#It'sPersonal

Today roughly 30,000 educators and supporters from across the state gathered in Raleigh to march for school funding, increased pay and 2 other things I can't remember because I am busy lesson planning. 

I was happy to attend with some co-workers to speak up for our kids and ourselves. Here's my posse. Sarah (2nd from right) noted that our signs all reflect our teaching philosophies. Hers features futuristic dystopian novels because she just wants kids to read. Ting's is a combination of a current popular young adult novel and poetry from Tupac. Heather's sign is data-driven, showing statistics of other "average" salaries (we will get to those quotation marks at the end of this post, I promise). And mine is a meme. Nailed it.

Here's my signs. I decorated both sides of my poster board because as you guys know, I have A LOT to say. And I'm sayin' it on a budget. Next time I say we save up for a few months and spring for foam boards.

I loved this sign because mitochondria was my nickname in prison...I was the powerhouse of that cell! And that is an example of the type of comedy you can find in my classroom. I treat my class kind of a stand-up set that my audience legally can't leave.

And that 39th rank is VERY generous. Other statistics cite us as being much lower. I considered making my sign "1st in flight, 49th in education, thank God for Mississippi " but I can't bear getting in another fight with Ohio over the Wright brothers.

Thankfully this doesn't happen at my school but I know other teachers who have to restrict their printing to minuscule numbers. And those are teachers dealing with class sizes that read more like speed limits.

Mark Brody called us thugs, so...

Although I want to point out that this isn't a strike. We can't legally do that in North Carolina without being fired and more importantly, we wouldn't. We take our responsibility to teach very seriously and if my school district hadn't closed today I wouldn't have taken a day off and penalized my students. But I, for one, would LOVE to see the legislature bring in a ton of random scabs to teach your children.

And get this...most teachers have multiple jobs! I have friends who work retail, sell handicrafts, work at summer camps, tutor, and I clean my church when I can for some extra money. I literally scrub toilets to make money.

There were quite a few Ms. Frizzle signs and I loved them all, especially her as Rosie the Riveter. Because WE CAN DO IT! One thing we can't do? Use the bathroom whenever we want. Another rejected sign idea I had was "if funding doesn't change direction, you will pay for my bladder infection" but that was better suited for a chant. Of course today when I had a window to actually try to start a chant I couldn't pass up the opportunity to yell "Janet Reno shot first!" and I regret nothing.

Yeah here's a shocker...teachers get graded a lot. On our test scores. On our classroom management. On our lesson plans. And on five standards set by the department of public instruction. Standard 1 is demonstrating leadership and involves advocating for our students. Is that why we call home when a kid needs extra tutoring? Is that why we contact a social worker when a kid needs glasses? Is that why we stay after school for parent conferences when

For inquiring minds (who have likely had their creativity encouraged by a teacher) there is a very informative article on WRAL that explains how the "average teacher pay" in North Carolina is calculated. The short version? That figure includes many extra duty pays (like coaching) that the general public would consider a second job. Another outlier? ROTC teachers who are compensated by the military to make their pay equal to what their military career would afford them...to the tune of $100,000 or more that the state of North Carolina takes credit for.

Despite North Carolina's average teacher pay being reported as $51,214, not a single educator I talked to today makes over $50,000. What if we reported our test scores using the same made up mathematics that NCDPI uses to calculate "average" teacher pay?

People in other professions are often quick to roll their eyes at teachers' requests for higher pay but let's reflect. This is a job with virtually no upwards mobility and I cannot stress this enough, VERY FEW BATHROOM BREAKS. Vast amounts of overtime are required but almost never financially (or otherwise) compensated. If you had a toddler and found a daycare that bragged about having low costs because they didn't pay their workers very much, would you want to leave your child there? I doubt it.

I'm not saying that teaching is the hardest job in the world but that it is different in nature from most other occupations. For the last few years I have been wondering why doctors and mechanics offer me appointments in the middle of the day until recently when I realized...oh, if you aren't a teacher you can just leave the office to go to an appointment. If I miss a day of work, it takes hours of planning and $50 of my paycheck. And one more thing...we do not get 2 months off. We get 2 months of forced unemployment but do 12 months of work in 10 months time. Summers are  nice, don't get me wrong. A nice break to go to a second job for most teachers I know.

Whether you believe in public schools or not, they are the future. They teach your children how to work with diverse populations, use critical thinking and problem solving skills and implement 21st century technology to collaborate with others outside of the Fortnite battlefield.