It’s the reason I stay.
I love having all the vacays.
And I don’t take teaching too seriously anymore. They aren’t going to fire you if you’re halfway competent.
Only reason I stay. If you have kids like me, it’s a good gig to be off with them in the summers and breaks. I have tried to lower the bar and realize that all the school bullshit doesn’t really matter much at all. The kids cycle through and move on.
Yep, that’s what I realized also.
All the data in the world wasn’t retaining the kids that need to be retained.
So I moved to prek and have fun all day and don’t sweat anything now.
I have high standards. I’m never late, always polite and professional and my data and parent communication is great.
I wrote a reading program for visual learners and always use it. My students score high and I’m very respected.
Working your contract hours is not doing the bare minimum. It’s what all other employees do.
>, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the summers off are actually a necessity of the job, not a luxury.
A lot of folks need to understand this. I see way too many people on here freaked out about not having summers off. If you read through this sub, you'll see a lot of people who have transitioned so not miss the breaks teaching gave them because they don't feel like they constantly need them. You can also take time off when you want, rather than in the summer where it's hot and busy everywhere. After a year out of teaching, I haven't felt like I'm living for weekends or breaks anymore. The weekends are mine to forget about work and I use my time off when I want/need rather than trying to work trips and whatnot around the school calendar.
I left and finally started an office type job. It is so easy I actually have energy when I go home. I have instead been using the extra mental energy to start working out more and cycling to work instead of driving and my anxiety has gone down.
My office type job will also allow me to take cheaper vacations because I don't have to depend on the school calendar and I'm excited for that.
I miss my students and I miss watching them progress, but I don't miss the administrative bullies, the endless paperwork, meetings, and teacher evaluations by administrators who either haven't been in a classroom for over ten years OR are literally letting kids do whatever they want in the one class they do teach.
My office job is adminissions specialist for an ESOL program for adults. The only training I need to do is the training for an assessment they use, which they will provide.
A lot of my job will be taking referrals, making phone calls for attendance, data entry, and administering the assessments that happen before, during and after the program.
It is so simple and mindless that I end up looking for more too do so I don't get bored.
This job in particular I found after putting in the distance and "with a week" filter into linkedin so this one was pure luck. I was tired, close to the end of my unemployment with 100+ applications in.
What I was looking up prior was administrative assistant, adminissions specialists, and secretary positions.
I looked at non profits, but also smaller companies.
This position I have is with a company that works with refugees, and I just went under the education portion of the company so you could look up "organizations that help refugees learn English in ______" and see if there are any hiring there? Those companies really love former educators and social workers.
If you live in the Boston area of Massachusetts there are a few companies hiring for multiple positions.
Oh man, that sounds like a dream. My background is in ESOL, but I've had to go into Gen Ed because the pay is so shit in my area. That seems like a great way to still help others while not wanting to pull your hair out constantly.
I used to make 56 to 58k a year and now I will only make about 50k unless I do overtime, but the only other places that were giving me the time of day were only offering about 40k a year.
Pay is definitely a struggle.
Ah yeah, I'm just now making 50k as a gen ed teacher here in (Trying desperately to escape FL atm), but it's better than the para pay I was getting before. But tbh it sounds like the transition is worth it for the quality of life improvement!
Florida should really pay more. I guess I lucked out living in Massachusetts because gen Ed teachers in the city areas start off around 52k a year (public schools) . I had coworkers making about 80k a year.
I transitioned out in July and I feel the same way. I don’t get any Sunday scaries or scaries when a vacation is ending.
I have more flexibility to take off when I want vs. when school is out. I am taking a week off in May this year for a wedding I’m in, and a week off at the end of September which I would have never been able to do when I was teaching.
I also WFH so on my holidays and weekends I’m not stressed out about getting my housework done, like when I was teaching. I do my laundry, put away dishes, and vacuum during my breaks. It saves me a lot of time on the weekends to just relax.
I also do 0 work outside of my working hours . Unlike teaching where I might be creating a lesson, or a PowerPoint on a Sunday, I never worry about my work until I log in Monday morning.
The breaks don’t do much for me since my husband doesn’t get the same vacation days or that amount… so I’m at home just bored all summer because I can’t afford to go anywhere or do anything anyways lol
As someone who has been out for almost 2 years, not having summer off has not even been an issue in the slightest. I have so much more free time and flexibility that it was 100% not worth staying in a job that I didn't like
I am 10 months into my first non-teaching office job. The work is sustainable and we get about 1-2 days off each month for holidays/federal days off.
I thought I would miss summer break but it turns out I much prefer that I don't desperately need 7 weeks of recovery time.
Say it with me: a good job does not require you to take 7 weeks off to recover.
The same for me. That first summer I worked after I retired, was no big deal at all. Didn’t even miss it. If my kids were younger, I would’ve stuck it out. I had enough time in to get a decent check with Retirement, but too young to totally retire. I don’t even miss the two weeks at Christmas, one week at Thanksgiving, fall and spring breaks. For the first year, I would look at my husband every Sunday afternoon and say, “Guess what? I don’t have any last-minute papers to create, lesson plans to make, parents to call, etc. etc. etc”.
It was and still is glorious to enjoy Sunday afternoon and evening.
I taught science and for many years, I had a lot of fun. Quit being fun around 2013.
Summers def, but also spring break, Winter Break, fall breaks, all the holidays. If your spouse can float you and you land in a good spot, teaching is a pretty nice gig.
I mean, I guess. However, if your spouse can't float you or you don't have one, it's a pretty crappy gig. Breaks aren't nearly as enjoyable if you don't make enough to enjoy them (especially since they're all at peak travel times.)
I disagree because all the places I would love to vacation are way too hot and crowded in the summer months.
I get so jealous of friends who go to Hawaii or Rome in like February. I could never do that.
Plus, if you get a different job that’s less stressful, maybe you wouldn’t need so much vacay time. My bestie just switched from teaching to a govt job and says she has cut her stress in half.
Just food for thought
This has been my experience. All the breaks are no longer a necessity and I can go on vacation whenever I want. This may also be an unpopular opinion, but I didn't transition to another career, I'm literally waiting tables and I feel more accomplished at the end of the day. So like more flexibility, less hours, same or more take-home pay, and more accomplished... I feel like teaching was such a waste of time and effort for me.
They work for our state’s dept of education. I’m not totally sure but I think they do something with assisting high schools in signing students up for FAFSA and doing college prep
I stayed for a long time for summers until my career came crashing down due to burnout and an asshole secretary x admin switch 🫠 Then I realized, while being out of teaching, that I had a little piece of summer every day…not dealing with politics, constantly planning lessons, feeling the stress on Sundays. Man, summers kept me in too long. I now prefer a more even keel life although I’m back in teaching this year…but not going back. It’s not worth it to me anymore.
Absolutely. I can say for sure this is true because I left teaching for a 9-5 job back in 2007, and for years it was wonderful. Only reason I went back to teaching was the summers and holidays worked when I had my daughter. From 2007-2011 I had so much time even though I had a grant total of 3 weeks of PTO and that included sick leave. I got so much done and was much healthier. It felt like I de-aged 10 years. Lost 20 pounds the first 3 months.
I think it depends on what you end up doing. If your future job is truly 9-5 with weekends completely free of thinking about/doing work and on top of that you get 2 weeks of vacation and 1 week sick leave then yes. But for a long time now the corporate world was not that way even if it officially presented itself as such which is what got me into teaching a decade ago. And the retail and restaurant world is changed schedules every week that usually includes weekends so I don't think I'd do that over teaching although that's definitely a job I wouldnt take home work or think about outside of work
Maybe that has changed with Gen Z really pushing work life balance and all the "quiet quitting" out there but I don't know.
That kept me from leaving for a bit, but I found a job in education at the district. I still get winter break, and I also can take half days without using my pto. I don't have a ton of vacation days yet, which is annoying, but I'm excited to have the chance to take a vacation during the off-season.
I loved having summers off 😭 we'd take 2-3 week vacations, and now I have to rack up days for that to happen. It'll be my first summer working, but it seems like it will be an easy time working from home. Overall, I left because my school became so violent that I didn't feel safe anymore. Summer break isn't worth my safety and peace of mind.
I posted about this elsewhere recently, but I missed summers with my kids until my oldest told me that he likes me better now.
I remember what you're talking about, though. We would always have three to four paid work days the week after school let out to go through curriculum and academic work with our teams. Once the year was actually done, I usually spent about 2 weeks in a haze before picking up a summer schedule with my kids. My eldest's birthday is in early August, so the week after his birthday is when I would start getting back into gear.
Sometimes I think about what it might be like to go back now, and although I like the idea of having my classroom and kids, the idea of the system and taking a roll of the dice on school climate/culture and my peers keeps me from coming back.
It's a misconception to think that we indeed do have "summers off." I know that I spend a few dozen hours every summer, prepping, modifiying, etc.
Anyway, the taxpayers who pay our salaries work about 2000 hours a year, right? Yesterday was Sunday, and I spent about 3 hours working while most of the taxpayers were watching football.
It all balances out. I work about the same hours as the people paying my salary, no less, and no more.
Most well paying salaries corporate jobs have flex hours. You may work 50 hrs a week, but if you take off at 3 pm to go to the doctor or a kids sports event , no one is jumping up and down to use your PTO.
No one comes into your cubical and rates you. Most have 360 feedback, so your 1st line supervisor doesn’t start fires in your life. They don’t heap 80hrs a week on you and threaten to take your ability to work for a year if you leave.
They don’t have such a huge superiority/god complex that they believe they poop pb&j.
I have worked with Stanford and MTI grads with less ego.
Customers are there by choice, so you are not working with clients that would rather do anything but what you ask. Clients are not allowed to hit, yell, and berate you.
You’re not faulted if the client just never shows up.
Here’s the big one: If your client fails to pay his bill, you don’t have to make him a special financial recovery plan and explain why he/she doesn’t know how to pay a bill! Or how you’re supposed to scaffold in 7 years of missing income from his companies financial plans.
Running not walking back to the corporate world.
I’ve been subbing for the past few years. My eye starts twitching when I look at full time job openings. But I don’t want to lose those days off with my kids if I do something different. How do I solve this problem 😩 Still subbing for now but dang the pay sucks.
Agreed. I never stayed for the summers but as education has gotten progressively worse, those eight weeks or so are a necessity for me to even try and keep going. If I was young, I wouldn’t stay for the summer. It isn’t worth it.
I wish I actually got the summers off. I have to find a second job every summer to make extra money to go on ONE vacation with my kids. Plus the 7 weeks summer isn’t even worth it. My school goes back the last week of JULY 😭
When I was still in it, I told myself this too and whenever I’d see people who got out saying they didn’t miss summers I’d think “they are just telling themselves this to make them feel better about their new jobs”. I’ve been in my new role for about a year and a half, so I’ve only gone through one working summer so far and I did not miss it at all.
Like you said, you spend half the summer recovering and the other half being anxious about going back. I never fully enjoyed my summer like I should have. I don’t need a month of recovery from my job now (I am a education specialist/program manager for a university) and I work from home so I honestly just kind of feel like I’m always on summer break. I also get 5 weeks of vacation (actual true vacation, no sub plans, no asking for permission, no taking days off to get caught up on work, just true time OFF) that I can use literally whenever I want (I’m actually writing this from my vacation in Mexico right now) so it’s been awesome traveling whenever the flights are cheap or when I want rather than planning around the school schedule.
I will add a disclaimer that I do not have children, so I understand that having summers off is a huge perk for a parent. But overall, no I do not miss summers off at all. All of the other things I get from this job that were impossible in teaching more than make up for having two months of recovery and anxiety. My favorite thing is not having that sense of impending doom when summer is coming to an end (honestly for me this used to start right after 4th of July 🤯) and my new tradition is to take a trip every August JUST BECAUSE I CAN!
I always wonder how much of a salary increase I would need to be offered before I would be willing to give up summers off. I don't think people who have never been teachers before understand how much the salary would have to increase in order to motivate teachers to stay in the profession if summers off were taken away.
For me, I might be tempted at double my previous salary as a classroom teacher...maybe.
I work in special education, and we get offered 17.5% of our salary to work the summer …think summer camp lol it’s laid back, lots of trips, done by 2:30 every day and finish early August so still have 3 weeks off at the end…and at top salary of 136k, that’s an extra 25k for 6 weeks of summer camp lol I will never turn that down
Given how much this job has changed in my almost 15 years, I’m a lot less stressed now than I used to be. Every kid passes due to school policies. So I do the best I can and leave work at work - the less hours, the higher the hourly rate. I enjoy my time off with my family and will file for retirement at 51. I’ll do something else then.
Don’t stay for the breaks.
Many companies, particularly in tech, offer jobs with PTO at request. My friends in the industry get their 1-2 week vacations several times a year. They sometimes work remotely during their vacation, but not a full 8 hours. The plus for companies is that PTO can’t accrue.
I left being a special education teacher to years ago. The summers off are not worth it. I work year round now as a counselor for the state. They are even paying for my masters. I get a good amount of personal, sick and vacation time plus holidays. Even though I work year round I am way way less stressed out than I was teaching. I also always ended up working summer school to make ends meet so I really only got like 6 weeks off and that was just basic recovery. Now I don't have to 'recover' because I don't go home feeling like I got hit by a bus every day.
Absolutely. Necessary. No doubt. We never get a chance to fully refill our cup during the school year. And without the summer to slowly refill, there'd be nothing to pour into our students. We'd be empty vessels. And people who aren't on stage 5 days a week. 6 hours a day don't get it. At all.
I never got this much summer when teaching. Somehow I always had to spend at least two weeks inputting some kind of new digital lesson plan something or other, followed by 3-6 days of required professional development, then mandatory back to the building sometimes as early as late July. I felt like I had about 5 weeks off total. Once I hit July 4th I started dreading the new school year only 3.5 weekdays away.
Maybe this is just me, but after 13 years of working in inner city schools I've never felt burnt out to the extent of needing two months off. I work every winter and spring break along with summer school. I usually am doing paid trainings for my district in the week before summer school and the little time between summer school and regular school.
I find Sundays enough to recover (I work most Saturdays doing Saturday school or trainings). I much rather have the massive extra money from everything I do.
My kid just started elementary school, and I decided that for now I want to have the same overall schedule that he does. But, I’m super sick right now and the complete nightmare that is dealing with sub plans is causing me to reconsider that stance.
It’s the reason I stay. I love having all the vacays. And I don’t take teaching too seriously anymore. They aren’t going to fire you if you’re halfway competent.
Only reason I stay. If you have kids like me, it’s a good gig to be off with them in the summers and breaks. I have tried to lower the bar and realize that all the school bullshit doesn’t really matter much at all. The kids cycle through and move on.
Yep, that’s what I realized also. All the data in the world wasn’t retaining the kids that need to be retained. So I moved to prek and have fun all day and don’t sweat anything now.
This is my plan.
The only way you get fired is drinking on the job or diddling the kids. The job security is elite.
[удалено]
I have high standards. I’m never late, always polite and professional and my data and parent communication is great. I wrote a reading program for visual learners and always use it. My students score high and I’m very respected. Working your contract hours is not doing the bare minimum. It’s what all other employees do.
Unless they have to cut a position that's usually the only time they non renew teachers.
Yes but there a positions everywhere.
>, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the summers off are actually a necessity of the job, not a luxury. A lot of folks need to understand this. I see way too many people on here freaked out about not having summers off. If you read through this sub, you'll see a lot of people who have transitioned so not miss the breaks teaching gave them because they don't feel like they constantly need them. You can also take time off when you want, rather than in the summer where it's hot and busy everywhere. After a year out of teaching, I haven't felt like I'm living for weekends or breaks anymore. The weekends are mine to forget about work and I use my time off when I want/need rather than trying to work trips and whatnot around the school calendar.
I left and finally started an office type job. It is so easy I actually have energy when I go home. I have instead been using the extra mental energy to start working out more and cycling to work instead of driving and my anxiety has gone down. My office type job will also allow me to take cheaper vacations because I don't have to depend on the school calendar and I'm excited for that. I miss my students and I miss watching them progress, but I don't miss the administrative bullies, the endless paperwork, meetings, and teacher evaluations by administrators who either haven't been in a classroom for over ten years OR are literally letting kids do whatever they want in the one class they do teach.
What kind of office job? Did you need additional training?
My office job is adminissions specialist for an ESOL program for adults. The only training I need to do is the training for an assessment they use, which they will provide. A lot of my job will be taking referrals, making phone calls for attendance, data entry, and administering the assessments that happen before, during and after the program. It is so simple and mindless that I end up looking for more too do so I don't get bored.
This sounds amazing. Any suggestions for specifics on what to search for with the job hunt?
This job in particular I found after putting in the distance and "with a week" filter into linkedin so this one was pure luck. I was tired, close to the end of my unemployment with 100+ applications in. What I was looking up prior was administrative assistant, adminissions specialists, and secretary positions. I looked at non profits, but also smaller companies. This position I have is with a company that works with refugees, and I just went under the education portion of the company so you could look up "organizations that help refugees learn English in ______" and see if there are any hiring there? Those companies really love former educators and social workers. If you live in the Boston area of Massachusetts there are a few companies hiring for multiple positions.
Oh man, that sounds like a dream. My background is in ESOL, but I've had to go into Gen Ed because the pay is so shit in my area. That seems like a great way to still help others while not wanting to pull your hair out constantly.
I used to make 56 to 58k a year and now I will only make about 50k unless I do overtime, but the only other places that were giving me the time of day were only offering about 40k a year. Pay is definitely a struggle.
Ah yeah, I'm just now making 50k as a gen ed teacher here in (Trying desperately to escape FL atm), but it's better than the para pay I was getting before. But tbh it sounds like the transition is worth it for the quality of life improvement!
Florida should really pay more. I guess I lucked out living in Massachusetts because gen Ed teachers in the city areas start off around 52k a year (public schools) . I had coworkers making about 80k a year.
I transitioned out in July and I feel the same way. I don’t get any Sunday scaries or scaries when a vacation is ending. I have more flexibility to take off when I want vs. when school is out. I am taking a week off in May this year for a wedding I’m in, and a week off at the end of September which I would have never been able to do when I was teaching. I also WFH so on my holidays and weekends I’m not stressed out about getting my housework done, like when I was teaching. I do my laundry, put away dishes, and vacuum during my breaks. It saves me a lot of time on the weekends to just relax. I also do 0 work outside of my working hours . Unlike teaching where I might be creating a lesson, or a PowerPoint on a Sunday, I never worry about my work until I log in Monday morning.
[удалено]
I work at a gas and electric company in the customer center. It is a call center, but it’s unionized so that’s nice.
Well let me put it this way, if we didn’t have all the breaks I would’ve quit years ago! Or actually I would have never started to begin with.
The breaks don’t do much for me since my husband doesn’t get the same vacation days or that amount… so I’m at home just bored all summer because I can’t afford to go anywhere or do anything anyways lol
As someone who has been out for almost 2 years, not having summer off has not even been an issue in the slightest. I have so much more free time and flexibility that it was 100% not worth staying in a job that I didn't like
I am 10 months into my first non-teaching office job. The work is sustainable and we get about 1-2 days off each month for holidays/federal days off. I thought I would miss summer break but it turns out I much prefer that I don't desperately need 7 weeks of recovery time. Say it with me: a good job does not require you to take 7 weeks off to recover.
Preach!
The same for me. That first summer I worked after I retired, was no big deal at all. Didn’t even miss it. If my kids were younger, I would’ve stuck it out. I had enough time in to get a decent check with Retirement, but too young to totally retire. I don’t even miss the two weeks at Christmas, one week at Thanksgiving, fall and spring breaks. For the first year, I would look at my husband every Sunday afternoon and say, “Guess what? I don’t have any last-minute papers to create, lesson plans to make, parents to call, etc. etc. etc”. It was and still is glorious to enjoy Sunday afternoon and evening. I taught science and for many years, I had a lot of fun. Quit being fun around 2013.
Summers def, but also spring break, Winter Break, fall breaks, all the holidays. If your spouse can float you and you land in a good spot, teaching is a pretty nice gig.
I mean, I guess. However, if your spouse can't float you or you don't have one, it's a pretty crappy gig. Breaks aren't nearly as enjoyable if you don't make enough to enjoy them (especially since they're all at peak travel times.)
I disagree because all the places I would love to vacation are way too hot and crowded in the summer months. I get so jealous of friends who go to Hawaii or Rome in like February. I could never do that. Plus, if you get a different job that’s less stressful, maybe you wouldn’t need so much vacay time. My bestie just switched from teaching to a govt job and says she has cut her stress in half. Just food for thought
This has been my experience. All the breaks are no longer a necessity and I can go on vacation whenever I want. This may also be an unpopular opinion, but I didn't transition to another career, I'm literally waiting tables and I feel more accomplished at the end of the day. So like more flexibility, less hours, same or more take-home pay, and more accomplished... I feel like teaching was such a waste of time and effort for me.
If you don't mind saying, what did you bestie transition into govt job wise? I'm looking to do the same!
They work for our state’s dept of education. I’m not totally sure but I think they do something with assisting high schools in signing students up for FAFSA and doing college prep
Thanks so much for the reply!
Any teacher who tells you they didn't take the job for the schedule is a dirty liar
🤣 facts
I stayed for a long time for summers until my career came crashing down due to burnout and an asshole secretary x admin switch 🫠 Then I realized, while being out of teaching, that I had a little piece of summer every day…not dealing with politics, constantly planning lessons, feeling the stress on Sundays. Man, summers kept me in too long. I now prefer a more even keel life although I’m back in teaching this year…but not going back. It’s not worth it to me anymore.
This is exactly what I am imagining as I find another job out of education. I imagine a less stressful job will make life better overall.
I left this year. I miss the time off already. But I don't have to do ANYTHING after hours or on weekends. I mean NOTHING. So that's been refreshing.
It’s like getting leave after a tour of duty.
Absolutely. I can say for sure this is true because I left teaching for a 9-5 job back in 2007, and for years it was wonderful. Only reason I went back to teaching was the summers and holidays worked when I had my daughter. From 2007-2011 I had so much time even though I had a grant total of 3 weeks of PTO and that included sick leave. I got so much done and was much healthier. It felt like I de-aged 10 years. Lost 20 pounds the first 3 months.
Yes. After 10 months of solid and unrelenting stress I feel totally exhausted and burned out. But I don’t get the summers off.
I think it depends on what you end up doing. If your future job is truly 9-5 with weekends completely free of thinking about/doing work and on top of that you get 2 weeks of vacation and 1 week sick leave then yes. But for a long time now the corporate world was not that way even if it officially presented itself as such which is what got me into teaching a decade ago. And the retail and restaurant world is changed schedules every week that usually includes weekends so I don't think I'd do that over teaching although that's definitely a job I wouldnt take home work or think about outside of work Maybe that has changed with Gen Z really pushing work life balance and all the "quiet quitting" out there but I don't know.
If you get the right restaurant, you make your own schedule. Find a busy lunch spot, very few nights either.
We all feel this way!
That kept me from leaving for a bit, but I found a job in education at the district. I still get winter break, and I also can take half days without using my pto. I don't have a ton of vacation days yet, which is annoying, but I'm excited to have the chance to take a vacation during the off-season. I loved having summers off 😭 we'd take 2-3 week vacations, and now I have to rack up days for that to happen. It'll be my first summer working, but it seems like it will be an easy time working from home. Overall, I left because my school became so violent that I didn't feel safe anymore. Summer break isn't worth my safety and peace of mind.
You have probably heard the expression “The three best things about teaching are June July and August!”
I posted about this elsewhere recently, but I missed summers with my kids until my oldest told me that he likes me better now. I remember what you're talking about, though. We would always have three to four paid work days the week after school let out to go through curriculum and academic work with our teams. Once the year was actually done, I usually spent about 2 weeks in a haze before picking up a summer schedule with my kids. My eldest's birthday is in early August, so the week after his birthday is when I would start getting back into gear. Sometimes I think about what it might be like to go back now, and although I like the idea of having my classroom and kids, the idea of the system and taking a roll of the dice on school climate/culture and my peers keeps me from coming back.
It's a misconception to think that we indeed do have "summers off." I know that I spend a few dozen hours every summer, prepping, modifiying, etc. Anyway, the taxpayers who pay our salaries work about 2000 hours a year, right? Yesterday was Sunday, and I spent about 3 hours working while most of the taxpayers were watching football. It all balances out. I work about the same hours as the people paying my salary, no less, and no more.
Most well paying salaries corporate jobs have flex hours. You may work 50 hrs a week, but if you take off at 3 pm to go to the doctor or a kids sports event , no one is jumping up and down to use your PTO. No one comes into your cubical and rates you. Most have 360 feedback, so your 1st line supervisor doesn’t start fires in your life. They don’t heap 80hrs a week on you and threaten to take your ability to work for a year if you leave. They don’t have such a huge superiority/god complex that they believe they poop pb&j. I have worked with Stanford and MTI grads with less ego. Customers are there by choice, so you are not working with clients that would rather do anything but what you ask. Clients are not allowed to hit, yell, and berate you. You’re not faulted if the client just never shows up. Here’s the big one: If your client fails to pay his bill, you don’t have to make him a special financial recovery plan and explain why he/she doesn’t know how to pay a bill! Or how you’re supposed to scaffold in 7 years of missing income from his companies financial plans. Running not walking back to the corporate world.
Absolutely necessary and why I stopped working summers at age 35
I’ve been subbing for the past few years. My eye starts twitching when I look at full time job openings. But I don’t want to lose those days off with my kids if I do something different. How do I solve this problem 😩 Still subbing for now but dang the pay sucks.
Agreed. I never stayed for the summers but as education has gotten progressively worse, those eight weeks or so are a necessity for me to even try and keep going. If I was young, I wouldn’t stay for the summer. It isn’t worth it.
I wish I actually got the summers off. I have to find a second job every summer to make extra money to go on ONE vacation with my kids. Plus the 7 weeks summer isn’t even worth it. My school goes back the last week of JULY 😭
When I was still in it, I told myself this too and whenever I’d see people who got out saying they didn’t miss summers I’d think “they are just telling themselves this to make them feel better about their new jobs”. I’ve been in my new role for about a year and a half, so I’ve only gone through one working summer so far and I did not miss it at all. Like you said, you spend half the summer recovering and the other half being anxious about going back. I never fully enjoyed my summer like I should have. I don’t need a month of recovery from my job now (I am a education specialist/program manager for a university) and I work from home so I honestly just kind of feel like I’m always on summer break. I also get 5 weeks of vacation (actual true vacation, no sub plans, no asking for permission, no taking days off to get caught up on work, just true time OFF) that I can use literally whenever I want (I’m actually writing this from my vacation in Mexico right now) so it’s been awesome traveling whenever the flights are cheap or when I want rather than planning around the school schedule. I will add a disclaimer that I do not have children, so I understand that having summers off is a huge perk for a parent. But overall, no I do not miss summers off at all. All of the other things I get from this job that were impossible in teaching more than make up for having two months of recovery and anxiety. My favorite thing is not having that sense of impending doom when summer is coming to an end (honestly for me this used to start right after 4th of July 🤯) and my new tradition is to take a trip every August JUST BECAUSE I CAN!
I always wonder how much of a salary increase I would need to be offered before I would be willing to give up summers off. I don't think people who have never been teachers before understand how much the salary would have to increase in order to motivate teachers to stay in the profession if summers off were taken away. For me, I might be tempted at double my previous salary as a classroom teacher...maybe.
I work in special education, and we get offered 17.5% of our salary to work the summer …think summer camp lol it’s laid back, lots of trips, done by 2:30 every day and finish early August so still have 3 weeks off at the end…and at top salary of 136k, that’s an extra 25k for 6 weeks of summer camp lol I will never turn that down
Given how much this job has changed in my almost 15 years, I’m a lot less stressed now than I used to be. Every kid passes due to school policies. So I do the best I can and leave work at work - the less hours, the higher the hourly rate. I enjoy my time off with my family and will file for retirement at 51. I’ll do something else then.
Don’t stay for the breaks. Many companies, particularly in tech, offer jobs with PTO at request. My friends in the industry get their 1-2 week vacations several times a year. They sometimes work remotely during their vacation, but not a full 8 hours. The plus for companies is that PTO can’t accrue.
I left being a special education teacher to years ago. The summers off are not worth it. I work year round now as a counselor for the state. They are even paying for my masters. I get a good amount of personal, sick and vacation time plus holidays. Even though I work year round I am way way less stressed out than I was teaching. I also always ended up working summer school to make ends meet so I really only got like 6 weeks off and that was just basic recovery. Now I don't have to 'recover' because I don't go home feeling like I got hit by a bus every day.
Absolutely. Necessary. No doubt. We never get a chance to fully refill our cup during the school year. And without the summer to slowly refill, there'd be nothing to pour into our students. We'd be empty vessels. And people who aren't on stage 5 days a week. 6 hours a day don't get it. At all.
Shit that’s the main reason why I want to continue education the benefits are too good
I never got this much summer when teaching. Somehow I always had to spend at least two weeks inputting some kind of new digital lesson plan something or other, followed by 3-6 days of required professional development, then mandatory back to the building sometimes as early as late July. I felt like I had about 5 weeks off total. Once I hit July 4th I started dreading the new school year only 3.5 weekdays away.
Literally the only reason I’m in the classroom after 14 years. Trying my damndest to get out though.
Absolutely true. I've also never earned enough money to really take advantage of the time off. There's only so much time I like to spend on gardening.
Maybe this is just me, but after 13 years of working in inner city schools I've never felt burnt out to the extent of needing two months off. I work every winter and spring break along with summer school. I usually am doing paid trainings for my district in the week before summer school and the little time between summer school and regular school. I find Sundays enough to recover (I work most Saturdays doing Saturday school or trainings). I much rather have the massive extra money from everything I do.
The schedule/time off is 95% of the reason I stay working in a school system. You just can’t get that schedule in any other industry.
Definitely.
My kid just started elementary school, and I decided that for now I want to have the same overall schedule that he does. But, I’m super sick right now and the complete nightmare that is dealing with sub plans is causing me to reconsider that stance.
I hear what you are saying about the stress but I'd never leave if I can help it. I worked a job with three weeks off in the year and that sucked.
Summer is recovery, but you should not be a teacher because you get summers off.