To the editor:
In response to Holly Kaye’s letter: Class Room Comparison—12 Years Ago to Now, dated July 8, 2014.
According to the numbers in your letter, Holly, you are in the classroom five hours a day, for 20 days in the month, for an hourly wage of $25/hr (thus the 85 cents/kid/hr, in a class of 30 kids).
What you are omitting is the fact that you are teaching for barely eight months in the year—three months of summer, Christmas and spring break school holidays, plus one to two weeks at the end of June, the first week in September, and two weeks of Professional Development days and other statutory holidays not already counted.
In addition, one full day every week for several weeks going to ski hills for the kids to learn to snowboard, taught by ski instructors.
The average annual salary for a teacher in B.C. for 14 years experience is close to $70,000. If you divide that salary by 20 days by 8 months by 5 hr/day, you get $87.50/hour, 3.5 times more than what you said.
Not very shabby!
And a lot of holidays that no one else comes close to.
Is it any wonder that there are three university grads lined up for every teaching position in B.C.?
Adrian Lewis
