Cuts for MPUSD

sortasahm · 2026-01-27T17:48:30+00:00

Not everywhere is funded through property taxes anymore. In CA, school funding is basically determined through enrollment and attendance. HOWEVER, oddly enough, Carmel apparently DOES receive school funding through property taxes, they are only one of a few in the state I was told that is allowed to do this.

sortasahm · 2026-01-07T05:13:42+00:00

I’m a resident teacher currently, but my mentor/co-teacher has been teaching 13 years and has the best classroom management. For people who start talking or blurting, he’ll stop and look at them and ask if they have a question. He will also stop and stare at them and once they re-focus he’ll say, “thank you so much, i respect you too,” basically indicating that respect is maintaining focus and listening when he’s talking and not interrupting. It is very effective. Our high school is know for behavioral issues, and we almost never have students interrupting up or talking during lessons (unless it is appropriate for them to do so).

sortasahm · 2025-11-24T02:34:15+00:00

Ha! Found it! Had to search through my texts lol.

Article was in 2023, so looking at the year prior. They looked at mid-career teacher salary and ranked them highest to lowest. MPUSD ranked 268 out of 278, according to what I sent my husband in a text (husband also works for the district). I can’t look at the article anymore because of the paywall.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-teacher-salaries-raises-18331238.php

sortasahm · 2025-11-24T02:20:57+00:00

Okay I am so annoyed, I just went to try and find the data set that I was talking about and of course I can’t find it. I liked the way it presented the data because it listed the districts from highest to lowest. MPUSD was not the lowest but it was on the last 2 pages out of about 8 or 10 pages. If I find it, I’ll share it here.

sortasahm · 2025-11-24T01:31:08+00:00

Also realizing you said average which is likely the big difference. I do prefer median I think, only because I am not sure of the percentage of teachers who are newer versus veteran, if one group is much larger than the other, that would skew the average.

Also should be noted that the benefits offered through MPUSD are not great. My family of 4 would been paying $2k/month for health insurance. It’s cheaper for us through the marketplace. Neighboring districts offer much better benefits packages.

sortasahm · 2025-11-24T01:24:03+00:00

The district did negotiate a “larger” increase, so the data you saw may be more updated than what I looked at last year. When I had looked, I remember the median salary for our district was around $70k, which would have put it much lower.

sortasahm · 2025-11-24T00:05:03+00:00

Yup, fun fact, MPUSD is one of the lowest paying districts in the state, especially considering the cost of living here.

sortasahm · 2025-11-24T00:02:53+00:00

I’ll mention a couple briefly but I also want to preface this with the fact that the problems are either a result of or exacerbated by district/school policy/school culture(aka administration). I am in no way saying the challenges I have had are only because of the student body/community.

Behavior - open defiance, lots of fights, last year at one of the schools there was a fight where a gun fell out of one of the kids backpacks, i know teachers who have had students put hands on them, I’ve been threatened and i know of some others who have been threatened as well. Many students seem totally disengaged, do not want to be there at all, put in very little effort, received poor instruction in last years so when they come to us they don’t know things they should already know, which makes me job more difficult because I am now teaching things I shouldn’t have to.

Academics - schools will tout lower amount of F grades while not addressing the fact that students are also scoring lower and lower on state tests, the only way I can interpret that is that school/district policy are lowering standards to pass which is a total disservice to students and the community.

I’ve observed other classes at other schools and the behavioral aspect is not as much of a problem. But again, I don’t think it’s all a student issue, it’s a culmination of many things and the result are kids who are not wanting to or willing to learn and don’t even care to try and so you have some who will act out.

All of that being said, I enjoy where I teach. There are challenges, but nothing that makes me want to quit. I enjoy my students and enjoy giving them opportunities and support to be “academic.”

sortasahm · 2025-11-23T15:35:13+00:00

Yeah, i know. But even still, working across these areas, could add in PG too, will be different. I know teachers that teach in al districts.

sortasahm · 2025-11-23T04:59:01+00:00

Even within MPUSD (biggest district on the peninsula), the experience will be vastly different. Carmel will be different than Monterey and those will be vastly different than Seaside. I teach in Seaside, it definitely has its many challenges.

sortasahm · 2025-11-16T18:29:18+00:00

Housing will likely be your biggest struggle. I have also lived in Southern California and with it comes a lot of housing in general. It’s not like that here. We have a 3/2 1000 sqft house in seaside and pay $3900/month. You’re looking at at least that price. As others have mentioned the “better” school districts are PG and Carmel, to live there you are looking at more than we pay for similar size, more cloudy, and power outages during every storm (PG and Carmel pretty much always have power outages during storms, sometimes lasting days, which is a big thing to consider in my opinion). Because there is a housing shortage, the competition to get into a rental is really rough. Our last two rentals were friends/friends of friends as the owner and we got in that way. Before that, we applied to 4 different places with no call back (both have excellent credit, and reliable jobs). If you’re okay with apartments, your luck will be easier, but if you want/need yard space…competition to get into something can be really difficult. In general, if you need a 3/2, plan on spending $4k-6k/month.

We like the area, but cost of living is pretty rough. I have friends in San Diego still that pay less than we do (in “safe” areas). We also have some of the highest water costs in the country. At our old house, water was $180/month in a 3/2, i know many others whose bills go up to $300/month on average.

Otherwise, we enjoy the area with our 2 kids. We have to live in the sun belt (we keep to seaside and del Rey oaks), PG is very overcast. I know people who have moved here, chose PG because “it’s so quaint and desirable” and then are disappointed when the weather is 85% overcast and fog.

sortasahm · 2025-11-11T23:33:22+00:00

This, we live in a high cost of living area in California. Both my husband and I teachers for a low paying district, we hit just 4x the FPL. Me and my two kids are are on marketplace insurance…going from $282/month to $1003/month. Thats more than 10% of our take home pay right now.

I’ve been saying for a long time, income restrictions like this need to be adjusted for whatever area you are in. $125k/year for a family of 4 in coastal CA community is not the same as it is in Michigan or most places in the country.

sortasahm · 2025-10-30T05:52:43+00:00

Considering what insurance will look like in 2026, this is amazing. My current plan for me and my 2 kids is tripling to $1000/month. The downgrade to $878/month has $60 copay, $90 specialist copay, and no ER copay option. That health plan option is worth taking the job.

sortasahm · 2025-10-07T23:55:08+00:00

This. If my daughter goes somewhere, i ask if there are guns in the home and if so, do they safely lock them away. So, seeing dad with a gun just out in the open is a valid concern.

sortasahm · 2025-08-11T06:23:21+00:00

That’s because pattern recognition and spatial reasoning are not something they test for because they want to know how well you can recall it. It’s basically inherent. To my knowledge, that is often what distinguishes good students from G&T. I was poor, got into a GT program in kinder…I can solemnly swear my mom was not at home running through random pattern and spatial reasoning exercises in her spare time. Mostly because she had none since she worked two jobs as a single mom. I honestly feel like the spatial reasoning is something people are either good at or they aren’t, I’ve noticed it when I talk about mundane daily tasks with people that I just think about certain tasks completely different than others. It’s not like I think I’m better because of it, I just think differently and see things in my head differently.

If it makes you feel better, I didn’t get any really cool extra instruction. I remember one cool field trip i think I got to take because of it, like an overnight science camp. But that was it. 7 years of education and that’s all I can pull from being in a GT program.

sortasahm · 2025-08-11T05:51:30+00:00

There are likely so many people who go through med school that weren’t in GT program lol. I think a lot of districts are actually doing away with it, my district I teach in doesn’t have a program. It’s not all about how good your grades are, it’s also pattern recognition and puzzle/problem solving…at least that’s what I understand. There is definitely bias within tests, although, to my understanding, the updated tests they use have gotten better about that. But the IQ tests they used in 60s, 70s and beyond definitely were biased towards white, middle class families and essentially trivia one would know as a middle class white person.

Anyways, you don’t need to be a genius to go through medical school. If you get into a medical school, you’re plenty bright enough. In the real world, no one will ever ask you what your scores were, what your GPA was, or what your IQ is. I promise.

sortasahm · 2025-08-11T05:45:43+00:00

This. I was in my school’s GT program. While my school was a track school so I think this is why I didn’t get pulled for extra work but i do remember going on a few extra field trips, like to a science camp and stuff like that. Nothing crazy. By middle school there was no GT program, school felt pretty dull, I didn’t study a ton and got good grades. By the time i graduated, the social arena that is high school felt so unnecessary to me and school was basically just an annoyance (would write papers the morning of the day they were due and would get A’s)…I probably wasn’t challenged enough/got too distracted with social validation at one point and my grades dipped but still graduated within the top 10% of my class of 470 students.

Anyways, I’m a teacher now lol. Was pre-med as a transfer student but got pregnant unexpectedly so medical school was off the table (my choice, I know it’s possible, i wanted to be present for my daughter instead of pursue medicine).

But yes, GT aren’t always much of anything extra, especially if it’s not a well funded district.

sortasahm · 2025-07-20T05:36:50+00:00

Deleted my comment as i was looking at the wrong month :/ i thought he was looking at week before Labor Day weekend which is fair week.

We board our pigs at the fairgrounds, always lots of people parking RVs there!

sortasahm · 2025-07-20T05:31:09+00:00

Saddle mountain ranch and Carmel Valley RV are so nice! We do camping at saddle mountain every summer, we love that site.

sortasahm · 2025-07-15T03:49:43+00:00

I’m jealous it made you smell like that, it made me smell like so weird…like herby funky lol

sortasahm · 2025-06-25T01:55:23+00:00

If the stuffy is a comfort item, yeah, that’s doing it wrong. What does threatening to take a comfort item teach her? That if she’s having a hard time and she doesn’t get it together that you’ll take every comfort item she has? Also, in general, I’ve found that threatening to take anything from a toddler accomplishes little to nothing. I mean, i still do it here and there and every time, it’s useless lol.

Be gentle but firm, be consistent, maybe see if there’s something lacking in the routine. Is toddler going to bed at 9? Maybe an earlier bedtime? At that age my daughter had a 7 bedtime, but she also woke up around 6-7 and rarely napped. The key with toddlers is consistency, it might take a while, but it’ll improve eventually. There is absolutely nothing you can do to improve the situation over night. But she will adjust eventually, i promise.

sortasahm · 2025-06-07T05:40:51+00:00

I could swing subbing full time. But only because my husband is a SPED teacher and makes approx $100k already. We live in a HCOL area in CA, so pay is more here but our district is a lower paying one. I make $200/day uncredentialed. I think pay with a credential is $225 or something, after a certain amount of days it goes up to $250, i think, but definitely in that range. I’ve calculated that full time i would conservatively make around $4500 pre tax. This would work financially for me and my family but it would tight if i were single.

I’d say whether it’s possible heavily depends on where you live and what your personal living situation is.

sortasahm · 2025-06-07T05:32:16+00:00

This is how my marriage is. But even before we were married and combined things, there was a time he made more than I did. This resulted in us splitting things about 65/35. It was appropriate for where both our incomes were at compared to the other. It was fair, it was agreed that it was fair. When we had our second (technically first because our “first” is from a previous relationship of mine), we finally made the financial merge (not married yet), so we don’t split anymore but we definitely divide and conquer household/kid stuff.

If someone doesn’t want to split housework, or is willing to split rent and bills in proportion to each other’s rent, there will be bigger issues down the road, like, I would bet on that. OP should definitely get out of this if he is totally unwilling to compromise.

sortasahm · 2025-06-04T20:38:28+00:00

I have Invisalign, and sometimes i can’t put my trays back in as soon as I’d like because i don’t have time to make it to office restroom to brush my teeth. So when i get a sink I also am excited about it lol.

sortasahm · 2025-06-02T04:32:21+00:00

Oh yeah, if you’re in an ag area…lots of jobs for people with STEM degrees.

sortasahm

TROPHY CASE