teacher

school teacher

para educator

paraprofessional

elementary school teacher

Wichita Public Schools

All-in-all I would say that teaching at Wichita South was challenging and fun.  I enjoyed my students tremendously.  They are critical thinkers that challenge authority, and teachers have to prove countless times that they will treat youngsters fairly and will teach them with a bag full of magic tricks.  Once students know that you will do this, they turn on their charm and you can behold the beauty of their love.

I think that any school should attempt to match teachers that are new to the school with teachers that have acquired experience working within the school during the first year.  This school did not do that for me.  Nevertheless, teachers were helpful, and mostly positive.  

In general, kids required an incredible amount of time to establish trust. I felt an overwhelming need to connect with the students and parents in order to conjure up necessary behavior and performance from students.  I think it would be helpful for teachers to have students for multiple years since the time invested in building relationships is so great.  

I was able to conduct a project which placed students in active civic and environmental leadership roles.  There were other projects for which I solicited support from administration to no avail.  I think that administration is overburdened with discipline issues and may need additional support.  The school I work in has a student body of about 1,500.  I think it would help to have students divided into manageable physical communities for which specific administrators are responsible.

Wichita schools have channeled funds into building new gyms and related recreational facilities.  I believe this will have a positive impact on students.  However, other areas are lacking.  One of the impetuses that pushed me into the job market was being moved to a room that is inadequate for teaching science.  Large enough only to add desks for students, there are no lab tables, storage cabinets, and there is not even a window.  The inadequate space for moving around is not conducive to the physical movement that teachers are supposed to be promoting.

Administrators have locked up spaces in the new recreation areas to be used only for specific activities and are reluctant to opening them up for classroom space.  Children are packed into classrooms, so that as many as 32 students are found sitting at desks and at stools at lab stations even when a different seating arrangement would be better-suited for the activity.

I think the availability of technology at Wichita South is better than any school I have taught at in the past.  My technology needs were always met.  Problems were always fixed within the day.

I believe that Wichita South is moving forward and addressing the educational, emotional, and physical needs of students.  It leaves much to be desired, but the highly qualified and motivated teaching staff is making remarkable gains in enriching minds, bodies, and spirits.

Non-existent work-life balance. Often time, I had to bring stuff to home to grade because the administrators did not care to provide enough plan time for us, especially during this year. The administrators only give enough plan time for the classroom teachers because they're afraid that they will complain to the union. Specials teachers are treated nothing like the classroom teachers. Classroom teachers are treated with respect and specials teachers are treated like backups. At the beginning of the school year, the admins mentioned that they will only keep about 15 students in each pod to practice social distance in classroom. This is not true at all. I have had more than 25 students in one small classroom. They made me teach both online and in-person class at the same time. Some of the paras are lazy as well. They are supposed to help out with managing the classroom and support a small group of students while I teach. However, while I was helping some students, the para was on her phone the whole time. The admins only cared to please the parents and the school's image. They do not care for you as a person and they do not treat you with respect. The admins will track your emails and the webcams that are in the school building to see who you have been contacting with as they are afraid that you will reach out to the union. Be careful with that and if you need to email a union rep, make sure you do it from your personal email. 
The benefits and salary are decent for starting out, but if you look at the salary growth over the years, it's not worth it. You'll often find yourself taking works home, which will eventually lead to burnout because you will have a lot of unpaid hours when you're doing your work at home and you will feel like you are always working. This job has destroyed my mental health. Don't let it destroy yours too. 
Last note, be very careful with reading the contract. They did not show me the contract and never mentioned about it when hiring me. Make sure to read the whole contract over and make sure you understand that you have your own rights. You will have to pay a heavy fine for breaking the contract. I highly recommend joining the union so that you can stand up for yourself. 

Dental, medical and vision benefits are good. That's it. They do not play a livable wage. Strike number one. So the hope is that it's at least fulfilling. Unfortunately, it is not. The children misbehave with no repercussions. Student behaviors are so bad that Admin cannot handle individual cases the way they deserve to be handled (ie expulsion) because they're being stretched thin. I genuinely find myself concerned for my safety, as the majority of students are on edge 24/7. I do not blame them. I know they're going through a lot of trauma and it is apparent that they are hopeless/have nothing to look forward to in the future. Those needs are not being addressed, however, and so they are out of control. You must have a strong emotional capacity in order to handle coming in every day. I fear for this generation of kids, and I wish the district valued staff and student safety enough hold parents and students accountable for bad behaviors. Strike two. Last but not least, the staff is click-y and less than welcoming. I got dropped into my building with no applicable onboarding information. No direction on how to get around. No information on how to get a room key or even find the room I was in. They shun new people. They bully and shun young staff. They dislike teachers that the students like. There's no sense of comradery. Strike 3. I really wanted to like this job. I really wanted to help students. Unfortunately, there's no structural support to do that. 

259 has a real culture problem. They constantly shifted principals around and had no consistency in how principals ran schools; there were also no repercussions for principals when they behaved inappropriately (verbal harassment and with one principal, sexual harassment) towards staff other than maybe moving them to a different school (though the one time I reported harassment to the union, they told me that I was wrong because my principal "had been a great union member as a teacher"). The board and the union were also constantly fighting about teacher pay, and it was frozen on year, so no guaranteed steps and tracks money. That is somewhat more of a state education funding issue, but other districts (261 for instance) managed without screwing over their teachers/messing up their insurance.
Teacher were also often very antagonistic towards each other, and no one really cared. 
The kicker for me, though, was that at some schools, parents pretty much called the shots. I taught an extra curricular and was constantly bullied by parents if they didn't feel like their kids got enough special treatment, and administration just kind of took it and told me the only thing for me to do was listen.

Within the five years I have been employed at Southeast High School I have learned the true meaning of patience. Working with teens is a challenge in itself, but teaching teens with special needs is another avenue most working adults do not face. You are taught that your presence may be the most valuable part of their day, teaching them life skills and showing them how to be productive in a society that may not be accepting of them. These children brought a smile to my face every day. Their joy in life showed me how to appreciate smaller things often over looked.

The hardest part of the job is seeing your students graduate. It is truly a bitter sweet moment. You never know where their journey will lead them.

Collaborating with teachers on lesson plans is vital to the growth of each individual student. This portion of the job was most challenging due to the rigor placed in the lessons. You do not want to hinder a student from succeeding academically or socially.

These things named above combined with staff interaction, written and oral correspondence with supervisors, and following Board of Education Paraeducator job descriptions, to name a few, are typical in a day as a Paraeducator at Southeast High School.

Working for the school was a very busy time.  Nothing there was ever the same, which kept things going and interesting.  I was in charged of all the students file, students coming to our school or students moving to other schools.  My job included to do the reports for Nutrition.  This reports were daily and monthly.  I also took the name of the kids at lunch time and then you would charge their accounts.  Parents would paid for the lunches so you would have to deposit make a deposit and the main secretary would take it to the bank.  At the end of the year we had a final report.  I was also in charge of payroll for all the Peras and Custodians and keeping up with corrections they may have done when punching in and out.  Explaining any questions they may have had regarding their time/or pay.  My job also included Transportation, field trips, answering the phones, helping the students coming into the office for help

A typical daya at work with Wichita Public Schools (WPS)would be arriving early enough to gather materials needed for work-day. Cleaning through assigned run, checking with Teachers/classrooms in the interim to see if any additional touch-ups need to be completed. I've learned how to use various equipment that I may have needed a refresher on - stripping/waxing, ordering supplies, keeping budget. Co-workers for the most part all had the same agenda; to keep the schools as clean as possible for our kids and staff members. Hardest part of the job was keeping morale up in a high turnover enviroment, and the most enjoyable part of the job was working with the kids and being a productive part of an organization.

Go in early and leave late because you are passionate about what you do.  The magic that happens in between is what originally drove you to getting your job.  Your light begins to dim after about 3 years if you allow it.  COVID has done a job on education, but there was a massive problem in education pre-COVID and it seems no one care, but the teachers and some parents.  We are getting away from teaching and it has become a disrespectful land of glorified babysitting in a lot of school districts in my area, but I believe it's like this across the country.  The pay is great for a beginning teacher, but it soon becomes not worth your sanity.  If I can't teach, I need to go into another field.

Wichita public schools is an excellent place to work, if you love people and kids. The substitute job is flexible and a typical day at work varies from school to school and from classroom to classroom. What I have learned is that substituting like teaching is not an easy task. One must posses people skills because working in the education industry requires that you love and want to help people succeed. The teachers are wonderful and very helpful and they know their students and are willing to provide substitutes with any help if and when needed. The hardest part of the job is not working at the same school on daily basis. The most enjoyable part of substituting is helping the students succeed.

Assist students and teachers in creating an effective learning environment. I've learned new tools of helping new students learn basic levels of education to prepare them for the next stages of their educational lives. 
The hardest part of my job is not having enough time to effectively help the student. Thirty minutes with a child that has learning disabilities in a normal class setting is not enough to bring the student up to the appropriate/expected learning level.
The most enjoyable part of my job is seeing the student actually comprehending what is being taught (the light bulb comes on).

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Teacher 13 salaries reported	$54,769 per year
School teacher 22 salaries reported	$41,699 per year
Para educator 3 salaries reported	$14.67 per hour
Paraprofessional 5 salaries reported	$17.44 per hour
Elementary school teacher 4 salaries reported	$46,500 per year

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