Warning to laid-off teachers: Don't teach

We have become a totally insane country -- no plan for ANYTHING but RE-ELECTION!
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Warning to laid-off teachers: Don't teach
By RICK CASEY
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Last week Fort Bend, Katy and Pasadena school districts announced they are eliminating more than a thousand teaching and administrative positions.

Houston Independent School District voted to eliminate 277 central office positions and is waiting to hear from principals on how many hundreds of teachers, administrators and support staff will be laid off from individual schools.

I have one piece of advice for the tens of thousands of teachers and other school personnel here and across Texas who are about to enter the ranks of the unemployed.

Do not substitute teach!

Don't do it five days a week. Don't do it one day a week. Unless you are independently wealthy, have a spouse whose income supports you, or have some other means of support so you won't have to seek unemployment benefits.

Let me tell you the story of Beverley Byrd of Friendswood. She was laid off by the Galveston Independent School District last spring, where she had been making about $46,000 a year as a social studies teacher.

That salary was paid out through the entire year, so as she continued to receive paychecks in the summer she worked hard at trying to find a new job.

She had no luck, so she applied for unemployment compensation.

And when she was accepted, she asked if work as a substitute teacher would affect her unemployment benefits.

"They said I could make up to about $130 a week, or 25 percent of my benefits without them being affected," she said.

So she substituted a day and a half a week at $90 a day to reach that limit and drew her unemployment benefit of $406 a week, while continuing to look for work. The money was a lifesaver, since she supports a son and a husband who is unable to work.
The checks stopped

But in March she received a shock. The checks stopped coming. When she called the Texas Workforce Commission they told her a letter was on the way. They had overpaid her by issuing checks during the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, and she would receive no checks until they had recovered four weeks worth of payments.

"It was a total shock to me," she said.

Then it got worse. Because she has been working as a substitute teacher she will not be paid during the summer.

So working part-time as a substitute would cost her about 15 weeks worth of unemployment compensation, or more than $6,000.

Lisa Givens, chief spokeswoman for the Texas Employment Commission, confirmed that any income from substitute teaching has a good chance of costing laid-off teachers unemployment compensation that they would otherwise receive during summer and holiday school breaks.

The cause is a very reasonable clause in the Labor Code designed to keep educators from seeking unemployment benefits in the summer when they have a job lined up in the fall.

It says school personnel cannot get benefits during a break if they were employed before the break and "there is a reasonable assurance that the individual will perform the services" after the break.
Anything but subbing

Never mind that the services are part-time and as a substitute. The commission ruled that if a school district is using Byrd as a substitute this spring, there's a reasonable assurance they will offer her that work in the fall. And under the language of the law, they can't be paid unemployment benefits during the breaks.

She would be reimbursed only if she tried to substitute in the fall and was turned down.

"If I had known that, I wouldn't have tried to get substitute teaching," said Byrd. "Nobody told me that."

Givens said the commission is working on new written benefit explanations that let teachers know that substitute teaching can be a very expensive hobby.

So laid-off teachers: If you need a few extra bucks to supplement your unemployment checks, wait tables or mow lawns or greet people at Walmart.

Just don't do what you know best: teach