teaching high school...

[exbex]

It’s the third day of school, and in comes a grumpy student who was working her crap minimum wage lunchmeat slinging job until 2 AM. I wonder aloud if this is legal. Other students indicate that it is, for anyone who is sixteen or older (my research indicates that this is true, not surprising considering that I live in one of the more ridiculous of

Comments

[taass64]

so so true. It is not surprising this country cannot guarantee a fair minimum wage. The greed has taken over. My argument has always been, if you give people enough money to live on, they will spend it, and the economy will boom. Starve people and they cannot spend any money. How can that be good for business? But greed blinds. Personally, I'm be happy to pay an extra few cents for things in places where the staff is treated well. And you know those places because the staff is happy and treating the customers well because of it.

[exbex]

Agreed. I've been thinking about this stuff a lot lately. I'm on salary, as a teacher. But the district is obsessive about the number of hours we work and if we're working enough hours per week. Of course they don't think about the fact that, at least in the first few years of teaching, teachers are working well over 40 hours a week. Some weeks I work more than 40, some I might work fewer, but who cares as long as I'm doing my job and doing it well? The alt high school I work in has some weird hours; four days a week with optional Fridays for students, but we use those Fridays to (attempt to) require students to make up absences (since absenteeism is a major issue with alt high school students). In the past, the staff would rotate on Fridays, but we have a new superintendent and he's requiring that we all work on Fridays. I told my principal that I want us to be done by noon every Friday, as we do not have a duty free lunch and, with mandatory Friday attendance, we'll be working more than 40 hours every week without overtime. He

[spencer5460]

You touch on several complicated issues. I am surprised under 18s are allowed to work that late. I always thought there was a curfew of 11 p.m. during the week, but maybe things have changed. My kids worked while in school but I would never have allowed them to work that late on a school night. But I know some kids have no choice. Then there's my niece (the child of wealthy parents) who never had to work a day all during high school and into her third year of (fully paid) college. Of course she gets excellent grades because she never has to work or worry about money. So she'll land a good job straight out of school and with no burden of debt. How could she not possibly get ahead? The rich get richer and . . . And then there's the abysmal wage situation. Who can afford housing, (healthy) food, reliable transportation, etc. on $10 an hour. But if you can't afford to go to school to get ahead . . . . It's all a Catch 22.

[exbex]

I see both sides of it out here. College in this state is relatively inexpensive and scholarships given out, at least for a while, for not impossible GPAs and yet these kids and their parents have no clue about how good they've had it until recently. Which is probably the problem nationwide, as far as politics. I think complacency is the word.