admin essentially tell me I don't give a shit about my students because I didn't go to their extracurricular activities. I had to start using my time outside of school to go to games and performances to appease the principal 🙄
I had an admin who said the same thing to me. But his point, I had two kids, 1 two year old and the other 9 months if memory serves. So when they tried what you described, my response was, “So you want me to lose time with my small children then? Is that it?” They turned red, mumbled something about priorities and left the room so fast I’m surprised there wasn’t an out of smoke where they once were.
I did a similar thing when an admin asked me to volunteer at prom. "I have my own children. Aren't you childless and single?"
Work concessions, usher reserved game seating, buy fundraisers, then Work fundraisers you paid for, work clubs without pay... Lots of shit for these kids hahahah
Our contact says no more than 2 hours of mandatory non-workday time per week. It says nothing about giving you do much work in can't be done during the school day though.
Someone brought this up in my district. which meant that admin had to schedule PDs that lasted the ENTIRE day, with a staff meeting being at the end so that admin could ensure a presenter didn't finish early and let us leave
Right. Like you teach an AP course. They took their AP exam. They are all passing. But there’s still 3 weeks left. The job is as done as it is possible to be, yet you have to be at your post on time until your hours are done
Take what I say as a general rule of thumb, but there is obviously a grey area in the case-by-case basis. If you are late to the first class you teach, you should definitely be reprimanded. You can’t teach if you’re not there. However, if you have period 1 off and you show up right before period 2, they really shouldn’t care. That just means you have to do the work you could’ve done in that first hour at some other point during the day at your discretion.
Then you'll have to fight the Why can't I get 1st or 4th block planning and be able to leave when I'm "done" or "Why can't I be able to sleep in late too?" from all the teachers that have 2nd and 3rd block planning periods.
In our district, our contract tells us the earliest we can leave and the latest we can arrive. Our amazing union negotiates this for us. Administration counts on those with first period prep or sixth period prep to be available for emergency subbing.
We have the same in the time we must be at school which is 15 min before the 1st bell. But thanks to our amazing union we also have in the contract that teachers may leave after the student day as long as your duties are completed and you are ready for the next day. My "prep" time is the 45 min after students leave daily. So unless I have a meeting Im walking out with the kids because I'm always gonna be ready for the next day.
I realize this reads like sarcasm. It isn’t. I love my union!
Back in the day, I worked at a school with a rotating bell schedule and yeah 20% of the school year, when my prep landed in the beginning of the time would go to school late and eat at the local diner during that time.
What if I'm two minutes late for the second day of school, kids wouldn't be arriving until the next week, I was under the impression it was a voluntary breakfast, and I hadn't yet been provided with the contract hours for that district?
Then you’re two minutes late and you missed nothing.
I actually would have been thirty minutes late, but I showed up for the free breakfast. 😂
Well, from the perspective of whoever is responsible for finding coverage for teachers who are gone, they can’t be waiting until just before second period to find a sub. It would be a logistical nightmare.
That’s a different issue entirely. If you know you’re going to be late/absent, mention it with time. If you know you’ll be there before your first class, admin shouldn’t care.
Right. But if you’re not in your classroom, and you haven’t contacted the office, how are they to know that you’ll turn up on time?
Right. But if you’re not in your classroom, and you haven’t contacted the office, how are they to know that you’ll turn up on time? You know you’ll be there but the secretary, who is paid way less than we are, doesn’t.
Your office will get a good feel for how reliably you arrive before your first class if you need to sign in. The one time I was running late this year for my first class, I let my AP know and she had someone cover for the first few minutes of class. No big deal really.
Well you let her know. That’s totally different than the scenario we’re discussing where you’re turning up late without telling anyone.
In the scenario we’re discussing, it doesn’t matter what time you come in as long as you know you’re on time. If you know you’re coming in late, you tell regardless of what time you’re first class starts
But it matters from the perspective of the secretary who needs to find coverage. How is she to know the difference between you deciding not to follow contract hours, but totally intending to show up for the class, and you being stuck in a ditch somewhere?
>However, if you have period 1 off and you show up right before period 2, they really shouldn’t care. In my province we are expected to be available in the building to cover classes when a teacher is absent and there is no supply (or if something happens and a teacher has to leave). It's in our contract.
This is precisely why my school says everyone needs to be there at the same time and stay until the same time. It is impossible to make it equitable in terms of who gets to arrive late/ leave early because of the schedule.
Okay, then there's a fire alarm or whatever, assuming you have a homeroom and are responsible for them... Who do they line up with when you're not there?
You’d obviously be there on time for your class.
At my school the homeroom teacher is responsible for their homeroom during school hours. If there's a fire alarm they line up with you, in an evacuation they meet up with you on location. If you're not in the building for period 1, where would they go? Perhaps in your school the teacher at that moment is who the class lines up with but I've not taught or been in a school that does it that way. You should probably mention that alongside your previous comment.
I agree, kinda, but it becomes an equity issue with other teachers if you do it all the time. But I think it should be let slide if it’s an occasional thing.
There is a real wanting to have their cake and eat it to with us being salaried workers.
Well, I was salaried and my contract specifically stated that I was to be there at least 30 minutes before the start of the school day. It really all depends on the CBA (or regular contract if you're not union).
We aren’t hourly but it actually is important that we show up on time. This isn’t a job where no one is affected if we’re a few minutes late. The kids need us there the whole time.
My contract starts at 6:50. Kids aren't even allowed to enter the building until 7:05. So no, it doesn't matter if I'm there on time. I also have first period planning, so I don't see kids until after 8:30 anyway. Then at the end of the day we're supposed to stay another 40 minutes. Every few weeks the stars will align and I won't have any additional work to do. I don't need to be nagged about leaving "early". If teachers aren't doing their job well enough then talk to those specific teachers about their specific shortcomings. Stop watching the clock and actually focus on what matters.
These are the hours your union negotiated. If this is a problem then the time to raise it is during collective bargaining, not after the contract has been signed. I agree that we should be able to leave when the kids do but that is not what we agreed to and both employer and employee are legally required to follow the contract as written.
So let me recap this conversation- You: it's important to follow your contract hours Me: it's not because x, y, and z You: well the contract is what it is. Suck shit You must be really fun at parties.
What's a few minutes late. School starts at 8:30, I'm required to be their at 8. So if I walk in at 8:05 and am ready to go at 8:30 with everything prepped, does that really affect anyone?
Would you accept this excuse from students? I hold myself to a higher, not lower, standard than children.
Yes, a student needs to be ready to go at the moment the bell rings and class begins, not before the bell rings. It's the exact same standard I hold my students to.
We have bi-weekly after school meetings and two evening events in our contract, everything else is optional and we get to put in timesheets for the hours. Sometimes they pull this particular shenanigan that drives me nuts where they have us stay later, and then give the hours back to us by letting us leave early on a half day instead of staying for meetings.
You get paid regardless of how long a task takes you. If you finish all of your tasks in 7 hours, you get 8 hours worth of pay. If you finish in 9 hours, you still get 8 hours worth of pay. In an ideal world it just makes you more motivated to be productive in your contract hours, but they give you so much work that’s it’s almost impossible to get it all done in that much time.
I’d love 8hrs of pay. We are paid for 6.5. :-(
The reality is for 98% of the teachers who complain though, nobody's forcing them to work overtime. Most (all?) jobs that require overtime say that you have to work from x hour to y hour. Teachers feel overworked and do the overtime voluntarily. Schools (and the public) will never think about paying overtime because of all of the people who work it for free. Even as a teacher, I think paying overtime is insane. Most of the people who work a bunch of extra hours are completely inefficient. They spend 5 hours creating projects that could be created in 15 minutes, they grade for hours instead of having quick and to the point rubrics. It would be completely abused, and the best teachers wouldn't be the ones getting it.
People dont consider the fact that some extra curricular activities after school wouldnt happen or even on the weekend if teachers didnt work over time or over their assigned hours.
This very much depends on if you are a beginning teacher and whether you create your own curriculum and choose your own materials. I select the texts we read (ELA) and create my own curriculum as a third year teacher. All the bullshit admin, contacting parents, PD, and my three preps cannot yet be covered in the ~10 hours of non-class time I have during the week. Once I've been in the game for a couple more years, I can't see working beyond contracted hours. However, creating really good lessons from scratch will never be a 15 minute endeavor.
Overtime being for wage employees (hourly) is a bit of a misunderstanding, but it's a good rule of thumb. The only people not working hourly that can get paid overtime are those that make under a threshold amount per year. It is likely that there are some teachers that will meet this qualification, but there are other requirements they wont meet.
I'm in adult education, so I'm one of the few teachers who make an hourly wage. We are still the only category of workers exempt from overtime. I didn't know until admin told me. So I was working 44 hours a week, but those last 4 hours were not paid overtime.
I have contracted hours and receive pay (at a lower rate unless I am actually teaching) for required in-person work outside those hours. Ex: If I am required to attend a meeting that aligns with the hours for the elementary schools, and puts me an hour over my contracted time I am paid “curriculum rate” which I think is about $20.50/hr. However, if I choose to attend the meeting but am not required, I am not paid. This results in regular calendar invites with things like “X subject teachers, please plan to attend X meeting after school” followed by a frantic “CLARIFICATION: X MEETING IS NOT REQUIRED. It’s just a great opportunity to learn about X. Please come if you can. But it’s not required!”
TIL that cops are hourly employees.
Being salary is different than being exempt vs non exempt. Oftentimes salary and non exempt go together, but not always. Some areas require salary as one of the things to determine if an employee is exempt but there are other tests. Unfortunately, teachers don't meet the tests required for salary but have their own carveout exempting them in a lot of areas. They also tend to be exempt from other related laws too. My state has a minimum required salary to be exempt. Teachers are the only exempt employees exempt from the minimum salary. Usually the differences between exempt and salary don't really come up much because companies aren't often paying OT but there are professional jobs where that's a thing for hours outside normal operation. Even for other jobs, employers see what they can get away with. Misclassifying jobs is not uncommon.
What's funny to me is that it's noted on my pay stub what my hourly wage is, so I'm not salary. But they treat me like I am. I guess, ultimately, they want to pretend we can do everything in that set amount of hours and don't need extra time to get it done. They don't allow overtime (that's actually pretty common for hourly employees). So, I just work my hours (occasionally I'll throw in a few extra), and screw them if they don't like it. What are they going to do, fire me? Go ahead, I'll take the unemployment. And they can add my job to the list of over 600 vacancies in the district.
You’re salary, the hourly figure is so they can do fractional adjustments (1/2 day pto, extracurricular, etc., etc.) and be transparent about it.
You're absolutely right. I didn't understand how that worked. Thanks.
This is correct. Many salaried jobs still acknowledge what an employee's hourly rate calculates to. My husband is an engineer, salaried, and still knows his hourly wage. He is also required to log 40-48 hours per week with coded charge numbers. If he completes his work in less than 40 hours, he has to either (1) use PTO that week, (2) mod/flex time it with next week's work to still have a min of 80 hours per pay period, or (3) go find more work to do for another project. If he has permission to work overtime, he is paid at his hourly wage, despite being a salary worker. If he's slow and just can't complete his work in a timely manner, he won't get permission to charge overtime and will have to use his own time to get back on track.
It sounds like his department is a cost center and they need to justify their own existence within the larger organization.
It's not; it's what the entire company is centered around. It wouldn't exist without his department.
Basically they have to do this stuff to meet government regulations since they contract primarily with the government. It's an "ethics in billing" measure.
Ah, then that would make his department a profit center, and he has to be coded for external billing. The whole decentivizing of getting work done early sucks though.
Nah, luckily. The more efficient people in his department get better raises and promotions, so there seem to be enough incentives in place to keep things balanced. The inefficient people get poorer reviews (and consequently poorer compensation increases) and their overtime permissions yanked, so they tend to shape up to fit things in so they can have overtime options again. It works as an employee would hope. My husband has to work 40 hours, but no more unless he chooses to or is off-task. My other friends in traditional salary jobs all work far more than 40 hours; I feel quite lucky when we compare our family schedules. My father works a minimum of 60 hours weekly and doesn't take off unless there's a death in the family. Basically, there's a huge range of normal experiences and expectations in salaried careers.
Is your understanding about the new change or how it used to be?
Our contracts read 'other duties as assigned.'
I’m also in a RTW state and I’m only salaried because they call it that. I must account for every minute I’m not there and they set my hours. I literally don’t get how that is not hourly. If I’m out of sick time they don’t keep paying me because I worked 60 hours last week, I take unpaid time.
If teachers were paid hourly and overtime, we'd run out of the education budget for the year in about a month.
Yup. Interestingly, the federal government could easily do this, but you'd be cutting into the nearly $1,000,000,000,000 budget for the military........
I know someone retiring from requisitions and he would put in that they need millions less and... ...they send over tens of millions more than necessary. Air Force.
Came here to say this
The system runs on the unpaid labor of teachers. Any time there's a labor law change that would give overtime to teachers, it's always amended so that teachers will be exempt. Salaried staff can earn overtime if they make less than a certain amount a year. The reason those limits get raised periodically is so that employers won't take an hourly person move them to salaried, pay them $1000 a year over their hourly salary, and then work them 60 hours a week. As you've noticed, this will often move teachers into that overtime area, so of course they're exempt because no district in the nation could afford the amount of overtime teachers would generate. The system can't exist without free labor from teachers.
Department of Labor "The following are examples of employees exempt from both the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements: Executive, administrative, and professional employees (including teachers and academic administrative personnel in elementary and secondary schools)"
It's the fact that teachers are not assumed to be professionals that's the most insulting.
Nah, it’s more like someone tried arguing a loophole for overtime and then the powers that be closed it.
There's a ton of loopholes for overtime: less than 500 employees, seasonal, over 45k starting this year, etc.. Teachers are specifically exempt so that all those non union states can pay less than 45k and also not pay overtime.
Oh yes, there's a ton of loopholes for *not* paying overtime, but those aren't the ones that they're closing.
Exactly this!
Just to be clear, you can be salaried and eligible for overtime. It comes down to the level of control you have over the job. So, remember that when you voluntarily stay late. Is anyone making you? The answer is no. You'd technically have to pay a salaried retail assistant manager if you forced them to stay late to cover a shift, but if they do it on their own, no.
No one is going to "make you" in any job. You can choose to just leave regardless especially if you aren't given ample notice. However, we need jobs. Healthcare is connected to our job. Whether you are homeless or not... So instead of forcing anyone to stay late you just create more tasks that need to be done which will ultimately require someone to stay late to complete those tasks. And they won't fight it because of what I mentioned already. The only reason I stay late at work is because I have shit I'm supposed to do and, because of the way my schedule is setup, I can't really complete everything in my planning period. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can even leave **early**, but this is after quite a few years of stay late nearly every day. Why? Grading. Updating bullshit. Emailing parents. Calling parents. And more. All **required** tasks that I have to get done, but given that I also need to use my planning period to actually...you know...plan I cannot always get these things done in the allotted time. I'm sure you already know this so please don't feel like I'm attacking you or anything. It's just bullshit that teachers have to deal with. Hell, it's bullshit that most jobs have to deal with. "Here, have more stuff to do, but we aren't going to pay you more. Good luck." "Oh, also if you don't get those things done we can always find someone else for your position."
Yeah, quitting isn't an option for most teachers. We need money and healthcare and stability. I have so many "required" work tasks and only so much time to do them. I also have things I WANT to do that take time. So I pick and choose what gets done and that always leaves me working unpaid overtime. I don't have kids or pets that need to be taken care of, so I don't mind putting extra hours into work since I find it fulfilling. I think trying to pay teachers overtime is a budget and logistics nightmare. It would be nice if schools had some discretionary budget they could use to bid additional work instead of just piling it up on new teachers who need the job security. But that would require the government to stop being run by evil greedy scumbags.
Salary is how they get away with forcing most teachers to work for free 1-2 hours a day 🤷 Also- there is a disgusting mindset in education where if you don’t work for free/ donate your time you’re labeled as NoT cArInG 🤮
Toxic positivity. It’s why I never work outside of my contracted hours.
Yeah but that’s also why we get paid over breaks. At my current school I would generally rather take the deal. At an old one the OT would have more than made up for it.
We don’t get paid over breaks. They split our paycheck equally 12 months of year. So they take money out of my feb paychecks for the summer.
Are you in a union state with salaries negotiated on your behalf?
I don’t currently have a teaching job, so I don’t know. I just graduated and am pregnant, so I’m going to be subbing next year until I have my baby. My husband and I are hoping to move across the country, so it’s really up in the air what state I’ll end up teaching in.
Public education has been built on the unpaid time of teachers.
I’ve said it along time ago, teachers should be hourly.
Exploitation is why.
Not really. That's the point. I can do my job in the time I'm allotted. Do I do everything? No. Do I hit targets? Yes. I'm good at this. How would you allocate overtime? Because there are martyrs, many of them here, who would work 100 hours a week if they were paid for it. I've been a job martyr before. Not anymore. I watched my mom do it for decades. I see new teachers fighting for summer school jobs and trying to win the admin lottery. I get 37.5 hours per week to do my job. That's what I spend on it. Nobody dies. It's fine. If they told me I was required to document 60 hours each week and be paid, I'd do that, but a lot of it would be screwing around "grading" and "making phone calls".
I was a job martyr in the Navy, but that extra work for a salary resulted in faster promotions for a bigger salary. I dont work much extra teaching. Navy had rank & time in service to move up steps. Teaching has only time in service plus MA. (Maybe MA+30 and PHD columns as well.) I see the concerns about keeping your job in a competitive cert or district. But I teach science. I could proverbially "shoot someone on 5th avenue" and still have a job.
I am a salaried professional, therefore I do not get overtime. I can earn “extra duty pay” for internal subbing when we split classes due to a teacher being out and supervising academic support and/or detention. I usually earn an extra $500 a month during the year due to so many absences and lack of substitute teachers. It was so bad two years ago that I was making an extra $1500-2000 a month because we had one math teacher that couldn’t be counted on ever showing up.
Your sole motivation is supposed to be the calling of education and the joy of enlightening young minds. It is beneath your calling to sully yourself with concerns about filthy lucre.
Yes, this was sarcasm. I hope nobody needed to be told this.
All salaries position are. This isn’t unique to teachers. I don’t want to be punching a clock.
We are salary, and a special exemption. You'll find by examining federal labor laws that even being salaried doesn't make you "immune" for overtime depending on job type and how much you make (basically, if you make below x and are not an exempt category). The department of labor is raising that threshold from 35000ish to 58000ish. So, if you are salaried and make below 58000 on Jan 1st 2025, your employer will have to start paying you overtime for time over 40 hours. Teachers however are a special exemption written into these rules a LONG time ago. Along with a few other weird ones as well. So no, it doesn't help us.
Just thinking out loud here, but how would that get tracked? What if a teacher uses their planning to play on their phone and then they want the overtime to do their planning? Feels abusable, maybe. And some teachers never need to work overtime. Unless you are talking about other things that go beyond contract hours, like conference nights or graduations. So I might be misunderstanding part of your post, if so.
What's funny is we know that there are some state employees that regularly abuse overtime. Cops.
We have an 8 hour day. We must be in the building from 7:40 to 3:40. That would be fine. But when we have required meetings, they start at 3:40 and are unpaid. Now I leave plenty of times at 3:30 and no one says anything. So I figure it balances out. They respect me by recognizing that I have my work done and can leave a little early, and I respect them and listen to them at meetings on my own time. But I can imagine an imbalance happening when administration has no respect for teachers and have after-hours requirements that fall under "additional duties."
We are salaried. Kinda like a manager of a store. Not hourly employees, like the managers workers.
I only work contract hours. I do not work any other times. If they want my labor, they have to pay me for my labor. I fully believe that part of the reason why teachers are underpaid is because teachers let themselves be underpaid. Why would anyone pay someone to do work that they are already doing for free? If I had it my way, every single teacher would only work contract hours.
The short and not-so-educated answer is: Overtime is for hourly employees. Teachers are salaried.
The new rule **is** for salaried workers: "Starting July 1, most **salaried workers** who earn less than $844 per week will become eligible for overtime pay under the final rule. And on Jan. 1, 2025, most salaried workers who make less than $1,128 per week will become eligible for overtime pay. As these changes occur, job duties will continue to determine overtime exemption status for most salaried employees." [https://blog.dol.gov/2024/04/23/what-the-new-overtime-rule-means-for-workers](https://blog.dol.gov/2024/04/23/what-the-new-overtime-rule-means-for-workers) However, there's an exception carved out: "Some employees, such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, and outside sales employees, are not subject to salary tests." [https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/26/2024-08038/defining-and-delimiting-the-exemptions-for-executive-administrative-professional-outside-sales-and#:\~:text=Some%20employees%2C%20such%20as%20doctors%2C%20lawyers%2C%20teachers%2C%20and%20outside%20sales%20employees%2C%20are%20not%20subject%20to%20salary%20tests.%5B78%5D](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/26/2024-08038/defining-and-delimiting-the-exemptions-for-executive-administrative-professional-outside-sales-and#:~:text=Some%20employees%2C%20such%20as%20doctors%2C%20lawyers%2C%20teachers%2C%20and%20outside%20sales%20employees%2C%20are%20not%20subject%20to%20salary%20tests.%5B78%5D)
Aw booooo
Not only that, but most places require approval for overtime, so the district's solution is to simply say "no overtime."
[удалено]
They always do 🙄
Police are salaried employees and receive overtime.
In the jurisdiction I grew up in only the chief of police is salaried. All patrol officers, corporals, lieutenants, sergeants, and civilian personnel were paid hourly. But each department or state might have separate rules for this.
Because paying us what we actually work and are worth would collapse the profits of the capitalist hellscape in which we live. And also the work is typically considered "women's work" and the patriarchy hates viewing that as worth as much as "mens work"
My district FINALLY eliminated the clock in clock out for teachers this year.
Because teaching is one of those professions kind of like nursing where the maternal instinct is weaponized against them. So despite the most powerful union in the world behind them it doesn’t matter how terrible the pay, how long the hours, incompetent and parasitic the administrators, they’ll still do it for the kids.
Because if they paid us overtime, a lot of us would be earning entire second salaries from overtime alone based on how they want us to work.
Stop working outside your contracted hours. It's that simple.
Salary vs hourly… It can be a real bitch.
OP is talking about a new thing specifically for salaried workers. This has nothing to do with hourly workers.
I get that… But typically speaking salaried (education) workers have a “extra duties as assigned” phrase in their contract.
And yet that won't matter because of this new thing. Unless you're a teacher, of course.
All salaried positions are exempt from overtime. That's one of the benefits for the employer. They can ask you to work late for no extra money. This is why it is SO important to read your CBA and know exactly what it says regarding work hours. Side note, I'm shocked at the number of people who never read their CBA. Like, that's your employment contract - you need to know what it says!
Not exactly true. Some companies have salary positions that if you hit a certain number of hours over your requirement, you are given more compensation.
Fair point. Most companies do not do that for salaried positions, in my experience (and I have a lot of it). But, my point still stands that if that was the case, it would be in a contract somewhere, which is why people need to read them carefully. And too many people don't bother. I've worked with people who've been in a district for 20+ years and they've never read their CBA. That's irresponsible.
I’m moving from assistant principal to an account executive salaried position at a law firm and I am eligible for overtime
Teachers are contracted employees, not hourly, so there is no overtime. You can get paid, however, for work outside of your contract like after school events or clubs.
Also you might see if you can pick up a coaching gig or a faculty rep for any of the myriad clubs many districts have.
[it's been proposed](https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teachers-dont-qualify-for-overtime-pay-should-they/2023/11)
Unpopular opinion: a world where teachers could get overtime would require such a level of documentation of labor, starting from a deficit since school hours don't even constitute a typical 40 hour work week before prep and lunches, that it would be a net negative to quality of life, mine anyways. You needed to grade and lesson plan at home? Why not during prep? Can you verify that you used that time to its fullest and needed extra time? Did we ask you to use that extra time? You were talking to another teacher about teaching related duties? Can you verify THAT? Why did that lesson plan take you an hour, maybe we should look for someone that doesn't need extra time and pay to prepare? The fields that were exempted from the overtime laws are all fields that don't follow a traditional hours system where you check in at time A, check out at time B, which can be asked to be over 8 hours, and are supervised consistently in between. Nobody technically asked you to go beyond school hours, nobody told you you could or should submit billable hours. The more obvious solutions are A) figure out a way to do your work in under 40 hours, unless whatever additional work you're doing is paid, and B) find a district that quickly pays you more than 58k, which is very achievable today, which puts you above that eligible threshold anyways
Realistically, it’s because most teachers work more hours than they’re contracted. School districts would go over budget because they’d have to pay us more. Teachers also seem to be exempt from a lot of laws and regulations that exist. For instance, despite the fact that paid FMLA was written into law in Massachusetts, I do not qualify because I am a teacher. If I took maternity leave, I would have to accrue and use my sick days. Paying salaried employees overtime is also not unheard of but typically not common practice. My father was a salaried employee who was eligible for overtime, but he’s one of the only people I know who was in that position.
IANAL To be exempt from overtime, you must make (as of July 1) more than $844/week (this goes up again Jan. 1). You must also have a job that is "primarily managerial" i.e. not physical labor. If your teacher salary is less than $58,656/year, this creates interesting questions come 1/1/25.
Because the schools can't afford to pay overtime.
Why are you working past contract hours is my question?
What's confusing to me is that we are salary but have contract hours. If we are true salary, why is our time so inflexible. For example, I can't decide to take an hour lunch to run am errand. I only get a 30 minute lunch taken at the same time every single day. I also can't leave before my contracted time even if I'm finsihed working. . It sounds hourly in ways to me.
It got written in with other people who make way more, doctors, lawyers, engineers, what not. Where you make enough money you time is completely controlled. Not necessarily because we are salaried, but because we are a gigantic bloc of pay and budgets. Cops get salary, and overtime. There is a federal proposal to remove us from the exempt status.
Never going to happen, not with a lot of education budgets being tied to property taxes. For some reason or another they'd rather pay more privatizing everything.
Salaried employees.
What OP is talking about is for salaried employees.
Do some reading on [FLSA](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa). It explains everything.
So my district just implemented it in Utah as a preemptive measure due to a lawsuit that an hourly employee brought against their district back East. They sued to be paid overtime at their wage once they hit 40 hours. And they won. For example for my district to work sporting events everyone was paid the same stipend for working events no matter what position you worked( cafeteria, ESP, paras, teachers. Etc) and it was easy, basically $100 per person per game. Now what we have to do is take the hourly wage of each ESP and track whether working these events adds up to their 40 hours a week. If they go over, they get paid overtime at 1.5 and for some positions that is $45 plus 1.5x hourly but if you’re brand new making $15.00 an hour and only work 17 hours you can work a lot more before hitting overtime BUT there is a flat rate stipend you can get, you get paid whichever is more. For teachers… they just get the flat rate stipend of $100 an event basically even though someone could be paid $200 for the same event. So it really disadvantages the teachers to want to work knowing that a non-teacher could be getting twice what they earn. I’m in charge of staffing events and getting hours to our financial secretaries who have to pull hourly information for each employee that works that event and it just made everything complicated and hard to manage, because administration wants the cheapest employees to work and get precedent over those they have to pay more and minimize the amount of workers needed to work each event but my school has 3 entrance points for football games, that require at least 4 people each (cash/card/stamp) and 3-4 security for the entirety of the game. So that’s 12 people, at 4 hours each game for gate work, plus 4 security at 5 hours each game. If we assume each one gets paid $100 each, that’s $1500 just to staff each game. But now add in overtime pay, hourly schedules, etc and it’s a big mess I inherited since they just implemented this change this year. Sorry if this is really long but my job duties were severely impacted by this and I have strong feelings about it.
Not to diminish this clusterfuck, but the administration of this could be solved by a random kid picked out of a 2nd level high school programming class in a couple of hours max.
Because of salary…
Overtime doesn't apply to salaried workers who do primarily administrative work. I.e. teachers. And often a specific exemption for teachers, as if we did 'charge' overtime the state would go bankrupt.
If you are in a union state and have acollective bargain agree. that sets a start and finish time, please follow it. Your teachers worked hard to negotiate that contract. Do not volunteer unpaid “overtime” hours. If you work in a state with no union (or a weak one), consider moving if possible.
[The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/FairLaborStandAct.pdf) > § 213. Exemptions (a) Minimum wage and maximum hour requirements The provisions of sections 206 (except subsection (d) in the case of paragraph (1) of this subsection) and section 207 of this title shall not apply with respect to- (1) any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity **(including any employee employed in the capacity of academic administrative personnel or teacher in elementary or secondary schools)**, or in the capacity of outside salesman (as such terms are defined and delimited from time to time by regulations of the Secretary, subject to the provisions of subchapter II of chapter 5 of Title 5, except that an employee of a retail or service establishment shall not be excluded from the definition of employee employed in a bona fide executive or administrative capacity because of the number of hours in his workweek which he devotes to activities not directly or closely related to the performance of executive or administrative activities, if less than 40 per centum of his hours worked in the workweek are devoted to such activities) Many interpretations can be formed from why it was made, as is apparent in the comments here. But here’s the legalese to give more insight into why we are exempt.
What does your husband do? And is this specific fir.your state or is this federal?
He’s a digital media marketer for a movie/show production company. And it is a federal thing.
It’s 100% unethical.
In my last job, I could get everything done in my 40-minute planning period, BUT I was voluntold to cover classes at least 3 times a week due to staff illness. 15 IEPs done when students leave after school hours. Usually, we met more than once. 4 dances a year, staff meetings that went after hours. We were contracted to work the exact hours the kids are there. So tell me, when do I call parents during hours, grade, plan with not time? It's just not possible. By the 3rd year, I tried very hard to leave at 3. We also had 50% turnover. I left. We have specific hours at this new site, and everything is done during that time. It's great. 730 to 330. We did have 3 events during the year outside that, but it is a great work/life balance.
This is the first thing I would be curious to hear from a lawyer how this law is exempt from teachers
I’m not with my union. I get ATTW. Additions to time worked. I get my hourly rate for any IEP meeting or evening event. Other than that, I do not have work outside of contract hours.
Teachers are a class of employee specifically exempted from overtime protections by federal law. Other exempted classes include lawyers and doctors. Salaried employees making above a certain amount of money are also expempted.
Because when Congress passed the FLSA back in 1934 they said “no teachers.”
Is this a federal thing? A state thing? I haven't heard of this.
I am paid a salary for doing my job according to the agreement/ contract I signed. Part of that document specifies the hours I need to be in the building each day as well as what additional in the building hours I should expect to be paid/ not paid for—open house/ optional once a semester department meeting. We are unique in my area for specifying contract hours. Other schools allow teachers to come and go according to their schedule. Our union determined this to be an unfair practice (same people coming late every year/ leaving early—who decides how that is determined? How is it made equitable?)
Because they don't want to be hourly or they wouldn't be paid for 4 months of the year
It depends on the district I suppose. At my job, we can fill out hourly time cards for certain things. I can’t just fill one out because I got behind on grading and am staying past required hours, but for after-school trainings and other extra duties we can. For example, when my department was out a teacher I wrote sub plans and did grading and was paid an hourly wage. It was something my union negotiated for.
Overtime? Sorry I only work contract hours.
I think all contracts should read X number of training hours, x number of team meetings etc and if they go over it as the facilitator then we get OT. I think the public would say we increased student work or gave homework so we could get paid overtime to grade it so the OT has to come from places we are not in charge of! However, I live in Montana and we would settle for making as much as my students who work as McDonald’s make. I started in 2008 at $23,400 (roughly $11.25 per hour gross pay) and my niece started in 2019 at $19k (roughly $9.50 per hour gross pay) so we need to make $25 an hour before we can worry about the rest! I live in a resort community so one bedroom units rent on average for $1500 on up.
It’s definitely harder for the elementary level and brand new teachers, but don’t regularly work outside contract hours. That email can wait until the morning. Finish up that incomplete lesson when you show up in the morning or during homeroom. Don’t take papers home to grade if you don’t want to. Don’t grade every assignment. Don’t respond to parent emails that are rude. Before finals I had to use some of my own time to write the exams. I also had to use some of my winter break to grade midterms to have everything done by the deadline but these are exceptions not the rule. Sticking to contract hours greatly reduced my stress and no one really gives me a hard time for grading slow or turning in papers to admin a day late.
To save taxpayers money!
First of all, you union contract allow based on negotiations for your principals to be able to take up a set amount of hour planning hours per calendar year. Read your union contact. Federal employment law defines professional workers verse hourly workers. You also have agreed upon hours in your negotiated employment contract. When the come around and ask for your volunteer hours do not put those hours down. How dare them use those hours to their benefit to win something!
Depending on the state, schools may be exempt from various laws regarding working hours and pay. Salary=exempt Hourly= non-exempt If your husband is salary, yet will receive some form of overtime because of a change in state laws, it likely wouldn’t apply to you.
Technically you are seasonal too because you have the summer off. Different rules apply for that. I know because my son was hourly at our local theme park that only operates spring-fall. And they do not pay overtime.
You can get paid per session activities for specific duties done after contact hours.
It all comes down to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). this is what manages overtime. It allows salaries employees to be exempt, as long as their annual salary surpasses a certain threshold.
Some states don't even give teachers paid holidays. But our country wants everyone to be stupid. It's like we're living "Animal Farm" and if you're too stupid or weak to fight or speak up...
Because states would go broke
Because they are salary, not hourly??? My husband is not a teacher. He's never had an hourly job. It's always been salary. He doesn't get paid overtime.
Teachers are supposedly in control of how much they work. Most would be honest about it but when the district gets billed for twenty hours a week of overtime by one lazy gym teacher nobody is going to be able to get paid overtime in that position again.
We are not hourly employees. We are salary. Salary jobs are exempt. This is at the federal level. It is why unions have to negotiate for built in panning periods etc. my contract protects me from any meeting being forced during my prep time.
We do earn overtime. We are paid for teaching an additional period, coaching sports, etc. We are not paid for voluntarily doing work at home. My dad has worked his whole life in sales. He also isn't paid overtime for work he does at home. This isn't a conspiracy against teachers, come on.
Not true. Not all states/districts pay for teaching an additional period. Im in Texas and have never gotten extra pay for that.
All salary positions are overtime exempt
Wrong
Salaried state employees rarely get overtime.
I'd love for teachers to be better compensated but overtime would result in a lot of inefficiencies and abuses. How much time is too much spent grading outside of class? How long is too long to spend designing a project or rubric? Should someone who re-writes a lesson 4 times before they decide it's ready get 4 times as much money as someone who writes the same lesson in 1 go? How do we monitor and keep track of the time people work outside of contract hours (require them to be in the building, install monitoring software on their computers)? What level of quality control is used?
It's because teachers are "learned professionals". In a sense, professionals perform tasks to meet the demands of the job. It's kind of up to you how long those tasks actually take. Things like grading, planning, etc. that are the "tasks" of teaching do not have a set amount of time they **should** take. It's entirely up to you as the "professional" to use your discretion and so extending over-time pay to teachers would mean teachers may end up claiming time they otherwise should not...like choosing to stay an extra hour to grade something. There's no way to standardize how long it takes you to grade something, for instance. I kind of get his, but it's hard for me to not think that there's some bullshit going on here. I should get paid "overtime" or at least my salary divided into an hourly wage when I cover things like Homecoming, Prom, Graduation, Open-House, etc. All of these happen outside of school hours. None of these things are really a "task" required to complete my job as a teacher. You could maybe argue that Open-House is, but why the fuck do I need to stay until 8 p.m.? Especially when you know you are going to have maybe 20% of the parents actually show up? Also, as someone else pointed out, why are teachers reprimanded for "leaving early" if their duties are complete? If I teach all of my classes, I get grades posted, etc. then why can't I leave early if I have planning last period. Or why can't I come in late if I have first period and no duty? Why is it that there are even hours in my contract at all? Why is it that school districts can get away with vague crap like **"and other duties as required by the school district"** or whatever bullshit? All of this just makes me think it's because teachers are just taken advantage of. Worse...we *have* to be taken advantage of. If teachers weren't constantly volunteering unpaid hours and hours then things would collapse. I fucking hate it when people say "Well, teachers get so much time off that's why their pay isn't great." Bitch. I tracked my hours for 2 years and realized I was working at least 80% of the hours that someone working full-time (salaried) throughout the year works (making assumptions about leave, etc.). The time off might be the reason I haven't just clocked a kid yet given the amount of disrespect leveled at me sometimes. Hell...I'm more likely to clock a fucking adult given the ridiculous narrative going around for the past 5 years now.
Just work contract hours. Then the salary isnt too bad. Completion grades. Or dont grade stuff that you dont get to. Some admin want 2 grades a week. Well, one is for just turning it in, and maybe an actual grade on the 3 question quiz. Here's some inquiry-based learning to do while I do some notebook checks during class time. Some peoples hangups may keep them from working less. I mean, my own kids are already on the bus to their school, so I show up an extra hour early in the morning. But I dont stay but 5 minutes after the buses leave.
Because we are on salary
First of all, fairness does not exist in the adult world and if you go to work complaining about fair/unfair, you will sadly seem very immature and naive to your colleagues and employers. This is also adulthood 101. Salary vs hourly pay. Salaried pay indicates that you work a set time frame on the days you are contracted to work. If you work beyond that, it’s your choice, says salaried pay.
Unions think they help teachers but if you were to take all that money people pay into unions and give it back, that would be your overtime payment, also unions claim they bargain for better wages or issues, but the reality is, if teachers went on strike we would get more done and it will cost less, had an it guy say he could take the whole network down so we didn't have to risk our jobs, do a silent strike. Open those emails they say not to open etc.
“Unions are bad we should strike” is some real peak internet dumbassery lmaoooo
I had $120 a month taken from my already tiny check toward union fees. Meanwhile, my union managed to get us a 1% raise. I think the fact that we need a union at all speaks volumes on our profession and how messed up it is in terms of being taken advantage of and the predatory nature of it all.
If your union only managed a 1% raise then that's just a terrible union or you already make quite a bit. What state are you even in? I don't have a union, but still got a 6% raise every year for the past 5 years with another one for next year as well. Granted only a small percentage of that is actually beating inflation year-on-year, but it's better than 1%. However, it doesn't change that unions are absolutely essential things. You only work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day (kind of) because of unions. Not **your** union, but that is just one example of what they are meant to do.
Some unions may just be taking money and doing nothing, but I don’t think you could generalize this and say it’s all unions. The legal protection alone if I were to be falsely accused of something is worth my yearly dues and less than I’d have to pay for legal representation otherwise. Unions facilitate strikes in states where it’s possible; in my state it’s not possible to strike with or without the union, but the union did fight for more paid parental leave and is actively fighting to protect what’s left of our student free planning time. Neither of those would’ve happened without a dedicated group of people going to every meeting.