<prompt> Human: Hello all,Long time lurker first time poster. As the title says I accepted a position with a salary of 36,000 annually, however since it is a school year position and I began mid-December I agreed I wasnt entitled for those first few months.I did my math and was extremely excited that the offered salary would come out to 1,384 biweekly my district automatically distributes pay throughout a full 12 month cycle, sept-August. First check was a disappointment at nearly 300 less than that. The payroll department explained that they had taken my annual salary 36Kand divided it by the number of days I was contracted for 186, then subtracted the days I had missed 75. The average per day 193.55 was multiplied by days left in the school year 111, coming out to the amount of 21,484.5 to be divided among my remaining pay periods.This is my first job in the public school system, and my first time receiving a salary. I feel cheated, while of course I never expected back-pay for the start of the year I did expect more.Any insight if this is common practice? Edit: I can also see the logic in it, on that end its entirely reasonable. My issue is that I didnt agree to the 193.95day, I agreed to an annual salary. Is it common practice for employers to pro-rate in this way?It seems its not unheard of as Megahurtzcoil mentions below. Im in a very low SES school district going through a lot of changes and was concerned, I technically dont even have a contract with the school because things are in such flux right now.  <response>: Their logic makes sense to me. Just using rough math, you worked 60 of the school year. 60 of 36k is 21.6k.What do you think they did wrong? 