To the editor:
I am a retired teacher of 37 years, 8 months and 12 days. This is the number that I received from MainePERS, when starting my retirement check. I taught in the same district for my entire career. I paid for my college education completely, getting no help from my parents. I got married at 20, while still in college. My wife tried to make a few dollars to get us by until I could get a job. I finished my college in three and a half years and landed my one and only teaching job after a few weeks of student teaching. I started to work in December of 1972. I was hired with the understanding I would coach varsity baseball and get a year of credit, so the following year I could move up a step, which paid $100 more.
I felt lucky to have a job; and if I got coaching, a year’s step, and taught adult education at night, I might be able to have an apartment and support us. I qualified for food stamps and a 1 percent home loan at Farmers’ Home Administration. I came to work and, shortly after arriving, was told no coaching job because they had promised it to someone else and no step because times were tough. I went to my union and asked if this was legal and would they help me. I was told what I was asking for was not important enough for the union to get involved and to drop it. I not only dropped the fight, but dropped the union at the same time and never returned to ask them for any favors.
My wife did sewing. I taught during the day and adult education at night and on weekends and started working for a trailer sales company setting up mobile homes. I remember one Christmas I asked the superintendent if I could have an advance on a basketball coaching job I was doing so I could buy Christmas presents for my wife and our two families. He told me that was something a school system couldn’t do.
After several years of saving and working as many as five jobs between us, my wife went back to college. We hadn’t started a family at this point because we couldn’t afford to. We did have one child a year or so later and decided that was going to be it for children. My wife continued to pick up little jobs and take care of our son at home as I kept up with my teaching days and adult ed at night, plus two to three other odd jobs to make ends meet. I worked at convenience stores, trailer sales, in the potato fields during harvest break, a funeral home, a furniture store, a swimming pool business, bought and sold contents of houses, remodeled a camp and sold it for a small profit, painted houses and the list goes on. My point is, I always had to supplement my income as a teacher because I just couldn’t make it. I loved the children and people I worked with, so I made up my mind to make it work. I felt very lucky.
Over the years as a teacher, I raised close to $200,000 through fund raising efforts for my district and community. Money was always given back to the school, community, families and children. Out of my own pocket, some years I would spend hundreds of dollars helping children out for instruments that they couldn’t afford, oil for homes, clothing needs, materials for the classroom, fundraising donations, furniture for families after house fires and the list goes on. If the furnace broke down at school, I would bring sandwiches for the workers; if walkways needed shoveling and sanding, I did it; when janitors were absent, I cleaned rooms, painted walls at school on weekends, ran thousands of miles of coax cable, coached for no pay, and was there to mop up if the school flooded.
If a duty needed to be done, I did it. I felt I was a part of a community and always wanted to do my share. I never said no when asked to do anything. I was willing to listen and was thankful for a job. Along with other incomes, I was able to take care of my family. Every teacher and staff member I ever worked with for close to 38 years did the same as I did. I can’t think of one in my career, if asked, said no to doing all the same things to help as I did.
I have always been teased because teachers have a reputation of being the first one in line if something is free. I have also been told how cheap teachers are and how we get all this time off. If you really walked in a teacher’s shoes, you would see just how much time goes into being a good teacher. It is a year-round job, seven days a week.
Now in my retirement, I get the big retirement dollars. To supplement my income to pay for my health insurance, I am doing carpentry work for a friend, I teach at the jail, teach at adult ed, started a photo business, Ebay, and buy and sell contents of houses. I wish I could do more, but after three back operations, I have had to slow down. My wife is going to join me in retirement next year and asked me this morning how she can help in making money next year to pay for her health insurance and our other needs.
For weeks now, I have watched and listened in the media to teachers being called greedy and unreasonable because we are protesting being robbed of our promised retirement by another governor and do not want to pay more than our fair share to help resolve the state’s budget. When I read that teachers’ retirements made them millionaires, I knew I had to write this letter. I wanted to tell you just how teachers have it made.
John Bushey
Houlton
