Teachers Furloughed Five Days
Sarah Cohen
September 5, 2009
Filed under News
Teachers in Aiken County have to take five days of furlough. For those of you who don’t know what a furlough is, it is a leave of absence from duty.
This might not sound bad to some of you. Who wouldn’t want five days vacation from work? The problem is that they aren’t getting paid and even if teachers want to come in and work in their classrooms without pay on these days, they can’t. Essentially, all Aiken County teachers are being given 5 days of unpaid “vacation.”
The building will be completely shut down for the furlough days in order to conserve resources. The days teachers will be furloughed were used for parent-teacher conferences and time for teachers to catch up on grading and planning.
All of these actions are being done in the name of budget cuts. Aiken County is in debt so far over their heads that they had to cut money in multiple places (including the new agendas). While these furloughs might make sense to some, many of our teachers still aren’t happy.
While talking to teachers about their opinions on the furlough, all wished to remain anonymous.
When asked how she felt about the furlough, one teacher said she felt it was “necessary, but aggravating.”
Her biggest complaint was that she had to do “the same amount of work in less time with no pay.”
Another teacher says that her biggest grievance about the furlough was that she “is going to have to do more work at home in order not to penalize the students.”
Some might ask what is more important, keeping within a budget or making sure that our teachers have time to prepare lessons. This question has been answered with actions by the Aiken County Board of Education. Unfortunately, the Aiken County Board of Education could not be reached for comment about the furlough days despite repeated attempts.
The furlough will not only affect the teachers, it will affect their families. “We will have to watch our money more” says one teacher.
Ironically, one teacher’s pay cut will affect her kid’s education. “I have one kid in college and one about to be in college.”
“The money doesn’t make me as mad as the fact that we can’t even come in the building; if I wanted to work on my lesson plans or do things in my room I can’t” says a teacher. Another teacher is especially angry about the fact that they weren’t “consulted about the days.”
While most teachers are angry about the furlough, there are some are looking for the bight side of the situation. “I’ll enjoy the three-day weekends and more time with my daughter” says a teacher.
“It won’t affect me, luckily my husband makes decent money, if we had to live off my pay check we would be in the poor house anyways” laughs another teacher.
The furlough is not reason enough for most teachers to leave Aiken County. One teacher states “if I didn’t want to come to work I wouldn’t.” One teacher says, however, that leaving Aiken County is “a possibility.”
