Woodford County teacher featured on cover of TIME

WOODFORD COUNTY, Ky. (WTVQ) – History teacher Hope Brown sees a lot of irony with her time magazine cover poster next to a sign saying “let your voice be heard,” in the halls of Woodford County High School.

“It’s kind of embarrassing that you tell people that you sell plasma to make it from paycheck to paycheck, but I just thought that people need to know how teachers struggle,” said Brown.

Brown criticized the term “side hustle,” on social media. The term refers to people who make money outside of their full time job. That post caught the eye of a TIME magazine reporter.

“To be honest with you, I was afraid, I was a little bit nervous, afraid of negativity, afraid of trolls,” Brown says about doing the interview with TIME.

Brown says she’s salaried at $55,000 a year, but in the article, she talks about working three jobs on top of donating blood plasma to pay her bills.

“Even though that’s not a bad income for a lot of people, when you put student loan debt, when you put medical bills from a surgery I had to have, when you put things that you have to have for your children,” said Brown.

Brown says so far she’s gotten mostly positive support from former students and people who’ve read her story. She’s not trying to get political by putting her story out there, but is trying to draw attention to the issue and gain support for public education.

“I’m not whining, I’m not complaining, I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, I have a wonderful life, I have a great family, I love my job, we’re just not financially compensated for what we have to do,” said Brown.