Missing links
The hidden costs (and causes) of teacher absenteeism
Originally published in the Moultrie News.
My child’s teacher is never there. Are there consequences for teachers who don’t show up for their jobs? Doesn’t it cause problems?
Across the board, school attendance is a problem. While student absenteeism remains far above pre-pandemic levels, teacher attendance is also a major concern. Federal data suggests that roughly 28% of public school teachers are chronically absent, missing more than ten days a school year.
Many lay the blame at the feet of a sloppy Millennial and Gen Z work ethic. They point to a certain laissez-faire attitude toward attendance that persists among some younger workers. Retail and corporate managers alike complain of a generation that views scheduled shifts as rough suggestions.
But not so fast. If true, they didn’t get that way on their own. They had help from adults who, seeking children’s comfort and convenience above all, adopted a certain laissez-faire attitude toward attendance themselves. In the past, parents had no concept of letting kids take a “mental health day” after a big test. Nor would they have followed up a two-week school holiday with three more days off to ski in Aspen. And they wouldn’t have said, “Since your soccer game went late, why don’t you sleep in tomorrow?”
So if Gen Z has a blasé view of attendance, it was instilled in them by Gen X and their elders. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn, then, that the attendance problem is transgenerational. And yes, it causes systemic problems.
When a teacher is absent, a substitute must be found. Subs are education’s unsung heroes. If they work five days, they often teach five different courses across five different grade levels, navigating five sets of rules and routines. And if you think today’s students lack respect for teachers, substitutes are disrespected twentyfold.
That strains everyone. For principals, it means more discipline problems to handle. For regular teachers, it means dealing with misbehavior overflow. They must assist subs with lesson plans, materials, and technology. Extracurricular duties have to be covered. It’s a constant daily scramble.
And that’s if a sub can be found. Often, one cannot, which launches a stream of Molotov cocktails into the school day. Someone has to reassign the teacherless students to different classrooms. Regular teachers must absorb them into their own rooms. Assignments must be distributed. And the exiles have no more respect for their temporary caretakers than for a regular sub.
This has educational consequences. Activities left for students should be rigorous and beneficial, but often they aren’t. Instead, kids are dumped onto laptops, handed busywork, or stuck watching Hidden Figures for the eighteenth time. A whole day is intellectually wasted.
Of course, there are legitimate reasons for teachers to be absent, and districts generally have reasonable leave policies so teachers can stay home with the flu or attend a funeral without sacrificing their pay. There are often built-in incentives to avoid using these days for insubstantial reasons. For example, sick leave can accumulate. It’s comforting to know that if a teacher or their spouse gets cancer, they can still pay their bills without dragging themselves to school through months of therapy.
But the incentives sometimes go the other way. If your job permits three paid days off for personal business that don’t roll over or come with a financial payback, you’d be a dope not to take them.
It would be better for districts to fully incentivize teacher attendance because that’s better for kids. But teachers have to value those incentives, and a lot don’t. Many scorn banking sick days because they only care about today’s convenience. That’s how we raised them. We must start instilling in children a better sense of professional responsibility.
Because, yes, there are consequences. When teachers run out of sick days, they lose money. Miss enough time, and you can lose your job.
And for all teachers’ lamenting how little respect the public has for our profession, we earn no one’s esteem by cavalierly taking 20 days off when we only teach for 180.
With the other 185 to take a break or make an appointment, schools should expect that a teacher’s greatest professional ability is availability.
Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.