<p>I see other benefits teachers get as well. Teachers in our district get three paid sick leave days each month. These accumulate if you don’t use them, and teachers that have worked for a long time can have over a year’s worth of sick days built up. You can take sick days if you, your child, husband, parent, or other family member is sick or has a doctor appointment. A number of us have dealt with cancer and its treatment and taken much time off but gotten paid because of accrued sick days. In some school districts, they even allow teachers to ‘give’ their sick days to another co-worker if they want, say if the co-worker is out due to major illness (not the case in our district). On top of sick days, teachers each get five personal days a year. If they don’t take them, the days revert to accumulated sick days the following year.</p>
<p>As a paraprofessional, we get one and a quarter sick days each month, allowed to accumulate, and three personal days a school year that roll over to sick days if not taken.</p>
<p>To me, the teaching profession is conducive to raising a family because of its work schedule. Once your children are school age, you will pay less child care if your kids attend the school district you work at. You have most of the same schedule, with a week or two off during the Christmas season, you always have New Year’s Eve, New Year’s day and Thanksgiving off, and heck, Black Friday, too. If school is cancelled due to bad weather, you don’t have to scramble to find someone to watch your kids because you don’t have to go to work, either. You get a spring break and are home all summer with your kids and not paying big chunks of money for child care. </p>
<p>All of this seems to me to be added benefits to the teaching profession. I’m not saying teaching is easy but there are perks to the job that you may not get elsewhere.</p>