I'm the same way, I pretty much start work at 7AM every day doing something somewhere... but I have no set time to be in the office. There are times when I won't set foot in there more than once in a week. As long as you're billing minimum 40 hours a week that's all that really matters and you build a schedule to fit your projects. If I had to work 8 to 6 not moving from my desk like people do in our new design group, I'd probably want to kill myself.
The part that cracks me up is that he makes $90k/year for 180 days of onsite work. So he basically gets $500 a day to show up at school, and he can't manage more than a 70% on time rate? Especially when school really does have a firm start time?And then worst of all... they try to fire him and can't, because of policy and bureaucracy.
I'd love to hear from teachers on this board:
1) How common it is for teachers to make that much money.
2) How common it is for teachers that are deficient at their jobs not to get fired even though they should.
1. First, you would need some clarification on what that $90,000 per year includes. Many districts include every penny spent on the cost of a teacher when they report the teacher's annual salary. That teacher could be making $45,000 per year with the rest going to a pension program, health care costs, the district's share of taxes, the cost of substitute teachers, supplies purchased for an average classroom, busing that teacher's students to school, etc., etc. It's a common practice used to make it look like teachers are over-paid.
2. Unfortunately, it is very common for incompetent teachers to remain in their jobs. However, it is not the process of removing a teacher that is keeping these teachers employed. It is the failure of the local administrators to document the teacher's incompetence that keeps them employed. Firing a teacher is normally as simple as documenting ineffective teaching over a period of two or three years and providing an improvement plan that the teacher fails to complete. Much of the time a firing is based upon a personality clash between the teacher and the administrator. The administrator has given that teacher positive evaluations over a period of years and wants to fire the teacher over a single disagreement. Having failed to document that the teacher was incompetent, the administrator has no evidence to support his or her claim that the teacher is not doing his or her job. In some cases, the administrators manufacture a reason to get rid of the teacher that by-passes the method they should be using.
True Story - A former teaching colleague of mine suffers from migraine headaches. He requested a change in lighting for his classroom because the fluorescent lights brought on his migraine headaches. He also asked for a sign to remind colleagues and students not to wear cologne or perfume into his room. These also trigger migraine headaches. The administration refused to accommodate his request even though they were obligated to under the Americans with Disabilities Act. After several requests were denied, he filed a lawsuit under the ADA. The district was forced to comply. The total costs of the requested accommodations was about $200.
This past summer the district laid off this 27-year veteran teacher by eliminating his full-time technology teaching position. One of the school board members admitted afterward that they had wanted to fire this teacher for a few years (dating back to his lawsuit). Since the teacher in question had 27 years of positive teaching evaluations they could not legally fire him under Michigan law (which requires 3 years of documented ineffective teaching and failure to follow through on a personal improvement plan). Instead, they cut a valuable student program so they could lay-off this teacher. As soon as they would no longer be forced to rehire the teacher they plan to reinstate the technology program. So, in other words, the administration, failing to document ineffective teaching, found a way to usurp the law and get rid of a teacher who had made them look bad through his lawsuit.
