Only part of the job

Teachers supplement salary with second job

Art teacher Jeb Matulich started Tumbleweed Texstyles. The brand centers around Texas culture, and just recently partnered with Ozarka Natural Water.

Art teacher Jeb Matulich started Tumbleweed Texstyles. The brand centers around Texas culture, and just recently partnered with Ozarka Natural Water.

During the school year, the average teacher works 53 hours a week and brings home $56,383 a year. However, for some teachers, teaching on campus isn’t their only source of income.

The extra money that I’m getting from these extra classes is definitely helping so I guess there wouldn’t be much of a need for me to do it,

— science teacher Kenric Davies

“I kind of have like a second and third job,” physics teacher Kenric Davies said. “I teach physics and a couple of other classes at some of the other colleges around here. I do, this semester, an astronomy course. An online astronomy course for Collin College. I’m also doing two education classes for Texas A&M Commerce so I’m teaching a science course to students who are wanting to become teachers in the K-8 grade level. I do that Monday and Tuesday nights.”

7.8 million people in the United States have two or more jobs, but for art teacher Jeb Matulich, his side business highlights his talent and passion.

“My company’s name is Tumbleweed TexStyles,” fine arts department chair Jeb Matulich said. “It started with a former teacher that used to be here at Liberty, Mr. Wysong. We started it in 2011. It’s all Texas themed t-shirts, but yet we’ve been around for 6 years now and we have over almost 205 retailers or so throughout Texas who sell our shirts.”

As Matulich sells Texas based apparel, Davies sells science.

“I love being a high school teacher, but I guess later on I wanted to move further up into the higher education so this is kind of getting the foot in the door for me, but honestly I just like talking about physics and working with pre-serviced teachers,” Davies said. “That’s where Commerce comes in. I take every opportunity I can to do it.”

I was just kind of just looking for another way to get that artwork out,

— art teacher Jeb Matulich

With the average teacher salary in Texas $48,110, nearly one-third of teachers in Texas work a second job; a move Davies might not need to do if he made more as a teacher.

“The extra money that I’m getting from these extra classes is definitely helping so I guess there wouldn’t be much of a need for me to do it,” Davies said. “I think for me, yes I probably would.”

But for Matulich, his second job isn’t about money, it’s about extending the reach of his passion.

“I’ve always been an artist so my artwork was always something I was working on,” Matulich said. “Painting and drawing things like that, but I was just kind of just looking for another way to get that artwork out. Usually you just create one piece of art and it hangs in someone’s house or something like that, but this is kind of a way to get my art on thousands of people so it was kind of something I was wanting to do to reach out to that aspect of it.”