To J.

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To J.
By Cathy-Dee

Hi J.

I don't mind your questions at all. I can't say for sure about all the provinces as they do differ, but Alberta, BC, Sask, Manitoba and Ontario are generally fairly decent with wages. Alberta where I live has some
differences depending on where you live. My district is the third highest in the province, but we also have a higher cost of living where I am.
Our beginning salaries start at 37,500 and after 8 years top off at just over $60,000. This is with 4 years of teacher training. You can make more if you have more training (up to 5 and 6 years of training can increase your salary). For

most of the other school divisions in Alberta they top off their salaries after 10 years experience. So with a masters and 8 years experience in my school division you would be making 64,400.

We have full coverage for health, dental and eye coverage. This means we don't pay for the coverage, but dental and eye coverages do have some limits per year.

As far as cost of living, most rents in my area are around the $700.00 to $800.00 cost. And we tend to have a higher cost of living overall, but things are starting to even out. We do get some tax benefits because of where we live as well.

As far as working conditions - for the most part they are good. My division is one of the better ones (of course I'm biased), but we tend to have smaller class sizes and well equipped schools. I do know the schools in the cities and surrounding areas do deal with larger class sizes and sometimes not as many resources as we have. I have a computer on my desk, we have a full computer lab, lots of books and resources for the students. And a great team of teacher throughout our division.

I'm sure that there are equally school divisions that are not as great and others that are throughout Canada.

I know that many of the Eastern provinces do not have as much money for wages, etc., and the job market is quite tight, we do have quite a few teachers from areas like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland who come to work in our province for those reasons.

I don't know exactly what the currency rate would be, but from my estimate our 60,000 would be around 40,000 U.S.

I hoped I've actually answered some of your questions and didn't just create more questions. I know I enjoy learning more about the States and the education systems in the different areas. It's amazing how different some things are, and yet how much is the same no matter where you live.