1 in 4 U.S. teachers are chronically absent

And I still think people who haven't had kids shouldn't have to pay school taxes since we've done nothing to add strain to the system. I'll be happy to listen to your gripes when they start paying attention to mine.

 

While we are at it, starting school at 8ish is really bad for children's natural sleep cycle and is probably holding our national education performance back a ton.

 

The point is it's all negotiated and agreed upon by the parties involved.

 

And how about a national school uniform so the kids at my local bus stop don't look like a police lineup anymore.

 

Sure, if you can find the teachers. We do already have a shortage.

 

But public employee unions are different from your personally negotiated agreement. I'm a taxpayer, but I have very little say in our teachers' pay and benefit package. Certainly not as much say as the union that picks and finances its slate of candidates.

 

Sure you do. Get militant union-busters and hard-ass contract negotiators to run for the school board and elect them. Problem solved.

Although your teacher-shortage problem may not be.

 

So, your beef is with "management," not "labor," so to speak.

 

I don't actually have a beef. I jumped in here at the suggestion that 10 extra days of PTO would be a good idea. I don't think that's even a negotiated benefit, so upon review we might be arguing something that doesn't exist.

The solution YF proposes -- firing teachers en masse -- clearly is a non-starter because then you wouldn't have enough teachers to staff the school. But the idea that teachers don't have enough time off is a little far-fetched.

 

I think I prefaced my two-weeks suggestion by saying I'm not sure what the norm is, but even still, two weeks doesn't seem unreasonable if you're operating under the assumption that most teachers don't take time off unless they have to.

If you're assuming the opposite, I can see how you'd be against more PTO.

 

Would it really be en masse?

You put people on notice that going forward, unexcused absences will not be tolerated, and will result in termination.

Unexcused absences would drop. And, those that continued to not show up for work need to be fired.

 

I might have missed it, but I don't think anyone said that. People are just (correctly) pointing out that they can't be expected to pack all their life events into the summer.

On another note, shoutout to my teacher aunt's old sweatshirt: "Three reasons to be a teacher - June, July and August."