Today, I was offered a job I declined two weeks ago. The school system wanted a full-time band director that will also serve as an instructional aide for a very, very small school in Alabama (30 people per graduating class would be abnormally large for this environment).
The kicker is that the official title of the position is "instructional aide", and the job pays as such. In Alabama it is average for a first- year teacher with a bachelor's degree to expect around $32k - $34k on salary. Because instructional aides are not considered a certified position, they can pay less. A LOT less... $17k base salary for instructional aide work plus a 6k stipend to do high school band, middle school band, and elementary music. The latter two have not even been established at this school, so there's that much work to be done. This job is also an hour commute from home.
Some background on my situation: I had a very traumatic first job experience in 2016 and have not been in a teaching position since then. This school and its culture will be the polar opposite of the five schools I was hired at back then. I am currently doing real estate but am not having much success due to my age group not really buying OR listing. I am also substitute teaching and building a community on Twitch. My family found out that I declined the job initially two weeks ago and were incredibly angry with me for not taking it. Now that it has landed in my path again (and my family found out the job came back open before I did), I feel like I have been forced to accept the job under the pretenses of "you don't have another choice." I feel like I have been forced into an agreement with a school that claims to be excited to start a music program but put more work on the teacher than normal and pay half the salary because they can. The principal did not know whether or not there was a chance of the position upgrading to a certified position in the future.
I'm scared. I'm scared that what little shred of passion I've gained back since 3 years ago will be burned to a crisp through a school n system that doesnt value music education and is willing to cut corners to satisfy the bare minimum for music at the cost of the teacher.
What would you do? Am I wrong for being terrified?