1 in 4 U.S. teachers are chronically absent

Are others seeing secret YF posts?

 

They're on the "special" server ...

 

LOL. Of course I did not say that. I said the exact opposite.

Being out on maternity leave is scheduled well in advance. It's not the same thing as routinely calling out the morning you were expected to show up for work.

Conceivably, a long term substitute would be lined up, and they would be prepared to take over from the teacher out on leave. One would not expect students to suffer in this situation.

Teachers who routinely call out sick hurt student performance. They need to be put on notice, and fired if they continue to not show up for work, without a doctors note.

 

Imagine being a Fed who has to comb through years of SJ.com posts ...

 

You get @Starman's ...

 

What if they're suffering from severe morning sickness, and/or having a difficult pregnancy? As in, they may not be going to the doctor, but they need to take a day or two off per week? What then? Fire them?

Not to mention, but it's already been pointed out to you that the teachers are already contractually allowed to take a lot of days off. Part of that is because they can infect others. Another part of that is that they can easily get infected from the kids.

 

For God's sake, Baron ... a day or two off per week?

 

Have you ever had severe morning sickness or a difficult pregnancy? I've known women who are on bed rest for the last two months of their pregnancy. YF would be complaining that they're taking too much time off.

Teachers are in a classroom, not an office. It's not like they can just up and leave 25 kids in the classroom by themselves while running to the bathroom to puke.

 

I have little qualms with the idea that some teachers should be fired and many more could improve.

But once you "put your foot down" and run out the first wave, you'd better have those recruits ready to roll. And they'd better be good.

 

Everybody here has known of women in such circumstances (and, for the record, I had no issues with morning sickness when my kids were on the way; I breezed through their gestations). @YankeeFan isn't talking about them and you know it. Quit with the spasms of self-righteousness.

 

Why? If a teacher should be fired, why do you find it difficult to assume that at a minimum a comparable replacement is available?

 

Did you notice the study in the story you linked making those distinctions?

Also, Washington Post found errors in the data, school's numbers that were either incorrectly recorded or reported. It is unclear how many of those errors were made.

According to the article, an elementary school art teacher named Beth Howard missed 19 school days last year. She has no history of being chronically absent, but her mother was ill and eventually died. The study based its data on one year, but Howard is an example of why there is a problem with such an approach. She is one example of the need to take a broader approach to the study. How many of those chronically absent teachers in 2014 had ever missed 10 days during another year of their careers?