🏈 When the 1996 movie, Jerry Maguire, came out, I never would have imagined that almost thirty years later I, as a teacher, would have the power to negotiate my own salary (albeit at a much smaller scale than an NFL draft pick, of course). Throughout my twenty-seven years, I have signed over eleven teaching contracts, and yet never did I once consider asking for greater pay or bigger perks than what was originally offered; I just always assumed that the posted salary schedule was what you got. Recently, however, I have actually been offered additional pay without intentionally trying to get it.

🏛️ As I have been actively job hunting since November, I have spent months applying and interviewing for a number of schools. During this process, many of the interview rounds have resulted in some offers being made. Due to unforeseen circumstances financially and the current instability of the country I would be leaving my only son behind in (to continue his university education, not to abandon him, obviously), I have been more hesitant to take these offers than I would have in the past. Just last year I would have been tempted to take some of these ideal jobs teaching Cultural Anthropology by visiting museums in Mexico City or planning Theory of Knowledge lessons for only two students living in a remote fishing village, rather than teaching my current 50+. Taking so long to find the perfect job has been trying because not only have I spent a lot of time and effort job hunting, but so have the recruiters who have been interviewing me and my colleagues who have been kindly vouching as my references. In honor of this time and effort expended on my behalf, I have tried my best to decline the offers with as much respect and thoughtfulness as possible.

💰 What I have learned from declining offers has been the most surprising thing about this entire season’s job hunt. On several occasions, my rejection of the offer was met by a counter-offer of more money. These responses were not only flattering because I had never had this happen before, but also enlightening for me. For years, I have heard how my friends have negotiated for higher salaries when they applied for jobs in other industries, but I always discounted it as something I could do in the teaching industry. Just knowing that some employers are willing to pay more for what they deem as a good match for their team boosted my belief that someday teachers would be able to advocate for themselves more to ensure that their hard work was adequately compensated for.

💎 I don’t share this experience in order to encourage educators to somehow dupe employers or milk a system. However, I do want to raise awareness that sometimes honesty and openness about what you need as a professional can be met sometimes with appreciation and support. These interactions with recruiters have helped me feel more confident about my worth and what I have to offer a school, but also a renewed distrust in a pay scale system that seems to often put veteran teachers with over 8 years experience at a disadvantage when their valuable experience isn’t even acknowledged or rewarded monetarily. Many of the highly reputable schools insist that you have at least 5 years experience teaching what they are hiring for, but many of us educators haven’t just taught one subject or grade level for an extensive period of time. Therefore, schools are often acquiring a very talented and experienced teacher that will often have more than 5 years experience teaching, but only 8 of those will be considered on the job scale, essentially granting schools a valuable resource for cheap. Just looking at the data shared by ZipRecruiter about what American teachers make on average at each demonstrates the huge gap between how educators’ pay can vary drastically depending on which state they work in (which may also have very different cost of living ratios) even though they are doing the same job as teacher in another state. The differences globally can be even more astounding.

🤑 Yet, for me, I feel that both my experience and my value have been acknowledged by some of the schools, and a few of them were willing to “show me the money” as a means to convince me that their offer was the best match for me. As of yet, I haven’t accepted a job as I am needing a job that can meet a certain number of criteria. After sending out 100’s of applications and getting ghosted by many of the schools, it is still reassuring that my perseverance did pay off, and I have made numerous connections with schools and recruiters that I feel grateful to have met along this arduous journey.