Some Indiana teachers work part-time jobs to make ends meet

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) - When David Barrett isn't at the front of the classroom with a marker in hand, you can find him with an apron tied around his waist or along the sidelines of a football field.

In addition to his full-time job as a sixth-grade humanities teacher at Sunnyside Intermediate School, Barrett waits tables, coaches football and referees sports games.

"I don't have a life, really," he told the Journal & Courier (http://on.jconline.com/1ByDpzl ).

Teachers working part-time jobs is not a new concept, said Scott Hanback, superintendent of Tippecanoe School Corp. With weekends, holidays and summers off, administrators have seen teachers pick up work in retail stores or start their own landscaping or painting businesses, he said.

Low salaries, budget cuts, and fewer pay raises and incentives for teachers send educators to part-time jobs one or more days every week to make ends meet.

"I think the concern right now is that teachers can't see their career trajectory anymore regarding salary," Hanback said.

While teachers generally don't enter the profession for the money, educators used to be more certain they would receive salary compensation each year for their work, Glenda Ritz, superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement.

"I went to a restaurant and a teacher recognized me and my heart just dropped to my feet," Ritz told the Journal & Courier in a phone call. "I'm like, oh my gosh, here we have a teacher - which is a full-time profession - spending weekends working a second job to support their family.

"(Teaching) has to be a good living wage, and we have to pay attention to that in the state of Indiana."

In 2011, the national average teacher salary was $52,181; in 2013, it dropped to $51,188, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The average salary for an Indiana teacher is $33,000, with some salaries for first-year educators as low as $25,000 annually.

In his first year of teaching, Barrett made $34,000 annually. But with three children and a wife in school full time, he took a job waiting tables at Outback Steakhouse on nights and weekends for 20 hours each week. Servers make $2.13 per hour, plus tips. On a good night, Barrett goes home with $100 from tips alone.

As the sole provider in a home with two adults and three children, Barrett would need an annual income of $45,207 before taxes to meet the living wage in Tippecanoe County, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's living wage calculator. Living wage varies by family size, composition and location. It calculates expenses for food, child care, medical, housing, transportation, annual taxes and miscellaneous items.

On weekends, Barrett referees at Lafayette Sports Center, and in the spring and fall, he coaches football at Jefferson High school and for a local travel football team. Though it pays only about $5 per hour, that extra $3,500 stipend is a nice addition to his annual teacher salary, Barrett said.

"There would be days I would take papers with me to work and grade in between tables," he said. 'It's a lot of staying up late at night."

He's rarely alone while grading late at night.

Chase Estes, a STEM teacher at Sunnyside, also serves at Outback Steakhouse and finds that 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. is the only time he can get some grading done. When it gets hard to keep his eyes open, he gives Barrett a call so he too can stay awake.

Estes started at Outback when he graduated from Ball State University. He later was hired by Lafayette School Corp. as a part-time teacher's aide, making about $10 per hour. He was contracted as a full-time teacher in fall 2013, but as the only income for his family - Estes' wife is in nursing school full time - he found he needed to work a few nights each week to make some extra money.

"It's a lot more than 40 hours a week, especially it being my second year teaching," he said. "There's a lot of planning and re-tooling."

As a full-time teacher, Estes is paid $34,000 annually. The living wage for Tippecanoe County for a household with two adults and one child is $35,645 before taxes.

With budget cuts in education and contracts that rely on standardized test scores and student improvement, teachers never know what's around the corner for next year. Barrett was laid off twice from teaching and looked for jobs elsewhere before coming back to Sunnyside in 2011 as a teacher's aide. He was then contracted as a full-time teacher in fall 2012.

In-between teaching jobs, he worked as the manager of a local gas station, where Barrett said he made more money - about $38,000 annually - than he does as a licensed teacher with seven years of experience.

"Am I more valued as the manager of a gas station or as an educator?" he said. "That bothers me."

With the hope of earning a higher salary someday, Barrett is working on his master's degree online through Indiana Wesleyan University. His plan is to earn his administrative license and get a job as a principal - probably the fastest way to make money in the education field, he said.

The average annual salary of U.S. public school principals was $90,500 in the 2012-2013 school year, according to NCES. But Hanback said the difference is hard to show. Teachers are paid for working 183 days each year - the number of days spent in the classroom - while high school principals and administrators work 252 days each year, or on a 12-month contract.

"Yes, administrators are making more money, but they are also working more days," he said.

Based on the NCES data, teachers would earn about $70,308 annually if they worked the same number of days as principals. That's still a $20,000 pay gap.

Shelbi Fortner echoed concerns about the slow timeline to make money in teaching. As a teacher for Frankfort Community School Corp., Fortner is paid about $45,000 annually. The living wage in Clinton County for a household with two adults and two children is $36,837, but that doesn't include payment for past debt.

The Frankfort High School science teacher until recently worked part time for minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, at the Starbucks in Lebanon to pay off past debts. She also tutors for two hours twice each week at the Learning Network of Clinton County. Tutoring pays $25 per hour, she said.

Until last year, Fortner said her district hadn't seen a pay raise in five years, even with an increase in the cost of living and gas prices. A 2014 salary of $48,734.25 has the same buying power as a salary of $45,000 in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"We were all making the same amount we had made five years ago regardless of our increase in experience or our higher education," Fortner said.

Even if Fortner had received a raise, the Indiana Department of Education since July 2012 attributes only up to 33 percent of a teacher's annual compensation increase to training and experience.

In the past, teachers received an automatic increase every year for gaining another year of experience in addition to any raises the school board awarded. Now, the state has a variety of compensation models, Ritz said. Some school corporations have salary schedules that give increases to effective or highly effective teachers. Others have a bonus stipend system.

"Teachers who have spent years preparing to be a teacher and getting an education should be able to see where their profession is going in terms of compensation," Ritz said.

She said that's part of what a profession is - being able to know the ways you can increase your salary and what you can work toward.

While compensation increase decisions are made at the state level, administrators are working to give teachers as much of an increase as is allowed by current legislation for fear that they could lose teachers to higher-paying or part-time jobs. Attracting and retaining teachers have become primary concerns for Indiana, Ritz said, and compensation is part of that.

Good working conditions, support for what happens in the classroom and professional development are a few ways teachers can be rewarded for their efforts, Hanback said.

"We want them to fully work up to their potential because it is a gift to be able to work with kids day in and day out," he said. "It can be a job that you don't always see the fruits of your labor, but when you do see those light bulbs go off, it is very rewarding."

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

2011: National average teacher salary was $52,181.

2013: National average teacher salary dropped to $51,188.

Average salary for an Indiana teacher is $33,000.

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Information from: Journal and Courier, http://www.jconline.com