School Employees Deserve More

I’ve worked in the field of education since January of 2013 and I’ve worked in a variety of positions within the field. I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in December of 2012 which meant obtaining my degree and teaching license in the middle of the school year. The only real job opportunities available to me were basically substitute teaching positions or paraprofessional positions. I initially opted to become a substitute teacher, one of the most difficult jobs within the profession. It’s time to discuss the low pay association within the field of education and attempt to explain why there is a shortage of teachers, teacher aides and so on.

Starting out, I worked for $85 a day substitute teaching at places like Colerain High School and Mt. Healthy High School. Because of inflation, $85 in 2013 is equivalent to $96.05 in today’s money. As a 23 year old college graduate with a bachelor's degree, it wasn’t great money but I was single and didn’t have any kids or family obligations. I even returned to the grade school I attended from Kindergarten through 8th grade and subbed there sporadically. It was a small, Catholic school associated with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. I received a whopping $65 per day subbing at my former grade school, but it was neat to return there and give back. Again, $65 a day is $73.45 in today’s money and let’s not forget in order to be a daily substitute teacher you must have a bachelor’s degree and you do not receive benefits. This field isn’t for the faint of heart or for someone with major financial obligations. From there, I landed my first job as a bonafide Social Studies teacher at a school called Hillcrest Academy. It’s a year-round private charter school as well as a treatment facility located in Wyoming, Ohio  that caters to minors who are convicted felons. They also serve minors who have failed all possible foster placements, but most were adjudicated minors. All of the kids lived on campus and their typical stay was 9 months until they were released back into society. In a traditional school setting, teachers get summers off, extended breaks during Christmas etc. Those things did not exist at Hillcrest because the students all lived there and most were credit deficient anyway. They needed all the schooling they could get. At the time, I figured this was my big break. They offered me $40,000 ($45,200 in today’s dollars) and I was elated! Until the actual teaching began. Let’s just say it was an extremely chaotic place to work. Hillcrest had previously been run by Hamilton County but in order to save the county money, sometime in the 2000s they outsourced it and a Charter School company began running it. Naturally, Charter Schools are some of the most poorly run educational institutions in our country and that proved to be true during my 12 month tenure at Hillcrest Academy. 

After 12 months of misery, I decided to take a Paraprofessional position at Cincinnati Public Schools just to get my foot in the door. The pay was $15 an hour and it was a major pay-cut, but I was happy to leave a place that probably took a few years off my life. I did all sorts of jobs such as study hall instructor, teaching assistant for an Autism Unit classroom and then eventually working in a Multiple Disabilities classroom. The rest is history: I obtained my Special Education teaching license and still work for CPS teaching students with Autism. I am in a much better place today than any other time in my life, but it was a long and hard road to get here. The good thing about working for a public institutions and being a part of a union is that your salary is public record. The union negotiates your salary for you and everyone’s salary is public knowledge, something that is unheard of in the private sector. This is much more fair and it ensures that women and men, regardless of their race, are all on an equal pay scale. With a masters degree, I currently make  $61,000. It’s a fair wage for what I do but probably still less than what is offered to a person with a masters degree in the private sector. But the paraprofessional (teaching assistant) wage’s still remain mediocre in 2021. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a paraprofessional in Ohio ranges between $14.00-17.00. Paraprofessionals are offered benefits but most school districts still consider them part time employees and only pay them between 30-35 hours per week. In 2015 when I was a paraprofessional, I made $16,673 which is $18,840 in today’s dollars. Most paraprofessionals I’ve met are women and mothers; Imagine trying to live on this salary when you have children and a family to provide for. Sharrod Brown often talks about the dignity of work and the belief that hard work should pay off for everyone, no matter who you are or what kind of work you do. So many times over my career I’ve heard people within the field say things like “you do this for the children more than anything” implying that we don’t become teachers for the money. However, why can’t both things be true? Education professionals can do their jobs advocating for students while also making a livable wage. This isn’t an either-or scenario. There aren’t  any rules that say if you want to work in a field where with children or teenagers you deserve less money than those in the private sector. Schools are the backbone of our society and we all saw what happened when they shut down due to COVID-19. It’s time to put our money where our mouth is.

Across our country, there is a shortage of teachers as well as paraprofessionals. The jobs can be difficult at times but as I’ve said in previous posts, money talks and is a great way for an employer to show their employees they care about them. In order to quell this shortage of educational professionals, it’s time to pay up. Obviously, Ohio public school district’s budgets are all governed by a weird funding formula created by a Republican state legislature. Knowing that teachers and their unions predominantly support Democrats, there hasn’t ever been a huge push to appropriately fund education in Ohio. In actuality, Ohio’s school funding system was deemed unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court. The state legislature continues to drag their feet in providing appropriate funding to the state’s public school districts, so I won’t hold my breath on a change coming soon. Moreover, the school boards are the ones who ultimately approve the salary scales for employees in public schools. It’s time to start holding our elected school board officials accountable and demand school districts begin paying paraprofessionals a higher wage or offer more hours. Paraprofessionals are the ultimate backbone of many schools and they’re the glue that holds public schools together. Everyone deserves a livable wage, despite the work they do. Especially if they’re doing the very important job of molding the minds of our future populace.