While teachers in Ontario prepare to handle classrooms full of children later this month for the first time since March, there is at least one thing that may help make up for the risk of going back to work under the threat of COVID-19: their salaries.
According to recent numbers commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, high school teachers in the province make, on average, six figures a year — $103,926 with benefits included, which is a heck of a lot more than most Ontarians.
This equates to $536 per school day, or $107.20 per instructional hour, if not considering the many hours of grading, lesson planning and other work that teachers do outside of class time.
By comparison, Ontario workers who have been fighting the pandemic on the frontlines, such as nurses, make between $33.23 and $47.57 per hour depending on experience, per the Ontario Nurses' Association.
Contractually, the school day is 300 instructional minutes, or 5 hours.
— Mickey Grant (@Mickey_Grant95) September 1, 2020
That means that the average high school teacher is making $107.20 an hour
In Toronto specifically, the TDSB reported the average compensation for a secondary school teacher in 2018-2019 to be $108,804 with benefits. For an elementary school teacher, this number was $104,557.
This is in contrast to the most recent income data from Statistics Canada, which indicates that the average person of working age in Ontario makes less than half that; $49,000 per year as of 2018.
But, it is important to keep in mind that teachers' benefits can often account for upwards of $12,000, meaning that while total compensation may be more than $100,000, actual salaries may hover somewhere closer to $90,000, on average — still a very comfortable amount.
The risks of instructing in-person classes at this time is hard to measure, though.
1. Remember early in the pandemic when we recognized how difficult it was to care for our kids while teaching them?
— Zach Fleisher (@Zach_Fleisher) September 1, 2020
2. If you think that teachers only work on days where school is in, than try applying that logic to politicians in the house or lawyers in court. See if that works.
Teachers' unions, meanwhile, continue to voice their concerns over the provincial government's contentious back-to-school plan to the point that they are now filing a formal complaint with the labour board.
This is despite Premier Doug Ford's assurances to teachers, parents and students alike that its policies are based on the advice of top health officials and experts.
Ford said at a media briefing on Monday that he has been begging unions to work with him and that he "just can't understand" why their interactions have been so difficult.
"Everything that you wanted, we've given you. We put more into education than anywhere in the country... I'm just asking, just once, for your cooperation," Ford said of the unions, adding that he has had a number of teachers come up to him to apologize for their unions' stances.
To teachers themselves, he said: "I think the world of you, I have all the confidence in the world in you, and I know you're going to do an incredible job for our kids and get through this as safely as possible."
Though the date for resuming classes province-wide was initially set for September 8, school boards have been granted a two-week window in which to kick off the academic year with new measures such as mandatory masks, physical distancing, enhanced cleaning and on-site public health nurses.
by Becky Robertson via blogTO
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