Do you not have an undergraduate degree in Education? Yes and a Masters in Educational Psy.Perhaps your state, like many other states, requires the degree (thank the Teachers’ Union; don’t blame the Church). My daughter did not have the “right” degree but took courses on line to obtain the additonal degree. I am glad that your daughter had this option. I wonder how many mothers have had to go out into the working world to pay for the teachers, or remover their children from their schools, that replaced those of us that were qualified and serving where we thought God had called us? She was a single Mom who wanted to be with her children in their formative years. My mother was a single mother and had it not been for the no cost/low cost Catholic School my brothers attended she would have had to remove my brothers from a Catholic School. God bless her.
As we did also with out having to go to WORK to pay for a Catholic Education.
I’m confused. No quite qualified. Infact I tutored edication majors so they could receive their teaching certificates (also unpaid) Were you disqualifed as a volunteer because you lacked the required credentials or because, on principle, you would not take the wage? Because we wanted to continue as voluntary not paid staff. If the case is the former, then the “fair wage” wasn’t forced upon you. Again, blame the Teachers’ Union. No teachers union in our schools at the time or now. Just a parity rule.
I sympathize with your particular situation. May I assume that as a volunteer you had the means for sustaining yourself and your dependents apart from the teacher’s salary? If so, I would suggest that those teachers who were not independently sustained deserved and needed the increase. That would have been a good option. IT was not offered. There was no choice for those of us that did not want the money. What we were told was we could donate the money back to the church if we wanted to do so. But then not to expect a break on the tuition if we did this.
I would also like to think that if you had the B.E. degree, you could have kept your job and put your entire salary back in the basket offsetting your entire income as a charitble contribution. Well the IRS has rules against this, we checked. There are limits on the amount you can deduct. We would have had to pay state, local taxes even on the donated amounts. In the absence of your husband’s health benefits, would not the dicocesan health benefits program cover you? Yes at a further cost to the diocesan coffers. Also my husbands insurance was the better of the two so we would have been forced into two insurance companies one great and the other minimal. Thus our out of pocket costs would go up. Thus adding to the overall cost to each and every child being educated.
Time for concerned Catholics to work the system or change the laws; our kids are too important not to.
Peace,
O’Malley
