Should K-12 School Teachers Be Required to Work During the Summer?

I live in the state of Michigan. I also live in one of the most overpaid school districts in the entire country filled with racism (African Americans are not hired). The school district where I live is known as the East China School District, because it is based in East China Township – a geographic area supporting both Marine City schools and St. Clair schools. A teacher with a bachelor’s degree will earn over $70,000 per year, and receive an automatic increase in pay when a master’s degree is earned!

But is it really fair for a high school gym teacher with a bachelor’s degree working only about 50% of the days of the year to be paid $30,000 more per year than a General Motors engineer with a master’s degree working the entire year? I say this is absolutely not fair at all! I realize there is nothing that can be done about Christmas vacation, Thanksgiving vacation, and several other holidays. However, the incredibly long three months of summer vacation stands out from the crowd.

I believe high school teachers, middle school teachers, and elementary school teachers should be required to work during the summer in order to earn their salary. It is unbelievable the way teachers are paid over $70,000 per year in the school district I live in, and then will go apply for a job as a coach or as a summer school teacher in another school district during the summer. This helps these overpaid teachers receive even higher rates of pay than ever.

Other teachers with a bachelor’s degree use their first several years of summer vacation as time to enroll in summer semester college classes in order to work towards a master’s degree in education. The instant a master’s degree is attained, the rate of pay shoots up by a large percentage. Once a teacher has earned a master’s degree, the teacher has free time in the summer again. If the teacher decides to teach summer school classes, it means cheating someone else out of a job and earning even more money.

What I believe is that high school teachers, middle school teachers, and elementary school teachers should be required to work during the summer! Rather than hiring “new” summer school teachers, school districts could easily reduce expenses by making sure their existing employees simply do their job – teach, during the summer that represents 25% of the year these teachers are paid for!

In all probability, no school district will need that many summer school teachers. But I believe these teachers should still be required to work during the summer, since they are being paid. Even if the teachers are told to do basic things such as street patrol in order to help reduce crime, at least it would represent some form of productive action. Paying teachers three months of wages to do absolutely nothing during the summer is not a good idea and has helped put school districts into debt.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Do you believe it’s fair for teachers to be paid three months of wages, even though they essentially aren’t doing their job? Some schools offer brief training programs during the summer, but what about when those programs are over? And couldn’t those training updates take place during the long Christmas vacation the teachers are paid for? When you add up the summer vacation, weekends, and the other vacations, K-12 teachers only work about half the days of the year. Is this fair?