Teacher by Day: Due to their comparatively low pay, teachers find a need to search for supplemental income sources

Stomach grumbling, current East social studies teacher Shannon Nolan hung up garlands and lights for her first ever classroom. It was August 2019 and she had just graduated from Kansas State University after receiving her masters degree in education. Decorating her classroom and making sure she had enough supplies for all new students was important to her as it set a good impression. 

In fact, this impression was more important to her than having anything but rice to eat up until receiving her first paycheck — she had run out of food money. 

As a first-year teacher, Nolan knew she wouldn’t be paid for the first month of teaching until September 20, when SMSD gives new teachers their first paycheck. This meant that she’d have no income to start off the year — and once she did get her first check, she’d be paid nearly the lowest on the SMSD pay scale for teachers. For Nolan, along with many other first-year teachers, this was when she realized she would need to find another way to make money as teaching wouldn’t be enough to support her. 

“There was one point [when] I was in my classroom, and I was just hungry,” Nolan said. “I had run out of food, I was broke, I wasn’t getting paid for another week, so I was just eating rice for every meal before I got my first big girl paycheck. [It] was tough. Almost two months of having to set up a whole classroom, having to spend money and realizing, ‘Oh, I don’t get paid.’ I always feel really bad for first-year teachers in that first month or two.” 

When she finally did get her first “big girl paycheck,” she frowned at the check written out for just under $3,000 after taxes — which includes her pay for coaching and working at sporting games that month. She immediately knew it wouldn’t be enough. If she wanted to utilize more than just her rice cooker in her kitchen, she would have to find more income sources. 

And she found them. Now, three years later, Nolan has been a dog walker, a babysitter, a coach for girls volleyball and swim, a bartender, a retail worker, a sporting events manager, a Pep Club sponsor, a tutor, a house sitter, a summer weights teacher and just about any other odd job that worked with her schedule. 

Nolan isn’t the only teacher receiving less than they can make do with. The SMSD pay scale used for all staff members is based on the number of years a teacher has been teaching, what degree they have and how many extra master-credit hours they have. 

The more years they’ve been teaching and the higher their degree, the higher their pay is. If a teacher wants to move up on the pay scale, they either have to wait to gain years of experience as a teacher, or pay out-of-pocket for extra education hours, according to English teacher Ann Flurry. 

Flurry has always had forms of supplemental pay. Though she realizes that she could pay for additional hours of teacher training in order to get a raise, she believes the extra cost to do so often isn’t worth it. This is frequently the logic that leads teachers to search for sources of income outside of the classroom. 

Why is there a need for supplemental pay? To Nolan, it’s the difference between living and surviving. Being able to go out with friends here and there and order more than just an appetizer. Being able to treat herself to some shopping from time to time. Being able to buy a house. Being able to live life the way it should be lived. And although it would be nice to do these things on a teacher’s salary, it’s not realistic. 

“I’m really thankful for those opportunities and I’m glad I’ve been able to take them,” Nolan said. “I’d just rather be paid for doing my job. I love coaching, don’t get me wrong, I love the girls and I love what I do, but it would be nice not to have to.” 

Flurry agrees. She’s been teaching for 28 years and is yet to spend a year of it only teaching. She began her career at St. Teresa’s Academy, assuming private teachers are paid more than public and deeming it the best job offer for a brand-new teacher. She was wrong. 

“I literally couldn’t afford it as [an unmarried] teacher to work there,” Flurry said. “It’s a crisis that people don’t talk about. Now, having said that, I wouldn’t do anything else. [Teachers] just love what they do. But we are not valued monetarily and unfortunately, in this country, monetary value equals respect in a lot of cases. We’re not money hungry, but it’s a crisis. And we’re gonna lose teachers.” 

Flurry can’t remember a time where she didn’t have a second job. She’s tutored, taught summer school and been a cheer coach. She’s bartended, managed local pools, worked retail and even started a photography business to help support herself and her family.

In the fall, Flurry’s schedule consists of a full school day of teaching, helping her elementary-aged children after school, heading to photoshoots for her photography business, coming back home to her mom duties and her nights are spent grading papers and editing photos. 

Her weekends? More photoshoots and little league soccer games.

“You don’t go [into teaching] for the money or the respect, you go in for the students and the love of being a teacher,” Flurry said. “Us not getting paid what we’re worth shows a lack of value nationally. Until people with power recognize the value of education, it’s not gonna change. It’s really amazing how hard it is to find a teacher that doesn’t do a side gig of some kind, or has in their past.” 

As for psychology teacher Brett Kramer, outside sources of income have always been a part of his career. Currently, it’s driving Uber on weeknights and weekends. Kramer finds that Uber is a perfect way to make supplemental income because he gets to choose his own hours and can stop once he meets his financial goals for the week. 

He took up other sources of income when he started out as a part-time teacher — making only half of the lowest annual income on his pay scale. To Kramer, the low pay that teachers receive creates a dynamic that most students don’t know about. 

Kramer, Flurry and Nolan agree that although the pay can be demoralizing, and the need for supplemental income can be exhausting, the happiness that comes from the job is worth the negatives of the profession. 

“There’s no financial gain to going above and beyond,” Nolan said. “There’s no financial gain for working 60 hours a week vs 40 — why make an amazing lesson plan that takes two hours to plan [when you can] watch a video? [But] I can argue it’s one of the best, most rewarding jobs. I love my students and getting to watch some of them be freshmen and now they’re seniors — it’s just a great job, I would just like to be paid a little bit more for it.”