Posted on 02/04/2006 8:54:24 PM PST by george76
$10 million spent annually by district for classroom subs...
Driven by parental concerns about teacher absenteeism, the Chicago Public Schools for the first time will start scrutinizing schools with high numbers of teachers taking sick days.
On any given school day in Chicago, an average of 1,500 teachers, about 6 percent of the teaching staff, call in sick or take a personal day, according to a Tribune analysis of teacher payroll records.
The absentee rate is highest on Fridays, when an average of 1,800 teachers don't show...
For each of the last six school years, Chicago teachers missed an average of 12 unscheduled days in their 39-week work year. Their current contract calls for 10 sick days and three personal days.
By comparison, salaried employees nationwide take an average of five sick and personal days during their 50-week work year...
Last school year, the district tapped 280,000 substitutes, with the peak coming in February, when demand for substitutes topped 47,000--or about 2,350 each day.
The demand for subs in the 2005-06 school year is even higher, up about 27 percent for the first five months of this school year compared with the same period the year before...
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
One incentive might be better educated students who were taught by a knowledgable, caring teacher.
A substitute who does not know the kids and may not fully understanding the topic is not the best choice.
If maximizing the industrial, union benefits is the most important reason for a teaching career, then that person might do society a favor by chosing a different profession.
In other words, it would be totally stupid of me not to use my sick days, every year! Although the benefit is wonderful, I can't see it as anything but an incentive for calling in sick.
Free to Choose
After 50 years, education vouchers are beginning to catch on.
BY MILTON FRIEDMAN
Little did I know when I published an article in 1955 on "The Role of Government in Education" that it would lead to my becoming an activist for a major reform in the organization of schooling, and indeed that my wife and I would be led to establish a foundation to promote parental choice.
The original article was not a reaction to a perceived deficiency in schooling. The quality of schooling in the United States then was far better than it is now, and both my wife and I were satisfied with the public schools we had attended.
My interest was in the philosophy of a free society.
...public interest in and support for vouchers and tax credits continues to grow.
Legislative proposals to channel government funds directly to students rather than to schools are under consideration in something like 20 states.
Sooner or later there will be a breakthrough; we shall get a universal voucher plan in one or more states.
When we do, a competitive private educational market serving parents who are free to choose the school they believe best for each child ...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006796
I have accumulated 180 days of sickleave. I do however wind up using my 3 personal days almost every year.
You are a teacher? Yall aren't slaves. Parents shouldn't expect you to never get sick or need personal time off. They should be able to expect for you to have a good aide that's in the loop and can cover though.
I am in my 24th year of teaching. As I mentioned I have been blessed with good health and I suspect that my immune system is protecting me from just about every illness the kids have come in contact with. My first few year teaching were the worse for getting illnesses. One year I used 15 days when I had a bout with mono.
Another year I used all my sick day to recover from back surgery (that was 45 days)
My wife was a substitute for 2 years. During the school year, she worked nearly EVERY Friday.
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Our elementary gym teacher used to take sick days for her son's hockey tournaments.
I work in a hospital/ambulatory care clinic. When I started there back in 1989, we got x amount of vacation, and 12 sick days a year; people abused it all of the time. Now, we have Primary Time Off and Extended Time Off. The took 4 of what used to be sick days, and put them into PTO. Thus, if you didn't call in sick, you had 4 extra days of vacation. The remaining 8 sick days were banked as ETO. You could only use these for hospitalizations, surgery, or for more than 3 days off with a doctor's excuse. Also, we are able to carry over our ETO to 1000 hours, at which point our long term disability insurance kicks in. The ETO has been a godsend for me; I have at least 3 months off coming up for when I get my kidney transplant; I should have enough ETO to cover it.
which is exactly what the government does not want... it'll never allow it...
There are many positive ways than to encourage any employees ( teachers ) to be honest about sick days.
One option, give the sick days as cash, retirement plan donations, or as vacation days at the end of the year if they are not used.
Having every Friday swamped with subs sends a terrible example to the students. The students are being cheated on their education.
Second option, if the students excell in state wide tests, then bonus time or money could be offered for positive results.
There are many other positive ideas, too.
That sounds good. If there was a "buy back" format of some kind where there was an incentive to accumulate unused days, there would be less temptation to "use them or lose them"
I know of a teacher nearby who took her family to DisneyWorld on the second week of January. Missed an entire week of school right after having been off two weeks for the Christmas break.
Insanity.
If I had to teach in Chi-town I might have to take a few mental health days myself!
Try dealing with five classes of thirty kids,many of them bored and angry,and a myriad of problems ranging from outsiders roaming the halls to beatdowns in the middle of class.To add insult to injury,one must also have to interact and kiss up to administrators who enable this sort of behavior.
In high school and middle school, only the special ed teachers have aides, and they are becoming increasingly infrequent in the lower grades as well.
I wonder if it counts or doesn't count the times that teachers attend certain conferences. Six percent is actually less than the rate at my wife's computer job. She takes about 10-12 sick days a year herself.
6% is about the student absence rate here, sometimes it is more. Sometimes teachers do get sick like others, sometimes a "sick" day is used to take care of their own sick child. It would be interesting to see a breakdown.
I am a teacher, but have never taken a sick day in 10 years. I have missed a few times (an average of about 1 or 2 days a year) for some things, chiefly being family-related like my brother's wedding and family reunions--whenever Momma says I HAVE to come, I do:).
The excuses I hear for absences are not what they used to be. Instead of just "he's sick" or something like a vacation, sometimes it's because "family came into town," or "we wanted to see a movie" or "our house wasn't clean" or "he didn't do the report" or "he was needed to help babysit the kids" or "we woke up late" or "we got home late from the basketball game" and so on. I definitely sympathize with family-related things like going hunting or vacation (though we have ample breaks throughout the year and some people don't use them). I also don't want sick students. But you hear a lot more excuses than you used to. I think the same is true for some teachers too.
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