Elementary Teacher Responds To The Claim That Teachers Only Have To Work ‘8-9 Months’ Per Year
He did simple math to prove how little teachers make.
TikTok He did the math and showed just how underpaid teachers are for working 8 to 9 months per year! Kyle Cohen, or “Mr. Cohen” to his class of fourth graders in Cleveland, Ohio, posts education-related content to the video-sharing app TikTok. In a recent video, he commented on teacher salaries and summer break.
Is it really easier to work as a teacher than a job where you have to work year-round?
He responded to the claim that teachers only have to work ‘8-9 months’ per year.
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in psychology and leadership studies from The Ohio State University, he started his teaching career.
“In my first year of teaching, I taught at a charter school here in Cleveland, Ohio, and I made $31,000 as a fourth-grade teacher with a class of 16 students with a wide range of special needs,” he said.
People were shocked at how little Cohen made as a teacher.
“Teachers are literally the stepping stone of a kid’s life and yet they don’t get paid enough,” one person commented.
One fellow teacher shared her own salary and how little raises she received over her career.
“My 1st year was 28k. 3 years later, and I’m at 32k. I teach at a Catholic school,” she wrote.
A person in his comments called teachers out for working “8-9 months” out of the year. He responded in a follow-up video, where he cleverly used some math to prove just how hard teachers work.
Photo: TikTok
“I work from about 7 to 5, which is roughly 10 hours [a day], multiply that by five, because there are five days in a week — that is 50 hours,” he said.
He added another 10 hours for meetings. But he elaborated that’s a very conservative number, and he spends many hours planning lessons and other work that he needs to complete outside of class.
“I feel like this additional 10 hours a week is really just a minimum of what I am doing, thinking about all of the lesson-planning and grading and communication with coworkers and families and administration. So, it’s roughly 240 hours a month, probably more if we’re being honest,” he said.
So, where is all this math going? Well, he used it to show how much he’s being paid per hour. He estimated that he’s spending approximately 2,160 hours per year on his job as a teacher, meaning that with his $31,000 salary, he’s making just $14 per hour! That’s just four dollars above the Ohio minimum wage, and states like California and New York have minimum wages higher than $14!
People couldn’t believe teachers were making that little.
His simple math really put teachers’ salaries into perspective.
“My god, this system needs to change,” one person commented.
“Teachers are underpaid and underappreciated,” another added.
One person wrote that teachers usually pay for school supplies out of their own pockets. So, $14 per hour is likely more than they make after factoring in those expenses. Cohen replied that that topic deserves a video of its own.
However, he didn’t make this video to complain. He capped it off by saying that he loves his job as a teacher and wants to advocate for better teacher pay for all.
“I don’t want to come off as ungrateful; I’m not ungrateful because I absolutely love what I do, and I would not trade being an educator for anything. I am incredibly grateful to be in this field,” he said. “But what I am hoping we have conversations about is the fact that teachers who are ‘only working for eight to nine months of the year’ are being paid inappropriately for the amount of work that they are doing.”
Today, Cohen has a master’s degree in education and has been with his school for three years. Hopefully, he’s gotten a raise since his first year as an educator for all the hard work he’s been doing in the classroom and outside of it for making enlightening videos like these!
Ethan Cotler is a writer living in Boston. His writing covers entertainment, news and human interest stories.