If Teachers were Admins....

Remember when Jamie Lee and Lindsay switched bodies for a day?

Ever wonder what it would be like to trade places with someone? To spend a day in someone else' life? To spend a day as a pop star with adoring fans or maybe have one of your lazy coworkers have to do your job for awhile? Well, wonder no more! Okay, that's not true, unless you're a teacher and have often wondered what Pasco School District administrators do all day.


So, let's suppose for a moment. If our teachers were treated the way we treat district administrators working in the Booth building, how different would things look?


After a role switch of this magnitude, teachers would be able to do crazy things like use a printer! 
Currently teachers receive one printer cartridge and a half a box of paper a year. If they run out, they may either buy their own, borrow from another teacher, or just go without paper for the rest of the year.  Who needs worksheets anyway, right? The kids can just do all of their homework orally. Save the trees!
If teachers were Booth building employees they could print as much as they'd like, as often as they want, any time or day.  The amount of ink and paper they would use could be out of control!  Imagine all the assignments they could create! Thank goodness unlimited paper and ink is reserved only for Booth administrators who really need it for all that fancy paper work stuff they do. We wouldn't want paper and ink to be used for students.


Teachers would be given beefy pay raises from levy dollars!
Right now our superintendent is claiming that she'd like to give teachers the raises she claims they deserve, but she can't because their jobs are funded by the state.

Shrek's best buddies had to body swap once.

If teachers were Booth Building administrators that wouldn't be a problem. All teachers would be making six figures, regardless of job performance or qualifications! Despite the fact that the state also funds administrator salaries, Pasco school district seems to have no problem padding those salaries with an extra $50,000 per administrator in levy money. Which is great, we wouldn't want to be padding the salaries of the people who, you know, actually teach the children.




Teachers would have all their insurance premiums paid for!
Right now teachers pay a hefty portion of their own insurance premiums.  And while pay has been stagnant over the past few years, premiums keep going up. This means that many veteran teachers are actually taking home less money each year than the year before.
If teachers were treated like administrators they'd have 100% of their insurance premiums paid for. After all, it's hardly fair to expect someone who only earns $120,000 a year to pay for their own insurance.


Teachers could spend work hours organizing and lining up hostess gifts for their off hours Pampered Chef parties!
Admit it Boothies, you know you've done it. But we wouldn't want the teachers wasting hours of work time planning parties. That would be a ridiculous use of time for a teacher, naturally.

Buffy and Faith switched places once. They learned the true meaning of friendship!

Teachers would be able to come to work late and leave early!
Teachers have to be in school during regular hours. If a teacher doesn't show up to class on time and all those children are left alone, chaos ensues. And if a teacher has to leave early for an emergency or an appointment, they have to get request time off that comes out of their paycheck.
Thankfully admins aren't like teachers. They have the much needed freedom to come and go as they please. Ask anyone on the PAE bargaining team and they will tell you how much the Booth employees love to be hours late and unprepared, take extra long lunches, and then go home early. This is good, of course, since we don't want our valuable administrators frazzled to the point they cannot get anything done. Naturally.


Teachers could order catering anytime they have a meeting!
Instead of brown bagging it with a 33 cent cup o' noodles or scrounging up something for the teacher pot-luck, they could just call in a caterer.
If teachers were administrators in the Booth building, they could just order in and have it put on the tax payer's tab. That, of course, would be an utterly ridiculous, extravagant waste of taxpayer money in a district with such a poor tax base. So that's why teachers, of course, don't get to order catering for their meetings.

Teachers could get all the supplies they need for their classrooms without having to go without or using their own money to buy supplies!
Right now teachers get a small budget to buy supplies for their classrooms. What they actually get ranges from 75 to 150 dollars a year, though many of the teachers estimate around a thousand is needed for a whole year. When they need something additional, typically teachers put in an order to the Booth building.  Orders can take as long as ten months to arrive in the classroom, some orders never arrive. Because teachers' budget rarely covers all that is needed so they often purchase supplies out of pocket.  Many teachers buy clothes and other items for their neediest students.

The Administrator and the Teacher. Er, the Prince and the Pauper.

If teachers were administrators in the Booth building, they would never have to buy their own supplies. They could just go to the magical Booth closet and pull out as many post-its and white board markers as their hearts desire. And as an added bonus, they would never have to be in close contact with students, so they wouldn't have see the real needs of the children they were hired to serve. But this is, of course, a good thing. We wouldn't want to have an endless amount of school supplies available for teachers to use in classrooms. That wouldn't make any sense.

Teacher would make sure all of Pasco's students had access to comprehensive, board adopted curriculum!

If teachers were administrators at the Booth building, they would do whatever it takes to reach a contract settlement  by providing a reasonable plan and timeline for studying and acquiring quality curriculum for all Pasco kids. Teachers want to be in their classrooms. They want to teach. They want what's best for the children they serve. So maybe it's good that... nope. This just isn't good no matter how you look at it.

Maybe it's time the Booth administrators and school board took a long hard look at what the teachers are really asking for. Maybe it's time for them to walk in a teacher's shoes for a day or more. Maybe it's time for us to stop daydreaming what it would be like if teachers were admins, and to step up and make sure the teachers and students get the very best.