Working as a teacher

[Alexia Goldberg]

What kinds of things are deducted out of your paychecks as a public schoolteacher (CA)?

To preface this conversation, I work at a private school in CA (as most of you know) and so I still pay into Social Security, but my public school counterparts pay into CalSTRS and aren’t required by state law to pay into Social Security. Also, they most likely won’t be able to collect SS in retirement, but I will since I work at a private school. I also know that a number of them something like pay 2% of their gross pay to their teachers union, whereas I don’t because I am an at-will employee and don’t have a teachers union to represent my interests. I largely do that myself.

I’m also wondering, as a percent breakdown of your total pay (so just the percentages), what else do you pay? Do you have to pay for your healthcare? Vision? Dental? (My employer pays 100% of my healthcare plan and I pay like $28/month for both vision and dental — a nominal fee.) If so, how much? As a percentage of your gross monthly income (notice I said percentage), how much is your take-home pay? Is there a fixed percentage across the board for how much you have to pay per category? Does it depend on the district, mostly?

CA teachers, in particular, what are the answers to the above questions?

The reason I’m asking all of this is because I recently spoke with my public schoolteacher friends about our contracts and we were wondering how each of ours differ. I just don’t know and the information I am finding online isn’t entirely helpful.

Thank you for your time! And other teachers outside of CA are welcome to respond, too!

[Alice Jones]

I can give you monthly approximations for my items in Kentucky.
$45 health insurance (top policy)
$35 vision (top policy)
$15 dental ( bottom policy)
$40 critical illness (carry myself and DH)
$150 mutual fund
$15 cancer lump sum
$125 long-term disability
$150 whole life & term life
$18 KAPE (education association—we are non union)
$150 month into a flexible spending account
We do not pay into social security, but we pay a percentage of our salary toward Medicare. We also pay a percentage to Kentucky Teacher Retirement. It may be like 1.5% and 2.5%.

[Alex Bess]

I can share some insight into the typical deductions from our paychecks. First and foremost, we contribute 10.25% of our gross pay to CalSTRS instead of Social Security.
Additionally, we pay a small percentage (around 2-3%) towards our healthcare coverage, which includes medical, dental, and vision. The exact amount can vary by district.
We also have a mandatory union dues deduction, which is usually around 1% of our gross pay. This goes towards representation and advocacy efforts.
Overall, my take-home pay after all these deductions amounts to around 85% of my gross monthly income. The percentages are relatively standard across California districts but can have some minor variations. I've found the workiva customer service to be quite helpful in navigating any questions about payroll and benefits.