More than 600 San Francisco teachers and classroom aides skipped school tuesday

[Jesus Malverde]

More than 600 San Francisco teachers and classroom aides skipped school Tuesday to extend their Thanksgiving holiday, leaving district officials scrambling to find enough qualified adults to watch over students.

Officials called in every available substitute to cover the open classrooms but fell dozens short, requiring more than 100 central office staff members with teaching credentials to fill in for the day.

Across the San Francisco Unified School District, 432 teachers were absent - that's about 12 percent of the district's 3,700 teachers - with the vast majority calling in sick or taking a personal day. A few were off for bereavement or training, according to district data.

An additional 179 special-education and preschool aides also took the day off. Almost 10 percent of teachers were also absent Monday.


http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/S-F-scrambles-for-subs-as-teachers-skip-school-5014827.php

[LWolf]

1. I have some solutions to this problem.

As a teacher who has worked a 3-day Thanksgiving week AND a contract that gives the whole week off...I'll take the whole week off any day.

It's not like too much serious instruction happens during a 3-day week before a major holiday; this article doesn't mention the STUDENT absentee rate, which is also high enough that most teachers aren't introducing new concepts, or working on serious projects, during this week.

That doesn't mean, of course, that the time spent isn't quality time, as long as you aren't defining "quality" from a standards/proficiency-based perspective. We can do plenty of valuable, meaningful things on days when we know that the absentee rate is going to be high and the students more focused on the holiday than the learning. It's a great time to do much of the fun stuff that gets pushed aside the rest of the year in the quest to test. Just don't send the authorities in with their check lists, looking for standards and objectives to be posted and students to be drilling. They might be singing or dancing or drawing or painting or reading and writing poetry or studying the history of harvest festivals or having their own harvest festival or engaging in other things that actively engage the brain but leave behind the authoritarian mandates for what instruction is supposed to look like.

Still, if I can't move the regular program forward, when better to take my personal days? During prime-time instructional time? Or when the student absentee rate is high and attention is elsewhere?

If ""It is a tricky dilemma to balance the rights of employees to have personal days and sick days and the need to provide quality education to children every day of our already short school year," as Rosenberg said, then the nation, state, and district might want to consider funding a decent-length school year, whether or not they choose to take the whole week off for Thanksgiving.

They might look into a single-track year-round schedule, which provides shorter, more frequent breaks, drastically decreases burnout among staff and students, increases learning retention, and allows both staff and students' families to work in their personal time in more places during the year.

[hunter]

4. Our local school district takes the entire week off.

When I was teaching, in a place where all three days before Thanksgiving were school days, easily a third of my classes would be absent that week.

[LWolf]

5. Since local districts are funded by ADA,

it makes sense to take the week off when the rate of absence is going to be exaggerated.

Especially in CA, which doesn't fund excused absences like many other states do. I was teaching there when "butts in the seat" attendance funding was enacted.

[liberal_at_heart]

11. The last school district we were in they would have had the whole week off. The new

school district we are in takes days off for parent teacher conferences, so they don't get the whole week for Thanksgiving and they only get a 4 day weekend instead of a full week off for their second winter break. Both school districts are on an extended year where they get two months off for summer and two winter breaks. My kids love this system. I'm glad this new school district does parent teacher conferences, but I do kind of wish they had an entire week for their second winter break. It really does help prevent burnout and helps the learning process.

[LWolf]

14. In my current district,

Parent conferences are the last 2 days before Thanksgiving Break and the last 2 days before Spring break. We still get a full break. We don't get much else, until summer which is never as long as it seems like it's going to be for the teachers, and too long for the kids.

[FarCenter]

15. Seems like the ideal opportuntity to teach this and the ensuing historical experience of the colony

The Mayflower Compact

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc. having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and equall laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Codd the 11. of November, in the year of the raigne of our sovereigne lord, King James, of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fiftie-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/mayflower.htm

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Hmmm....

The skeptic in me wonders if there's more to the story.

Maybe contract negotiations in progress? Or about to start?


Hmmmm......

[SheilaT]

3. If people in regular office jobs can manage to work

on the Wednesday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and most of them also work the day after, I'm appalled that the teachers and classroom aids who will absolutely be off on Wednesday and Friday to begin with, feel entitled to more time off. It's the sort of thing that gives teachers a bad name.

[Agschmid]

6. Your outrage seems to be somewhat OTT.

[SheilaT]

7. Oh, I don't think so.

If the school teachers and aides wanted the extra day off, they could have requested it in advance, rather than calling in sick at the last minute.

[liberal_at_heart]

12. teachers have more and more taken from them with every new contract negotiation. You think if they

just ask for the week off they will get it do you?

[Igel]

8. I understand this.

Doesn't work.

The adults in the office may have the occasional focus problem, but the 28 kids for every adult wouldn't stand a chance.

Been there, done that. If you're going to miss time with your kids, miss unproductive time.

Until you can get the parents--not 80% of them, but at least 95% of them--on board with making school be where you study and learn rather than be "socialized" and get grades to check off on a form education's screwed.

Looking at all the surface similarities or dissimilarities with Finland or the corporate world makes no difference. If you're making blueberry muffins and get mostly mold instead of blueberries, you lose, even if you get the best blueberries that they can send you.

[SheilaT]

10. 600 hundred teachers and aides calling in sick last minute

is what I have an issue with.

That's irresponsible, especially when it's so obviously to get an extra vacation day. In some businesses, that sort of thing can be a firing offense.

[KamaAina]

9. No need to seek permission

Under their labor contract, they get 10 days of leave per year, seven of which can be used as personal days rather than illness.

That means instead of calling in sick, they can schedule the personal days at will - and they don't have to ask permission, said Dennis Kelly, president of the local teachers union, the United Educators of San Francisco.

And there is no cap on the number of teachers who can take any particular day off.

[SheilaT]

13. Even so, when 600 call in "sick" at the start of a five day weekend,

it's the sort of thing that makes me wonder about just how dedicated they are to their job.

I work in a hospital, so I get to work weekends and holidays. I have called in sick -- and I actually was sick -- exactly once in four years.

[Taitertots]

16. Oh great. Another PR bungle that right wingers will use to bash teachers.

You would think that people whose income largely depends on the public's opinion of them would use a little common sense.