[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.91″ custom_padding=”0px|0px|0px|0px” next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row custom_padding=”2px|0px|8px|0px” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Featured Image caption” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ text_font=”|600|||||||” text_font_size=”12px”]<\/p>\n
Trina Poston reads to her classroom of 21 kindergarteners at Dutch Fork Elementary school. A teacher of 30 years she has recently added a second job for the last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.92″ custom_padding=”2px|0px|37.9062px|0px” prev_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|0px|18.9531px|0px” custom_margin=”10px|||” _builder_version=”3.0.92″][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”News Story” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ custom_margin=”0px||0px|”]<\/p>\n
At 4:30 a.m., an alarm sounds to wake kindergarten teacher Trina Poston. \u00a0She brushes her teeth, dons an orange T-shirt, applies a layer of red lipstick and sits down in front of her home computer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s three hours before she is due to arrive in her Dutch Fork Elementary School\u00a0<\/span>classroom, but two days a week the 30-year teaching veteran turns on Skype and teaches students in China to speak English.<\/span><\/span> It’s an early morning side gig that she needs to supplement her $62,000 teacher salary.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t make a whole lot of money teaching in school,\u201d said Poston, a divorced mother of four sons, including two in college.<\/p>\n At 6:30 a.m. she is done with her international lessons for the morning, prepares herself and her youngest son for school, and goes to her full-time job.<\/p>\n For the next eight hours, she teaches 5 and 6-year-olds the alphabet and simple math. After the final bell rings and the children are in car pool lines or in their respective bus seats, Poston plans her lessons and then goes home.<\/p>\n “If you get up at 4:30 in the morning and you teach Chinese children then you come and teach 21 5 and 6-year-olds and you\u2019re 52-years-old, \u00a0you\u2019re tired,” Poston said. \u00a0<\/p>\n Juggling\u00a0a second job after hours isn\u2019t uncommon in South Carolina. Teacher salaries are about 7 percent less than they were in the 2008-09 school year, according to the National Education Association. Because of this, teachers like Poston are finding other ways to make up the difference.<\/p>\n \u201cI needed to get a second job because I needed that additional income,\u201d Poston said. \u201cWhile I love what I do, teachers \u2026 some would say make a decent salary and some would say if you\u2019re a single parent of four children like I am and you want to live in a nice middle-class neighborhood, it\u2019s stressful and hard to make ends meet.\u201d<\/p>\n South Carolina ranks 48th\u00a0in the United States in pay for teachers.<\/p>\n Lawmakers have proposed raising salaries along with addressing a host of other initiatives in a comprehensive K-12 bill that some suggest will not make it through the 2019 session.\u00a0It would raise teacher wages to the minimum requirement of $28,190 and alleviate the pressures of state testing. Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, wants the bill to get thrown out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the single worst piece of education reform legislation written in decades,\u201d Fanning said.<\/p>\n Fanning wants the bill to be revised in order to include teachers in the debate. As a former educator, Fanning wants to pass the message along to teachers that their voices are important.<\/p>\n “The bill was written with zero input from educators. We would never write a tort reform bill without having lawyers at the table,” Fanning said.\u00a0<\/p>\n One in five teachers in the United States are working a second job, and about 20 percent of teachers in S.C. are forced to have a \u201cside hustle,\u201d according to Fanning.<\/p>\n Third-year teacher Kristen McCulloch says that working a second job forced her to \u201cadjust how I would do grading and planning.\u201d<\/p>\n McCulloch began waitressing as a second job before transitioning to working the after-school care program at her school, Annie Burnside Elementary in Columbia.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have doctors without teachers, and they get paid six times what we\u2019re making,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n McCulloch is an advocate for teacher pay raises and worries that teachers don’t have much left in their paychecks after paying taxes and medical benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cIt needs to be made more aware that what our salary is listed is not anywhere close to what we take home,\u201d McCulloch said. “We take home maybe half of what is listed. If people saw what the take-home is\u2026 it\u2019s scraping by.\u201d<\/p>\n South Carolina Education Association president Sherry East has been a high school science teacher for 27 years and for 25 years worked a second job at Advanced Auto Parts.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I’m a single teacher; I wanted to buy a house and have some spending money. Teaching pay is not the best. I wanted extra money to do extra things. If you want to be able to go on vacation or buy extra things you do need to pick up that second job,” East said.\u00a0<\/p>\n East began work at the auto store for the additional money but kept the job because of the health insurance they offered that was “way better than what the state offered,” East said.\u00a0<\/p>\n East is on sabbatical from her school while she serves as SCEA president. She become involved in the organization to feel like she was “part of a union” and to help make change for teachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Southeast is the lowest paying region for teachers in the United States, where South Carolina falls. In 2018, the Southeast average salary was $50,756. South Carolina’s average was $50,182.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Senate budget is calling for a 4 percent pay increase, which would be one of the largest pay increases in decades.<\/p>\n \u201cThis pay increase only gets us to our minimal obligation to teachers. This is needed,\u201d Fanning said. \u201cBut before we pat ourselves on the back, all we\u2019re doing is fulfilling the minimum requirement by law.\u201d<\/p>\n Working a second job is an additional anxiety onto teachers for many reasons.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had two jobs that created a lot of stress in my life,” Fanning said. “I was active duty in the U.S. Army, the second one I was active duty in the classroom. Both of them demand your full attention every second that you\u2019re there.”<\/p>\n \u201cThe harder of the two is being a public-school teacher. When you\u2019re there in front of those kids you\u2019re giving 100 percent of what you have because if you don\u2019t those kids will eat you alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Poston said preparing her early morning lessons for her Chinese students and knowing she is taking hours away from her own family and herself “makes it stressful in and of itself. I really wish I had all the money and didn\u2019t have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image 1″ show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ custom_margin=”||2px|” custom_padding=”|||” animation_style=”slide” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ box_shadow_horizontal=”4px” box_shadow_vertical=”4px” src=”http:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/PAY2_W.jpg”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Caption 1″ _builder_version=”3.20.1″ text_font=”|600|||||||” text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.4em” custom_margin=”8px|||2px” custom_padding=”|||”]<\/p>\n Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, is an advocate for stalling the K12 Reform bill in the senate to allow for teachers to give input on what needs to be changed. He referred to the bill as “the single worst piece of education reform legislation written in decades.”\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image 2″ show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ custom_margin=”||2px|” custom_padding=”|||” animation_style=”slide” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ box_shadow_horizontal=”4px” box_shadow_vertical=”4px” src=”http:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/PAY3_W.jpg”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Caption 2″ _builder_version=”3.20.1″ text_font=”|600|||||||” text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.4em” custom_margin=”8px|||2px” custom_padding=”|||”]<\/p>\n Fourth grade math and science teacher Kristen McCulloch uses her planning period to review lessons for her students. She began waiting tables as a second job then transitioned to work the after school care program at Annie Burnside Elementary.\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image 3″ show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ custom_margin=”||2px|” custom_padding=”|||” animation_style=”slide” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ box_shadow_horizontal=”4px” box_shadow_vertical=”4px” src=”http:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/PAY4_W.jpg”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Caption 3″ _builder_version=”3.20.1″ text_font=”|600|||||||” text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.4em” custom_margin=”8px|||2px” custom_padding=”|||”]<\/p>\n McCulloch, in her third year of teaching, decorates her classroom with motivational quotes for her students. The materials are paid for out-of-pocket by her.\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image 4″ show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.20.1″ custom_margin=”||2px|” custom_padding=”|||” animation_style=”slide” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ box_shadow_horizontal=”4px” box_shadow_vertical=”4px”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”Caption 4″ _builder_version=”3.20.1″ text_font=”|600|||||||” text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.4em” custom_margin=”8px|||2px” custom_padding=”|||” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Low teacher income in South Carolina has forced teachers to obtain a second job to help make ends meet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":20867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[67,62,39,1],"tags":[96,159,181,113,77,99,516],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20746"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20886,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20746\/revisions\/20886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}