Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cubanlord]

[ttompatz]

[spliff]

[timhorton]

I have worked for schools that count each class 40 min or 50 min as 1 hour.

I have worked for other schools that count the minutes you teachings. In this case class time was added up until it reached 22 hours of 'actual' time.

So, it appears that different schools have different ideas about the contract hours.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

My high school counts 50 minutes as an overtime class, so this is definitely the school's call. I have on more than one occasion had to tell them that I wouldn't do something unless...

Case in point, they tried to tie my OT pay to the number of students who showed up to the afterschool class. At that point I refused to do it unless they would pay me the same regardless. Then *~magically~* they decided to pay the standard OT amount.

Seems to me that public schools will squeeze all they can out of you and constantly test the limits of what their "token foreigner" will accept.

[gk]

Can anybody shed some light on this?

I'm not getting any OT (GEPIK), but for a different reason. I work 23-24 hours of "regular" classes and teach two extra, advanced classes after school for a total of 26-27 hours per week. For any number of reasons that are unified in that they are out of my control and show that English class sits on a startlingly low rung on the educational totem pole, classes will not show up. This technically means that on weeks when this happens (every week so far), I do not teach 22 hours and I get 0 overtime pay.

The question then is should the advanced classes be considered separate when calculating overtime pay? Unfortunately, the contract itself does not have anything to say about this. As it stands though, I am not receiving any money for teaching these advanced classes each week, which in my mind are clearly separate and should be treated as such when calculating overtime. If there is a national holiday or something, then I can understand where they're coming from. But if the event is a field trip, or practicing the mass umbrella twirling dance for "sports" day, I'm not so sympathetic.

I like my school for a lot of reasons and am very much in the pick-your-battles mindset, but I feel like this is something I need to go to bat for if I am justified. This could amount to an additional 200,000/month that I feel like I should be getting.

[cubanlord]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

ANY time outside of your specified work hours (usually 8:30-4:30) should be considered OT and you should either be compensated or refuse to do the extra classes.

Koreans are of the mindset that more classes must = better education.

[gk]

Thanks for the responses. I think I may not have a leg to stand on here unfortunately. Here is the wording in the contract:

[schwa]

Regular public school class "hours" are 40/45/50 minutes (elem/ms/hs). If you take on an afterschool class that happens to run 60 minutes thats still just gonna count as an hour -- I cant see any admin office tallying minutes of overtime, that just seems niggling on your part.

If you are scheduled to teach more than the contractual maximum of regular classes, & some of those dont happen, then that is likely to impact your overtime pay.

Classes cancelled for reasons beyond your control should not however be docked from after-school class pay. K-teachers certainly get paid for those classes regardless of how many regular classes they teach in a given pay period. Those classes are budgeted separately.

Most after-school classes fall within regular school hours. You are free to decline them but in my experience taking them on generates goodwill & dependable extra cash.

[Atavistic]

[gk]

Cheers, any chance I can get that contact information? It sounds like we are in very similar situations. Let me know if you end up resolving this with your school, I'd be interested.

I probably won't bring it up again until the next pay period. My pay stub shows me that I'm not paying income tax or pension, which needs to be dealt with first.