Comments on: Teacher absences: Are they excessive and do they hurt students?

By: Lesley

Lesley — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:21:45 +0000

Yes, I am constantly amazed at the number and frequency of substitutes in my building, and wonder, as you do, how quality teaching is going to happen in that situation.

Then, I also see special education teachers running around, chasing their tails, trying to keep up with students they don’t have in class, and also keeping up with the volume of special ed paperwork that can burn up an entire conference period and still not get done.

I personally try to use time at home in the evenings to complete the myriad of special ed forms that we have, IEPs, BIPs, tracking forms, rosters, projections, all manner of personality and psychological evaluations on students, testing, interviews, more testing, and the list goes on.

Even though I burn up at least 10 hours per week of my own time in the evenings and weekends in order to keep up with the volume of special ed paperwork, it still grows! I do this work at home just so I can focus on students in the classroom……then I get hit-up to sign up for MANDATORY training (and hire my own sub!!!), or I have to attend ARD meetings, disciplinary hearings, and all other manner of meetings that occur during my classtime. I often have to sit for up to 20 minutes waiting for diagnosticians, counselors, special ed directors and other so-called professionals who do not have responsibility for teaching and learning to arrive!!!!!

Look around in our schools sometime, I estimate that less than 50% of our personnel in our schools are actually classroom teachers. We have added so many clerks and paper-pushers and yet the volume of paperwork for teachers is not going down….it’s going up!!!! I keep running into our counselors and clerks all going en-masse to the coffee machine on break together. Teachers don’t get breaks.

So to sum up my rant, I will say that on the surface, it appears that there are a lot of teacher absences, it appears to me that there are a lot of reasons that teachers are spending so much time out of the classroom, and even when we are in the classroom, the phone never stops ringing, emails keep popping up (I use my laptop and projector for instruction…..who has time to send emails in class?) and all manner of clerks and aids pop their heads in to disturb MY students during MY classtime!

Folks, I am WAAYY past frustrated….I’m furious now.

By: AG

AG — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:09:29 +0000

I remember when my husband was diagnosed with cancer and some idiot parent called to complain that his time out of the classroom to have surgery might adversely affect her child. Gee, I guess he just should have died rather than miss a day of school. This article is seriously being published the same year everyone is being admonished to stay home when they have flu symptoms? Especially teachers, who work with the population most likely to suffer complications from swine flu–namely, little kids?

I’m sure there are teachers who take time off they don’t need. Just as I’m sure there are doctors, mechanics, priests, bank tellers, civil servants, and repair people who call in sick when they want a day off. I’m willing to bet that crime rates are connected to police attendance at work, and patient recovery to how many sick days nursing staff take. If we’re going to put teachers under the microscope, kindly do the same for everybody on the public payroll–police, town employees, etc. Even the Secretary of Education has to stay home when his young kids are sick!

By: Maureen Downey

Maureen Downey — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:32:19 +0000

People Like You, I am not sure why national researchers – including Dr. Miller who has studied the impact of teacher absenteeism on student performance – should be discounted because they aren’t K-12 teachers. Many medical breakthroughs come from researchers who are not medical doctors seeing patients. (In fact, doctors seeing patients can’t devote years to researching cures because they are in medical practices.) A friend who was instrumental in developing a better diagnostic test for lung cancer has never seen a cancer patient or any patient in his life; he’s a physicist.
Yes, teachers can tell you what they are doing in their classrooms and what is working for them. They can’t speak to what is working for the teacher down the hall or for hundreds of teachers across the country.
That’s the role of researchers who collect reams of data and who spend years on their research questions.
I think teaching and medicine and virtually everything else would suffer if there weren’t research specialists looking at these big issues on a large-scale.
Maureen

By: People Like You

People Like You — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:05:20 +0000

Just as I thought. I stand to be corrected but reading about Maureen, she has NEVER taught in a public school before!!! Teaching college classes? Please, try your hand in a K-12 setting for a few years. It seems ironic how people who are not teachers try to tell the public what’s wrong with the education system and somehow the majority of the time points back to teachers. As a veteran teacher who has actually been on the front line rather than reading books and looking at data about the profession, this article serves no validity.

By: Matt Fulmer

Matt Fulmer — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:50:50 +0000

You know what? we work so damn hard that we deserve our days off. Heck it’s hard for ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM teachers (and ONLY US) to be off anyway. Hey, you don’t want us to take our days, don’t give them to us.

By: Teacher

Teacher — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:40:50 +0000

Jack’s Mum:
Union? What union? There are no teacher unions in Georgia. In fact, except for Teamsters, airline workers and auto workers, there are NO unions in Georgia. This is a right to work state, which means that when I was sick with bronchitis for a month (yes, a MONTH!) I was at work every day. Why? Because it’s more work to be out than to just drag in. And hide behind my desk. Is that the kind of excellent instruction you want for Jack?

By: teacher

teacher — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:10:50 +0000

Were days we spend out of the classroom but with students included? Substitutes are employed when teachers accompany students on trips for academic, club, & athletic events many of which extend far beyond the teacher work day.

How were days counted when substitutes were employed while you attended required meetings with parents & students (IEP meetings or tribunals)?

I echo the difficulty in finding a sub for a half day when you try to schedule a dr appointment early in the day or late in the afternoon to minimize your loss of class time.

By: wow, jim d - nice

wow, jim d - nice — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:04:50 +0000

I guess you think you’re trying to be funny, but first, not all the comments are from teachers – I’d say it’s 50-50. Second, Maureen posted this over the weekends, and the bulk of the comments were before Monday. It’s ignorant comments like yours that get teachers riled up and feel the need to explain themselves – that so many others perceive as whining…whatever. No wonder teachers want to leave this stupid state in droves.

By: jim d

jim d — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:32:47 +0000

Nearly 200 whiney ass blog comments from teachers while they were being paid??

Talk to the hand folks cause i ain’t listening.

By: just browsing

just browsing — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:09:43 +0000

Some of this discussion on useless- everyone does not live the same type of life or lifestyle. While teaching provides its own sets of challenges, personal challenges can also cause one to be distracted on the job. Unlike a private sector job where you are pretty much accountable for your own productivity, teachers are accountable for everyone else’s! Please- I will take them as needed. It is not the time logged in the classroom setting, it is the quality of the instruction provided when they are present. Good teachers being out 10 days will never ever negatively impact students like 180 days with a poor teacher. It can never be standard business as usual like the private sector- if so- may I have an hour lunch and eat wherever I please?