Teachers Volunteer Free Hours.

I read a blog by Kim--Possible who was mentioning all she had accomplished in one day in July. Among her many tasks was painting shelves and driving them to her classroom to get ready for school beginning in August. Working on your classroom on unpaid time is typical for teachers. Summer break should be time off to give our families and households attention, but usually this "break" gets interrupted by workshops and recertification classes. I have to move to another classroom this week (July 23). I'll pay gasoline to drive to another city and back home for 2 unpaid days of lugging boxes and file cabinet contents. If you work for a school system, you can relate to the hours we put in beyond school days. I keep track of hours. For every month of school, I put in the hours of 5 (40-hr.) weeks. "Summer vacation" is just "comp time" for hours we didn't get paid. We whine to each other and encourage each other and come back ready to teach new kids another year.