Teachers get days off and a small bonus
PHILIPSBURG – Teachers and school staff will get days off on November 3o, December 1, and January 3, 4 and 5 to compensate for the mid-term break they missed in the beginning of October, Minister Silveria Jacobs (Education) said at Wednesday’s press briefing. Teachers and staff will also get a voucher worth 200 guilders (around $112) as a token of appreciation.
Jacobs described attempts to describe these decisions as a political stunt as “low.” On Facebook the decision was labeled as part of a –prohibited – departure policy. This is a practice whereby politicians who are about to leave office hand out favors, expecting some political mileage down the road.
Jacobs said however that teachers were “experiencing adjustment problems” that they were “rapidly burning out” and that they suffered from exhaustion after Hurricane Irma.
The minister said that the period during which schools were closed after the hurricane cannot be considered a vacation for the teachers.
School will now resume after the Christmas holidays on January 8, 2018.
In December 2016, during the handling of the draft 2017 budget, Jacobs revealed that her ministry spends 18.5 million guilders per year on salaries for teachers in public schools and that there are 196 teachers working in these establishments. That puts the average annual salary for a teacher at 94,388 guilders ($52,730).