I just saw a thread with people debating teacher’s salaries again.

Are we still doing this? Are we still throwing around this 180 days?

I don’t know one teacher that works 180 days and I know THOUSANDS of teachers. I don’t know one that works 8-3 pm.

Maybe that’s just my network? You can be connected to plenty of orgs and schools and someone will still try to tell me about what educators deserve...

With an anecdote about their Uncle’s cousin’s entrepreneur friend that used to teach.

STOP THIS.

And the educators that tell you...”I take all my days. I take all my summers.”

They dream lessons. They wake up with kids on their minds. They plan without realizing they’re planning.

They get called to professional development WEEKS before school begins.

Professional developments look different at every school. Leaders implement their visions based on need, board directives, survival, and sometimes ego.

I know educators that are painting walls and scrubbing floors during “PD.” I know educators that are internalizing...

Curriculum a mile a minute and are being asked to memorize them. I know educators that are being asked to write instruction from scratch. I know leaders that were told 1 week before school starts that the fire/health/contractor dept. cleared them to be in the building.

I know educators that come in on weekends and walk through neighborhoods knocking on doors, taking to families, attending student church events/football games/dance recitals.

I know educators that haven’t seen their leadership for days and literally running a school ALONE.

I know educators that work on reservations that don’t know what bell ringers or professional developments are.

They know walking each children to school, trying to find kids when the cell towers won’t cooperate. They know preserving histories/language before it’s too late.

I know educators that are trying to navigate communities’ deep distrust of the school because American schools kidnapped their children, asked them to conform, and many times did not send them back home.

Imagine trying to have a parent teacher conference in the same...

...building that erased a family’s elder from their bloodline. Imagine thinking your mandated/scripted history lessons could ever land the way you want them to...when real history is walking through your doors every single day.

Imagine asking for BASIC supplies and being told about “the budget” while watching money spent on things that don’t necessarily better the lives of children.

Imagine having $60 left to your name until payday and stretching it at dollar tree, to support your students.

Imagine a school creating its own “university” and telling you that you are REQUIRED to get additional training through their for-profit adjacent institution, so you could keep the job you’ve BEEN DOING (sometimes damn well) for years.

Imagine them telling you, “It costs $4,000 a semester. We’ll help you with $1,000 of it.”

Imagine them labeling that a scholarship?! Imagine those credentials not having value anywhere else but at their network of schools!!!!!

I could go on for days.

I don’t have to imagine any of this. My educator friends, across the nation, are living this in real time. I was writing instruction for K-12 (13 grades), teaching a 6th grade cohort of 50 students at the same time ELA/history, b/c the school...

...couldn’t bother to replace an educator that left, and developing a chronic illness at the same time.

And I was being paid CRAP to do it.
That’s what it took for me to take a break.

And everyday I get screenshots, emails, calls with voices shaking and in tears...

From people that LOVE WHAT THEY DO. From people that LOVE children.

And are constantly being asked (or mandated) to perform labor that are not properly compensated for.

I run a education company and still have two other jobs, to stay afloat.

Educators across the industry are struggling.

Eat your monoliths.

Got so irritated that I forgot to add this. https://twitter.com/shanavwhite/status/1350509682465632257