Teachers demand sick days even if they are not sick. Mark Douglas, a reporter at WFLA-TV in Tampa,
investigated why teachers are asking for time off while being paid. Douglas discovered Fridays were the most popular days teachers take off. These absences are costing millions of dollars. Douglas concentrated his investigation in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. In
Al's Morning Meeting, Poynter's Al Tompkins interviewed Douglas in an email interview. Take notice of teacher absences in your school. Interview administrators and teachers on the issue and get studentss perspective.
Here's an excerpt from the interview:
Tompkins: During your investigation, what did you learn about how closely schools track teacher sick days? Why does it matter?
Douglas: Every
school system has to budget for substitutes, and the budget in
Hillsborough County, for example, amounts to $10 million. But when we
asked for a school-by-school breakdown of teacher absences, neither
Hillsborough nor Pinellas (where the budget is $5 million) had that
information readily available. My takeaway from that and from speaking
with principals and administrators is that there is some informal
monitoring by principals, but it only becomes a disciplinary issue in
extreme cases.
I found only about 20 disciplinary cases at the
school board level so far this year for about 23,000 teachers in
Hillsborough and Pinellas. No one within each school system seems to be
looking closely at the big picture or searching for trouble spots in
the school system.
This
matters because learning suffers when teachers are absent. Substitutes
in Hillsborough need only a high school diploma, and in Pinellas a
two-year college degree will do. It also costs taxpayers a bundle to
replace teachers in the classroom. In Hillsborough and Pinellas
counties, the substitute budgets could pay for a total of 414 full-time
teachers.
Tompkins: Is there a provable link between teachers/schools with high absenteeism and student achievement?Douglas: The
scientific research is limited, but there are specific studies such as the one noted above
that
claim to measure lower achievement. In Pinellas schools we noted that
none of the schools with the highest teacher absenteeism are "A"
schools as defined by the state of Florida. This link appears more
pronounced at the high school level. Educators say school performance
also depends on many other factors not related to teacher attendance.
We cannot summarily say teachers skipping school cause failing schools.
But it seems logical that if schools are failing for other reasons, it
is even more important for teachers to show up for class.
