I was talking to my brother and we were discussing spring break and he commented to me that even though the salary is lousy, at least they paid us for vacation. Now, I am in education and my parents are in education, so of all non-education people, he would be someone who should know how this works. He doesn't though and I'm betting that most people don't either.
Teaching/education salaries are figured on a days worked/hrs per day basis. Basically, we are hourly wage earners. Most teachers get paid for abt 183 days a year at however many hours their contract requires (usually 7-7.5/d). That is pretty much exactly how many days kids are in school + 1-4 inservice days a year (where you sing into training to learn mostly irrelevant things). I am not, for example, paid for spring break. I am not paid for winter break. I am not paid for labor day (irony, we has it) or veteran's day, or president's day. I am CERTAINLY not paid for summer break. In fact, we are considered laid-off in the summer and could theoretically file for unemployment. In the past, many teachers used to work other jobs during the summer, but with districts eating further and further into summer, it isn't particularly possible to get summer employment any more. I know many teachers dying to work summer school who can't get hired because even that only takes a very limited number of teachers in years when it is even running (forget counselors, they might have 1 per district total working summer school) and these days, summer school isn't happening.
We do get sick leave. I get 2 weeks a year, of which I can use 1 day for personal business. We cannot generally sell it back, though we can accrue it forever. The only thing it is good for is actually being sick or, when we are going to retire, we can (as a one time end of career offer) sell it back for a percentage amount and use it as time served to add to our years of employment.
So, for the next time someone says to you, "Those teachers are all lazy. They get paid for all those days off and still complain about their salaries and working conditions." now you know. In education, you do not get "vacation", you get, effectively, unpaid furloughs.