Teacher absenteeism: Are mental health days on the rise?
Teacher absenteeism can adversely affect students. (AP Images)
The AJC has an interesting piece this morning on absenteeism among metro Atlanta teachers. The story by education writer Ty Tagami and database specialist Kelly Guckian is subscriber only and will not appear online so I can’t share a link. But I can provide a summary.
The AJC analyzed metro Atlanta attendance data for the past three years and found that teachers in nearly all districts missed on average more than 10 days due to illness, training, personal leave or jury duty. Sickness was the most common cause.
The story examines whether “mental health” days are increasing because of class size, diminishing respect and increasing responsibilities and accountability.
“It used to be that teachers only worried about teaching,” said Connie Jackson, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators. “Now, they have to worry about paperwork, evaluations, test scores, data management, keeping your students happy and keeping your parents happy. There’s so much more on teachers, that I think it’s contributed to absences.”
The piece says that research shows that when a teacher misses school, students learn less. Research suggests that the impact of a teacher missing 10 days a year compared with one who has perfect attendance is like the difference between a new teacher and one with three to four years experience.
Here is a brief snippet of the story:
“Nationally, teachers are out one day a month” or about 10 days a year, said education researcher Raegen Miller, whose work on teacher absence is widely cited. “If in Georgia it’s more than that, that inevitably raises the question — what’s going on?”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution analyzed data reported by school systems to the Georgia Department of Education. The newspaper also used the state Open Records law to obtain figures on how much money each school district spent on substitute teachers.
Gwinnett County Public Schools, the largest system in Georgia, was the only large metro district to match the national average in each of the past three years. Elsewhere, though, the rates were higher. Last year, for instance, in Atlanta Public Schools and in Fulton and DeKalb counties, teachers were absent on average about 13 days. They were out 11 days in Cobb County.
Studies show a link between teacher absence and lower student test scores, especially in math — something that students, parents and educators have always known.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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208 comments Add your comment
Spedteacher
March 31st, 2012
1:43 pm
I am not whining about doing required work during a time when I am not paid. stating fact. I have a question to those who called it whining – do you take work with you on vacation (which you most likely are paid for)?
Also stating that not all teachers take days off because we just want to. for me that is too much work added to the work I already do. Come spend a day in my class and see if you could do the job!
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
March 31st, 2012
2:29 pm
@GM “I work 9 hours a day at the office and open my laptop and work at home. ”
GM, you may note that I NEVER post on this BLOG during work hours. In fact, I never post until I get home, which is often well after my official work hours. You on the other hand, seem to post quite often during work hours.
Do you know what that tells me?
That tells me that your “work” hours are much more relaxed than mine. What too many in the non-teaching public do not understand is that when a teacher is at work, they are ON the entire time… the ENTIRE time. Imagine running a birthday party for 25 children for seven hours straight, five days a week and you might get an idea of what my day is like. My ability to multi-task is so well developed, I think I may have self induced Attention Deficit Disorder.
There are no chats at the water fountain. There are no coffee breaks. There are no quick trips to the bank. There are no conversations with colleagues in the hallway. You are constantly at the beck and call of 25 or more children – and if you have children, you know how demanding they can be. There is barely time to run to the restroom. In fact, I have often had to deal with bladder infections and the aftermath of a leaking tampon due to NOT being able to get to the bathroom. (Yes, those are some of the little unpleasant realities of having a classroom of 25 young children in your care.)
Other careers have a “lunch hour” or time to run and get a bite to eat, even if they eat at their desk. My lunch is 40 minutes long, which includes having my students wash their hands, walking them to the lunchroom, waiting with them to help with any problems in line, getting them seated, and then getting my own lunch. Add the time it takes to pick them up and I generally get about 20 minutes to eat. Many times, I am still downing my lunch while walking them back to class. Some teachers don’t even bother to eat, but I have low blood sugar and will faint if I don’t eat. In some states, I had to eat lunch with my students. Try eating lunch with 27 first graders who are eating spaghetti with their fingers because no one has ever taught them to use a utensil. Not good for your appetite!
I have planning time, but it is also a time for constant work – e-mails, phone calls, school blog updates, grading papers, inputting grades, etc.
Then comes the after school hours of unpaid work…
I will admit to having the occasional real conversation with a co-worker after the students have left… but 95% of the time, these conversations revolve around students and how to best serve their needs.
I suppose you might consider this whining, but I consider it trying to get people to realize that good educators are not LAZY…we are working our tails off! By the time I get home, I am mentally and physically exhausted. I usually crawl into bed around 8:45 PM. On the week -ends, I sometimes sleep 12 hours straight, just to catch up.
Despite all of this, I LOVE working with my students. I could not do this job otherwise. Even when they drive my crazy, they also remind me to laugh and bring a smile to my face.
But for heavens sake, after running myself ragged for 10 hours straight (which is not unusual) to come home and read some comment about “lazy teachers” just comes across as a kick in the teeth.
I personally take very few sick days. I did take one this year after I threw up at school – first one I have used in over seven years. It is just too much work to plan good lessons. Last time I took a day out of the classroom (for a district mandated workshop) it took me five hours to write the plans and another hour to set everything up. I am not willing to have the sub just show a movie or something… I plan actual LESSONS.
Mental health breaks? I have sometimes joked about needing one…but this year was the closest I came to actually doing so… it isn’t the teaching, it is all the other mess we are being asked to do which is eating up my time and increasing the pressure to a point that we are finally buckling. I love my students. I love teaching, but at some point that will not be enough to put up with the abuse (and yes, it is abuse) we are being asked to endure.
Just look over this blog for the last few days as see how many teachers are posting that they are giving up and leaving the profession. (I’ve counted three.) Maybe some of you are thinking “good riddance” but having worked in education for many years, I can tell you that many of the teachers posting on this blog are probably some of the better educators out there. They are interested and invested enough in their profession to keep up with current policies and keep abreast of events in the educational arena. They can construct logical arguments and present a point of view. They can (generally) compose sentences with correct grammar usage and punctuation. They can read and respond to the information posted here… if they were as pathetic and ignorant as some of the public likes to claim, they could do none of these things.
Having said all of that, I am aware that there are teachers who take advantage of sick days. Just as I am aware that there are terrible teachers out their in the field. However, the majority of teachers have had the pleasure to work with have been hard working, dedicated and professional. Too bad much of the general public doesn’t seem to have any interest in supporting them.
NWGA Teacher
March 31st, 2012
2:59 pm
GM, all you do is whine because teachers have benefits, teachers have salaries, teachers are not in the classroom the entire year, teachers have retirement benefits after many, many years . . . when you aren’t whining about that, you whine that YOUR children’s teachers cannot write, spell, speak, teach, show up, or that they leave when the work day ends. You whine in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. If you work at an office, then you’re whining during office hours. If you work at home, then you’re whining during work hours. If you whine at night, then you’re whining when you should be teaching your children — according to you, they don’t learn anything at school, so I assume you teach them at home. If this is so important to you, why do they attend this horrible, awful, TERRIBLE APS school? A truly Good Mother would get them out of there.
Teachers all over the Southeastern United States read and comment on this blog. Believe it or not, it is NOT all about APS, and it certainly isn’t all about you.
Don't Feed the Good Mother Troll.
March 31st, 2012
7:18 pm
@ I Love Teaching….and NWGA Teacher: Don’t you realize yet that GM (Good Mother) is a very mentally disturbed person who wants nothing more than to make solid, respectable, healthy teachers doubt themselves and spend a lot of time defending themselves? He or she cannot have a job to be blogging all the time (always claims to have a laptop to do it, but it still takes time), nor any home life, maternal or otherwise.
Leave him or her alone.
NEGA Teach
March 31st, 2012
7:50 pm
I spent several years working corporate jobs prior to coming into a high school classroom as a math teacher because I felt called to the profession.
@Entitlement Society – I hope you will ask your private school teachers about their pay and benefits…many of us would enjoy in private schools where parents can afford to provide laptops for their children and are interested in their children’s education – but the pay and benefits are often LESS than what we receive in our government jobs, as crazy as that sounds.
I teach because I was born to do it and I love these kids, some of whom receive more encouragement and attention at school than they ever do at home.
Teacher2
March 31st, 2012
11:01 pm
@Don’t Feed the Good Mother Troll
GM is mentally disturbed. She lives a fantasy life on this blog (job, work hours, nanny, private school, neighborhood, etc). She is so fallacious on this blog, which causes her to constantly contradict herself. She thrives off any interaction on this blog; good, bad or indifferent. If would be helpful if she would use her blog name in the left column instead of at the end of her drivel, which I suspect is done purposefully. I would like to easily skip over her ignorance but that would require a level of consideration.
TimeOut
April 2nd, 2012
10:13 pm
Board members in Cobb campaigned on the issue of a return to the usual calendar. Those who championed this cause were rewarded by the reversal of the balanced calendar. There was plenty of empirical evidence to show that the balanced calendar resulted in fewer missed days for faculty, staff, and students. In short, a return to the balanced calendar would save a lot of money and a lot of lost hours of instruction. Also, students leave class daily for ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ activities such as Model UN (a wonderful program that could occur in the summer and disrupt no other instruction), band performances, field trips, college presentations and/or field trips, and other activities all of which could occur outside of the regular school day. The regular school day has not mattered for a long time. I must allot time every single day before/after school not for make-up work due to student illness, but re-teaching and/or make-up work for students who attended prestigious events and activities for other subjects. I have struggled to assist the handful of chronically, seriously ill students that I have each year while also repeating the lesson of the day for those who had better things to do. There are many stakeholders who will assert that all of these competitions, events, performances, tours, field trips, etc. are worth the loss of class time. Many will claim that these things could not occur at any other time. That is a lie. When the larger school systems band together and tell the College Board that AP exams should happen outside of the regular school day and at the END of the school year, it WILL happen. When people whose opinions matter (read: NOT teachers or students) become upset loudly enough about students missing class for things that could occur outside of the regular school day, class time will remain undisturbed. Of course, students would also benefit from an extension of teachers’ pay via extended days on contract for training. But, this would require recognition of the importance of uninterrupted instruction. Given the revolving door into almost every classroom in this metro area, I don’t see that happening. We could change the jury system to exclude teachers. It’s idiotic to think that all pregnancies are planned and that we can penalize those who don’t give birth between post- and pre-planning. However, we could invest in building substitutes, system substitutes, and other positions that result in trained faculty occupying the classrooms of those on maternity leave. We could return to rewarding those who under-utilize this employment benefit through remuneration at the end of each contract period. The continued comparison of public vs. private employment benefits is a useless and divisive argument. College-educated professional employment in the private sector includes frequently additional benefits such as profit-sharing. My spouse is fortunate enough to be highly capable and trained in a field that commands an excellent employee benefits package. However, when he worked on a line in a factory, he received sick days and had a 401K. Government jobs that are ’soft’ do not exist in the schools’ classrooms. We would need to look elsewhere in the school system to find those positions. We might also have some luck finding such positions in other areas of government. I don’t think we’ll find too many in our classrooms, our fire halls, or among our rank-and-file police force, though. We are going to continue to see a serious brain-drain from our teaching force. We would be wise to investigate the “online” solution. It may not be the best method for quality instruction, but it’s often more than we’re willing to afford. Maybe we’ll feel differently when those countries that do promote education over materialism, and a sense of personal responsibility over a sense of entitlement, surpass us sufficiently to start telling us what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
Lena
April 3rd, 2012
1:33 pm
@misinformed How many bathroom breaks? What bathroom breaks? As an elementary school Teacher, I do not get a bathroom break. It IS a big issue, especially because it directly effects the students. However, these kids work harder than any adults I’ve known and they are conscientious. Our Gwinnett students have a bright future ahead of them. I am proud of them.