State wide the average teacher in NJ makes $68,000. Before anyone comments they pay on average 25% of the cost of health care and contribute 7.5% of their salary to the pension.
They also pay into social security.
We live in northern NJ and I WISH my H, going into his tenth year, made anything like that (well south of the average, still.)
1-2 minutes late? Get up 3 minutes earlier and you will always be on time. No brainer. If the rule is to be at school by 8:00, be there by 8:00. Why would he expect anyone to accept “eating breakfast” as an excuse?
Someone who is chronically 1-2 minutes late has:
decided that is ok (and at many jobs that is)
doesn’t care that his bosses say it’s not ok
thinks that it takes XX minutes to get to work, and doesn’t allow a few minutes for any mishaps.
knows that he could be on time if he left a few minutes earlier, but chooses not to.
Did the guy finally lose his job? Sure hope so!
He’s on a one semester unpaid leave.
Maybe he should get up 5 or 10 minutes earlier…
I’ve never understood chronically late people. There were parents who always dropped their kid off at school just as the late bell rang…I often wondered why they didn’t get up a few minutes earlier…
But, yes, it sounds like he was late for his official report time, not actual class time. Don’t understand why they let it go on that long without a warning. (Or maybe he was warned and just refused to do anything about it)…Does seem like there is more to this story.
Couldn’t he just compensate on the other end of the day, staying 2 minutes later? As long as he isn’t late for class starting, I guess I can’t see the big deal. I know some districts are more strict than others, I’m sure at my kids school district no one would be the wiser. Possibly even if he WAS 2 minutes late to class every day.
Yes, he could compensate by staying later, and he probably does. That’s why I think there’s more to the story. They are trying to get rid of him, and they thought this was their ticket.
@FlyMeToTheMoon good point. Perhaps his laissez-faire attitude applies to more things than being on time.
This story reminded me of this: http://www.barrylou.com/lyricsIDontWanna.html
In our district (California), our contractual day began 30 minutes before the students were due to arrive. You had to be there ½ hour before the students arrived and many times, we had 2 minute meetings at that time.
Around here, it’s a laborious process to fire a teacher and most administrators don’t want the extra headache. So this NJ district might have thought that his 111 late arrivals might expedite the process, but the arbitrator was having none of it. I’m also not sure that he was only 1-2 minutes late, since those are the teacher’s words. It might really have been 5-10 minutes.
@movemetoo and @FlyMeToTheMoon teachers have contracted work hours…and do not have “flex time” options. The time to be there is the time to arrive. You can’t make up the time on the other end. Sorry…its contractual…and this teacher was not working in accordance with his contracted work day.
The horrible part of this is that the administration didn’t act on this sooner. Like I said…in my district…this would not have been tolerated…at…all.