Perks for teachers?

The most commonly-held "perks" associated with teaching usually include:

1. Paid summers/Christmas off (but not anymore, CPS teachers!  No more deferred pay for us!  And no more "summers off" if you're non-tenured or working for a principal with his hopes up for getting rid of "tenured do-nothings")

2. "Shorter" work day (Not if you want to keep up with your day-ta!)

3. The opportunity to enrich young people's lives (Yes, of course, but isn't that the JOB THAT WE'RE PAID TO PERFORM, rather than a "perk"?)

We all know that educational experts everywhere are embracing corporate models for schools, giving teachers myriad opportunities to attend meetings about meetings, and also to generate, inspect, and - ahem - manipulate data.  We also know that new urban reformers love "corporate churn," the idea that high staff turnover and constantly changing administrative demands leads to higher productivity.  And of course, we all know about the opportunities out there for corporate educational profiteers to a$$ist in generating new ways to inspect teachers' failures.

But what about the corporate perks?  We've heard about corporate places where staff members get awesome things at work.  In fact, Career Builder did a survey and found out about five awesome corporate perks that keep staff members happy and productive:

1. Catered lunches
2. Massages
3. Nap rooms
4. Snack carts
5. On-site daycare

Boy, do those things sound great!  We know that it's unlikely that urban educational reformers will put the corporate perks into the corporate models for schools, so we've created an alternate list of perks that we'd like to see at our school:

1. Non-roach-infested storage space
2. Non-developing-nation staff bathroom conditions
3. Food available to buy -- even in a vending machine -- during our 25 minute lunch
4. Somewhere comfortable to sit down during planning periods

And last, but not least, maybe a cup of coffee (we'll pay!)?  And a thank-you from the boss every once in a while?

Leave a comment or email wct.tips@gmail.com with perks you think teachers might enjoy.