Becky Abrams is a homeschool consultant and Executive Director of Arrows Christian Academy, a homeschool hybrid in Oregon explains her employee’s wages in a blog post titled “Paying Workers: Employee Compensation.”
I think it will be helpful for those of you hiring employees to know what other groups pay their employees.
Becky made these observations about paying workers in a homeschool organization:
- Homeschool programs are often nonprofit and are not swimming in cash. 🙂 Just like in a private school setting, teachers and staff members’ pay will likely have to be less than the going rate in the for-profit world. It isn’t usually sustainable for a homeschool group director to make the “going rate.”
- Tuition generally determines how much you can pay your staff. You can raise tuition in order to pay them more, but there’s a point where tuition gets so high that the group risks dying because they crossed that threshold. The board has to evaluate which they value more–the staff’s pay or the program’s existence.
- Homeschool programs do not need to have “qualified professionals” working for them. This allows you to pay a lower rates to teachers and staff because they could just be really smart homeschool moms and dads without bachelor’s and master’s degrees (which often demand a higher rate of pay). And that’s great! That’s what I am. 🙂
- People are sometimes willing to work for less if they believe in the mission of the program. This is one of the many advantages of becoming a nonprofit as well. I currently have a handful of OVER qualified professionals that work for me for a fraction of what they could make in the for-profit world. They love their jobs and are willing to work for less because they have moral convictions about who we are and why we do what we do.
Can you tell that Becky really know her stuff?
Read the full bog post.
She is available for consultation with homeschool groups paying employees. Visit Becky’s Consultation page to learn more.
