I was wrongfully terminated from a former teaching job at the middle school level in a private school. My principal was irrational and vindictive, and I am pursuing legal action against him since my lawyer thinks I have legal basis for several reasons.

But in terms of moving on with my career, I am applying to part-time and full-time teaching jobs that fit my subject matter. I was just offered a part-time adjunct teaching job this morning at a local for-profit community college. I would be happy to take this job just to have a new teaching job to put on my resume and to move beyond my firing from my last job, and even part-time employment in education is better than no employment in education. But this for-profit community college is only offering to pay me $18 an hour, and I find that crazy. I have taught as an adjunct for many years in the past, and I received $55-80 per hour at those colleges and community colleges. And my former full-time job paid an annual salary which worked out for a 40 hour week to be $36 per hour. I have two MA degrees in this subject area and some PhD work. Even my after-school tutoring paid $30-50 per hour.

Should I take this adjunct teaching job for $18 per hour? It is only 30 minutes drive away and it is in my subject areas, and I could use a new teaching reference to put on my resume and to distract from my earlier wrongful termination from a full-time job. Or is this salary so appallingly low that I should avoid this school regardless of my desperate circumstances?

For what it is worth, the student tuition at this for-profit school is still almost twice what a regular community college would charge, so the tuition is high, but clearly adjunct teachers are being paid nothing.

[Tawaki]

My English/History/Education adjuncts have had salaries that low and they have PhDs from R1 universities. It's a buyers' market for colleges and universities.

What people pay for tuition means does not correlate for what is paid to the help. There is small, private college by me that charges the moon, and the hire help gets peanuts.

There's just a lot of people running around with PhDs and colleges can low ball everyone.

Look at it like therapy. It get's you out. Get's you paid. You may make a connection for a better gig. It will keep your mind occupied for a bit.

The main thing is you don't have an doctorate. The CCs around by me wouldn't even look at your CV, and the private for profit ones would because they know they can pay you less a ton less.

Tutors start at $20/hr where I live (and 20 is considered almost too low to charge). If you hustle a few kids, you might make that adjunct salary.

For me, any check cut is better than nothing. It beats working at Target and Starbucks, both of which my PhD friends had to do between adjunct gigs.

Good luck with the lawsuit. What a nightmare.

[cattleya]

I live in an "At Will" state where you can be fired for anything, even just the whim of the employer. I was fired (that word was not used) from a school system as a Sub. I have a Masters in Education but have not taken teaching tests. I did not lose my license (sub) and the investigation came up inconclusive and was dropped. I asked the PED what I could do in this case since I still wanted to teach (though I think I will get a secondary certification ASAP).

What I was told is to look for a job outside of the district, and be as honest about what happened. Since you say it was "for no reason" my thought is that you need to sync somehow with the person who fired you to find an exact reason, because they will contact him/ or her and ask. If your explanation does not match his/hers, they will most likely not believe you. It is a sad fact that in this culture, the worker is always wrong and the boss is always right. What I am doing at the moment is to try to find the absolute wording for why I was fired. They will assume whatever happened "you must have done something."

I feel it would be appropriate to get a lawyer involved. I did, and was not raked across the coals. If you show that you have someone who knows the law on your side, you may be treated more favorably.

S I can't say anything about the money issues. In this town, $7.50 is a good hourly wage.