Teaching 8 to 4: Worthy Negotiating Tactic, or Slacking Off?

KELO reports on an interesting negotiating tactic of sorts by Luverne (MN) teachers [Kelli Grant, "Teachers Cutting Back on Time," KELOLand.com, 2007.09.12]. Teachers in Luverne make an average $40,000, a hefty sum compared to South Dakota's average teacher pay of $34,673. But we all know that the cost of living in Minnesota is oppressively higher than in South Dakota, right? Isn't that why Minnesotans are flocking across the border for the freedom and prosperity of South Dakota?

Back to the topic: Whether $40K is a reasonable average salary is open for debate. But, like all of us, Luverne's teachers (whom the Luverne District Policy officially refers to as "cogs"—see Policy 100.02 "Values") would love to get paid more if they could, so they're negotiating for raises. To press their demands, Luverne teachers could strike (wait—Minnesota doesn't outlaw teacher strikes like South Dakota does? and their education system still fucntions effectively?), but no seems to think the situation is that dire yet.

However, some Luverne teachers have chosen to press their point by doing their jobs... to the letter, or, in this case, the number. Their contracts oblige them to put in an eight-hour day, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Luverne District Policy 405.01 ). Some teachers have decided to do exactly that, and not one minute more, says a teacher's union rep, until a negotiation is reached. No staying in the classroom past four to work on lesson plans or webpages, no lugging papers home to grade at the kitchen table—just put in the required hours they're paid for.

Now in most jobs, that's perfectly acceptable and logical behavior. But I've heard "8-to-4 teacher" used as a disparaging term. Many people, teachers included, expect teachers to sacrifice personal time for work without extra compensation. Parents and policymakers may hew to the minimalist interpretation of teachers' workload—7.5 hours a day for just 180 days—when they want to defend low teacher pay, but when the discussion turns from salaries to actual education, they slip back to viewing teachers as professionals who ought to dedicate time after school and through the summer to their schools and students. We suffer a cognitive disconnect in how we view teachers: teachers are dedicated professionals except when we have to pay them, at which point we turn them into hourly workers to justify the stingy salaries we give them.

I had to navigate that disconnect myself last year when I adopted an 8-to-4 work strategy. I was less-than-satisfied with the contract the Montrose school board offered for the 2006-2007 school year. Teachers received the usual 3% raise, which isn't bad, but the board added an additional two days of in-service a week before the beginning of the school year, effectively shortening by a week the amount of time teachers could commit to summer jobs to supplement their income. Plus, after we teachers had signed our contracts, our first-year superintendent imposed budget cuts on several of our programs, effectively changing the conditions under which some teachers thought they had signed on to work. Then the board gave that first-year superintendent a 23% raise. (Interestingly, the $12,000 raise the superintendent received roughly equalled the amount he cut from the track, science, and speech activities budgets.)

Feeling undervalued, I decided I wasn't getting paid enough to bring work home. I put in my hours at school. I still came for 6:30 a.m. play rehearsals in December and January, stayed late for interp and debate practices, and spent Fridays and Saturdays on the road to speech contests, but when there wasn't practice, I came to work at 8 and left at 4. Except for a couple crunch times (semester essay exams), I did not bring home any papers to grade. (Even if I had, the new Madville Times Jr. would have made concentrating on sophomore mispellings and misplaced modifiers impossible.) I graded papers, wrote lesson plans, and developed my school webpages during my prep period, lunch, and before and after class when there weren't students with questions in the room.

For me, working 8 to 4 wasn't so much a negotiating tactic as a response. My approach certainly didn't improve our success in negotiating a better contract for AY 2007-08: the raises offered were no higher and were contingent on additional work in the summer. But working 8 to 4 did help me rationalize accepting the lowest average teacher pay in the nation. At last year's salary of $30K, working 8-to-4 kept my average hourly wage at a snudge over $20 an hour—nothing like other truly professional wages, but still pretty good money in South Dakota. Add in early-morning rehearsals and weekend hours on the road for speech contests, and that hourly rate drops to just over $15 an hour. At that point, being a research assistant at DSU or a welder at Gehl becomes competitive.

Sure, good teachers do their job for love of students and knowledge. But good teachers also have to eat. If teaching salaries aren't enough to sustain a family in two-income economy (and my experience says they almost aren't), then teachers need to minimize the hours they put in at school and maximize the hours they have available for their second jobs and for their families.

So which is it? Do we want to maintain our expectation that teachers shouldn't be just 8-to-4 workers, or do we keep out taxes down and accept teachers who work for the hours their contracts require? We'll look forward to seeing how the Luverne School District answers that question.