Teacher Edition Side Hustle

By: Devynn Brown

When you have the time and the determination you get a side hustle. Many teachers have a side hustle all the while balancing their work life.

English teacher, Ms. Saputo teaches yoga as a side hustle. In the first year of Ms. Saputo’s teaching, she got a chance to be in a yoga teacher training program at her studio class. The job she got was more of an offer by the woman that taught at the studio because she hosted the training and was like “you’re going to teach for me right?”

Ms. Saputo doesn’t teach yoga very often and does about 3-4 hours a week. During breaks and summer she teaches more. Ms. Saputo says that “this job (school teaching) is first and that (teaching yoga) is just something I do on the side because I enjoy it.” Ms. Saputo thinks that she will “teach yoga forever. Even after I stop teaching high school.” Ms. Saputo would “love to teach yoga at school someday.”

Ms. Saputo’s favorite part of the job is the “connection with students. The space brings in a lot of amazing women and men. You meet all kinds of people. I have a lot of teachers that are my students so it’s nice to have that kind of comradely with other teachers that don’t just work at Redwood.” Teaching at Redwood has a “family aspect and I’m lucky to have the family that I’ve developed at Redwood. The studio is also like a little family so I think it also serves to keep me grounded and healthy emotionally.” Ms. Saputo advises people to get a second job that they are passionate about and love.

Math, physics, and AP calculus teacher, Mrs. Kasun teaches as an adjunct at COS as a side hustle. Mrs. Kasun believes “it is wonderful having similar jobs to a friend because we can talk about the same things and share advice and experiences.” Before Mrs. Kasun became a full time teacher at COS she worked there part time. Then she took a break and got her teaching credential and for a while just worked at high school.

Mrs. Kasun applied years ago for COS. Her husband, Mr. Kasun, motivated her to get the job at COS and the fact that she had kids going to college made her think to keep the second job. Having the second job helped her send her kids to college debt free.

Mrs Kasun feels that the second job is “tiring at times but the benefits outweigh the downsides. I think it gives us a real perspective on what we do here because we’re seeing students go from here (Redwood) to there (COS) and I think it helps us better do our job here (Redwood).” One of the challenges of having a second job is not being able to do much besides work. What is nice about working at COS is that she can advise Redwood students better on what math they should take in college classes. Mrs. Kasun would like to continue the second job for along as she can. Advice Mrs. Kasun would give to someone interested in a second job would be to “just do it. Realize that some things are going to have to be cut out.”

Math teacher, Ms. Herrera also teaches as an adjunct at COS for her side hustle. Ms. Herrera thinks that working alongside Mrs. Kasun is “great for getting advice and it’s really nice to be able to talk to someone about everything over there that’s different from here (Redwood).” Ms. Herrera felt encouraged by friends and COS to apply for a job there.

The hardest part in her opinion is cutting down on social life and working everyday of the week. What’s nice about having a job at COS is “knowing what the expectations are there and what the curriculum is and so I get to see what my students need to come in knowing.” Ms. Herrera is doing the second job, “more for the experience” and will most likely make COS a temporary job. Ms. Herrera feels that when in the classroom, “I’m teaching and I love it. I’m happy and I get through it.” She loves the college environment and the different atmosphere from high school. Advice Ms. Herrera would give to a person wanting a second job is “make sure you have the time.”

“My business is to help people not to profit off of them.”

Mr. Miller

Journalism and AP literature teacher, Mr. Miller, owns a screen printing business and prints T-shirts and sweatshirts. Mr. Miller has been interested in the screen printing business since his 3-D art class at Golden West High School. After quitting being the ASB teacher he had all this free time and started the business of screen printing. His very first customer was Mr. Coon with FFA. It has been ten years since then and he has been printing T-shirts since.

Mr. Miller loves his second job because, “a lot of my job as a teacher is words and thinking so it’s kind of nice to have something physical where I can be creative and do that.” Mr. Miller believes that “if you give a stack of essays to a class nobody smiles but if you bring a box of T-shirts to a group of kids they all get excited. I print shirts for celebrations, like SuperFan shirts or champion shirts.” 

Mr. Miller says its not easy to balance a second job along with teaching he works very late. He makes it a rule to never “mix my day job with my night job. I keep it separate. I get paid to teach here (Redwood).” One of the difficulties of being your own boss is “having motivation. When you are your own boss sometimes you want to sleep in and you have to be really honest with yourself and do it.” Mr. Miller works about 10 hours a week if it’s busy. Part of Mr. Miller’s retirement plan is to be a T-shirt guy and keep the business going. He “will always be a print maker. I like it. It’s not hard or physically taxing.” This job benefits him by allowing him to be creative and “allows me to bring joy to people’s lives with something simple. I like to see people walk around campus with all their SuperFan T-shirts. I print all of them.”

Mr. Miller uses his side job to help with charity, he just recently raised $3,000 for the boys and girls club in Ivanhoe and his profit was people got to see it. The advice Mr. Miller would give to a person wanting a second job would be to “do it. For a lot of people their side hustle becomes their hustle. Keep your side job in her perspective. For teachers remember you are a teacher first.”

Hopefully all these dedicated teachers have inspired you to think beyond school/work life and possibly get a side hustle. For people interested in adopting a side hustle make sure you have the time and are dedicated to both jobs. Keep up the hustle, Rangers!

Tags: rangers, Redwood, sidehustle, sidejobs, teachers