That early morning phone call telling you that school has been canceled today!

Here is what a lot of people don’t understand about a teacher’s contract and the work year.

I work a per diem contract. 185 days. No paid vacations. No paid holidays.

If the state legislature decides to proclaim the second Tuesday in April “Fred Klonsky Day” and close the schools in honor of me, our district will simply add another day to the end of the year.

I’m not complaining. As long as we’ve been able to collectively bargain a fair contract (which is now being threatened), we’ve been able to bargain fair compensation.

Still, summers off means no pay (unless you’ve chosen to have your paychecks divided up over 12 months instead of 10). Martin Luther King gets honored by giving teachers an unpaid holiday.

While people who work in the private sector will complain about teachers getting summers off, our work year looks more like the rest of the industrialized world than theirs does. Except workers in the rest of the industrialized world are paid for their holidays.

The only exception to this is a snow day. Snow days are our only paid holidays.

You can’t plan for them. You don’t get one every year. And those poor teachers in San Diego live in perfect climate, but they will never have the thrill of getting the automated call at 5AM from the superintendent telling you that all classes have been canceled because there are two feet of snow on the ground.

I received that call this morning.

A big storm swept through yesterday morning with 50 mile an hour winds. It only lasted about 15 minutes. It knocked over a few trees on the boulevard. Power is still out this morning in some suburbs, including Park Ridge, where I teach.

They called off summer school classes. Which I don’t teach.

But the automated call went out at 5AM. Which woke me up. In July.

Apparently I’m off today.