Why Denver Substitute Teachers May Prefer to Work at In-N-Out
Boulder Valley School District, as well as Adams 12 Five Star Schools and Adams 14, have canceled classes today, November 12, and at least three Denver Public Schools facilities — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College, George Washington High School and John H. Amesse Elementary School — are offering remote learning because of staff shortages.
Why is the staffing situation so dire? Educators dealing with these challenges point to ripple effects from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in combination with terrible pay rates for paraprofessionals and substitute teachers, who can sometimes make more money serving burgers at In-N-Out than doing the often difficult, consistently stressful work of educating the next generation of metro residents.
This is no exaggeration: The Payscale.com website estimates the average hourly pay for In-N-Out employees at $17.46 per hour, while a current listing for an Adams 12 paraprofessional (shorthanded as para) on the Top School Jobs site puts the starting rate at $15.78 for what is unquestionably a much harder gig. Moreover, the Adams 12 website lists starting pay for a substitute teacher at $145 per day. That breaks down to $18.13 per hour for eight hours — but as any teacher knows, prep work, grading and more stretch nearly every day well beyond eight hours.
In a statement about its decision to cancel classes today, Adams 12 noted that "the district is seeing unfilled vacancies for multiple positions in multiple departments. This includes special education teachers, nutrition, para educators, Before and After School (BASE), custodial, preschool, transportation, and guest (substitute) teachers. We have a total of 143 vacant positions at this time, with the greatest numbers of vacancies in the para educator and guest teacher categories."
Read more: https://www.westword.com/news/working-at-in-n-out-versus-substitute-teaching-in-denver-12771229
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