Teacher attendance at DCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only ICU nurses deserve days off. The rest of us are just whiny babies who need to suck it up.

Disagree. OP should be expressing concerns about coverage during any teacher’s absences, not railing against one teacher’s absence and assuming the role of supervisor. That isn’t OP’s job - and “but what about the children” doesn’t make her misplaced anger ok. OP is out of line.

But if you are making a list of people who “deserve” days off, you forgot coal miners, people who fix sewers, and empty porta-potties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy sh#$%! You people are idiots. It's my understanding that there is a teacher at Deal who got into a terrible car accident and is now in rehab. Shame on you for speaking ill of her or anyone else who needs to take leave! Yes. There are some who may game the system a little bit, like taking a mental health day, which in my opinion is understandable (you have no idea what some teachers deal with every. single. day), but most teachers are there out of duty and seriously care about their students. Lose the negativity.

Which teacher is that wondering because heard something about a couple of teachers out on long term leave?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So teachers shouldn’t take leave they’ve earned, they should work after their “shift”, and prep in the summer (but remember people complain about teachers having the summer off.) Oh, also when and how they use their personal time is everybody’s business. Did I get that right?

If the teacher does not have lessons or leave quality plans, that is something you need to address with the administration. I wish I would find myself explaining to a parent why I took a day off. Do you explain why you took a day off from your job? No wonder we have such entitled students.

As a teacher, my first thought was that the teacher brushed OP off in order to get her to go away. Sometimes that's the only way to get the entitled parents to leave you alone. Go bother the principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm shocked at how many people think chronic teacher absenteeism is none of my business. I agree the reason for her absences is personal and not my business, but it seems clear that this teacher is determined to do the bare minimum so I want to know what the bare minimum is so I can hold the administration accountable.

Not only is she chronically absent, she told the students that she will not respond to any email nor grade any papers outside of mandatory school hours - and she is sticking to it. When I asked her about the curriculum for the year (she is new to the grade) she acknowledged that she did not know what it is but will be learning as she goes, so clearly she did no prep over the summer. She regularly does not make lesson plans for the substitutes because her absences are unplanned and she does not do any work out of school hours. This week all of her classes started the week-long in-class test a day late because she was absent on Monday and had made no arrangements for the sub to start the test. She is way behind on entering her grades into Aspen. She is the only teacher on the team who regularly has a blank on the team weekly newsletter. She has already been absent more than 12 days of the year. Seems to me like she is dipping below the minimum but I wasn't sure.

I'm probably spoiled by so many amazing Deal teachers who clearly love teaching, are dedicated to their students and go above and beyond. Because when you have a teacher who is not interested or able to put in the necessary time and effort, it really has a detrimental effect on the student experience.

Sounds like a teacher my DD had last year. I think you’re on the right track. Continue to reach out to admin, using balanced, factual language. It’s their job to determine what’s up, and any necessary remedies. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm shocked at how many people think chronic teacher absenteeism is none of my business. I agree the reason for her absences is personal and not my business, but it seems clear that this teacher is determined to do the bare minimum so I want to know what the bare minimum is so I can hold the administration accountable.

Not only is she chronically absent, she told the students that she will not respond to any email nor grade any papers outside of mandatory school hours - and she is sticking to it. When I asked her about the curriculum for the year (she is new to the grade) she acknowledged that she did not know what it is but will be learning as she goes, so clearly she did no prep over the summer. She regularly does not make lesson plans for the substitutes because her absences are unplanned and she does not do any work out of school hours. This week all of her classes started the week-long in-class test a day late because she was absent on Monday and had made no arrangements for the sub to start the test. She is way behind on entering her grades into Aspen. She is the only teacher on the team who regularly has a blank on the team weekly newsletter. She has already been absent more than 12 days of the year. Seems to me like she is dipping below the minimum but I wasn't sure.

I'm probably spoiled by so many amazing Deal teachers who clearly love teaching, are dedicated to their students and go above and beyond. Because when you have a teacher who is not interested or able to put in the necessary time and effort, it really has a detrimental effect on the student experience.

She might already plan to leave at the end of the year.

That said, this is a perfect example of DCUM’s inability to agree with itself: on one hand DCUM says teachers don’t NEED to take wok home. It can all be done during work hours and anything else is the teacher’s choice. On the other hand, here is a parent complaining that the teacher dares to not grade or email outside of work hours.

All good and great teachers' work cannot be done during work hours. That is true of many professional jobs. The difference for good and great teachers is that to be good or great, it's an ever challenging, ever ending daily deluge of work after work hours. Children can always use more. You can deliver the regular curriculum but there are always kids who don't get it or get it much quicker than others. You need to find ways to reach them too and that requires spending time modifying lessons, looking at data, preparing for their interests. Plus meeting with parents, administrators, grade level teams, coaches. Sometimes the meetings are endless.

But.. like in other professions, there are people who just don't give a sh**. They take off without notice, won't stay a minute longer than their paid hours, and won't participate with other educators in any of the planning needed to have a really good school. These teachers can bounce from school to school because DC is so desperate to hire teachers. When they burn all their bridges in DCPS, they can go to the charters or to one of the other counties.

Every teacher is not a good one nor wants to be. Most are great, but we've got a few rotten eggs too.

[Anonymous]

I think you meant “Not every teacher is a good one, nor wants to be.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm shocked at how many people think chronic teacher absenteeism is none of my business. I agree the reason for her absences is personal and not my business, but it seems clear that this teacher is determined to do the bare minimum so I want to know what the bare minimum is so I can hold the administration accountable.

Not only is she chronically absent, she told the students that she will not respond to any email nor grade any papers outside of mandatory school hours - and she is sticking to it. When I asked her about the curriculum for the year (she is new to the grade) she acknowledged that she did not know what it is but will be learning as she goes, so clearly she did no prep over the summer. She regularly does not make lesson plans for the substitutes because her absences are unplanned and she does not do any work out of school hours. This week all of her classes started the week-long in-class test a day late because she was absent on Monday and had made no arrangements for the sub to start the test. She is way behind on entering her grades into Aspen. She is the only teacher on the team who regularly has a blank on the team weekly newsletter. She has already been absent more than 12 days of the year. Seems to me like she is dipping below the minimum but I wasn't sure.

I'm probably spoiled by so many amazing Deal teachers who clearly love teaching, are dedicated to their students and go above and beyond. Because when you have a teacher who is not interested or able to put in the necessary time and effort, it really has a detrimental effect on the student experience.

She might already plan to leave at the end of the year.

That said, this is a perfect example of DCUM’s inability to agree with itself: on one hand DCUM says teachers don’t NEED to take wok home. It can all be done during work hours and anything else is the teacher’s choice. On the other hand, here is a parent complaining that the teacher dares to not grade or email outside of work hours.

All good and great teachers' work cannot be done during work hours. That is true of many professional jobs. The difference for good and great teachers is that to be good or great, it's an ever challenging, ever ending daily deluge of work after work hours. Children can always use more. You can deliver the regular curriculum but there are always kids who don't get it or get it much quicker than others. You need to find ways to reach them too and that requires spending time modifying lessons, looking at data, preparing for their interests. Plus meeting with parents, administrators, grade level teams, coaches. Sometimes the meetings are endless.

But.. like in other professions, there are people who just don't give a sh**. They take off without notice, won't stay a minute longer than their paid hours, and won't participate with other educators in any of the planning needed to have a really good school. These teachers can bounce from school to school because DC is so desperate to hire teachers. When they burn all their bridges in DCPS, they can go to the charters or to one of the other counties.

Every teacher is not a good one nor wants to be. Most are great, but we've got a few rotten eggs too.

Teaching has all the education requirements of a white collar job with the respect and treatment of a blue collar one. Actually, that's not even true because blue collar workers get overtime. Having breaks and holidays off has no bearing on what we're supposed to do if something unexpected happens throughout the school year. Sick kid? This will also count against your "Core Professionalism" score. You aren't sponsoring any after school activities this year? That's going to count against your "Commitment to School Community (CSC)" score. Signed in two minutes late (a full 43 minutes before first bell)? That's one full hour of leave. Your lesson was amazing, but I had to take off points because one kid in the class couldn't tell me what the objective was.

There are a lot of professions where going above and beyond is the status quo, but you'd be hard pressed to find one that didn't require so much and yet provide no form of annual bonus or merit-based pay increase. IMPACT is an all or nothing Everest with most people never reaching the summit. There isn't much incentive to go above and beyond. "Do it for the kids" gets stale and difficult once you have kids of your own. You'll get 100% out of me while I'm at work, but I'm leaving at 3:30 to go home and help my children with their homework, eat dinner, and be a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm shocked at how many people think chronic teacher absenteeism is none of my business. I agree the reason for her absences is personal and not my business, but it seems clear that this teacher is determined to do the bare minimum so I want to know what the bare minimum is so I can hold the administration accountable.

Not only is she chronically absent, she told the students that she will not respond to any email nor grade any papers outside of mandatory school hours - and she is sticking to it. When I asked her about the curriculum for the year (she is new to the grade) she acknowledged that she did not know what it is but will be learning as she goes, so clearly she did no prep over the summer. She regularly does not make lesson plans for the substitutes because her absences are unplanned and she does not do any work out of school hours. This week all of her classes started the week-long in-class test a day late because she was absent on Monday and had made no arrangements for the sub to start the test. She is way behind on entering her grades into Aspen. She is the only teacher on the team who regularly has a blank on the team weekly newsletter. She has already been absent more than 12 days of the year. Seems to me like she is dipping below the minimum but I wasn't sure.

I'm probably spoiled by so many amazing Deal teachers who clearly love teaching, are dedicated to their students and go above and beyond. Because when you have a teacher who is not interested or able to put in the necessary time and effort, it really has a detrimental effect on the student experience.

She might already plan to leave at the end of the year.

That said, this is a perfect example of DCUM’s inability to agree with itself: on one hand DCUM says teachers don’t NEED to take wok home. It can all be done during work hours and anything else is the teacher’s choice. On the other hand, here is a parent complaining that the teacher dares to not grade or email outside of work hours.

All good and great teachers' work cannot be done during work hours. That is true of many professional jobs. The difference for good and great teachers is that to be good or great, it's an ever challenging, ever ending daily deluge of work after work hours. Children can always use more. You can deliver the regular curriculum but there are always kids who don't get it or get it much quicker than others. You need to find ways to reach them too and that requires spending time modifying lessons, looking at data, preparing for their interests. Plus meeting with parents, administrators, grade level teams, coaches. Sometimes the meetings are endless.

But.. like in other professions, there are people who just don't give a sh**. They take off without notice, won't stay a minute longer than their paid hours, and won't participate with other educators in any of the planning needed to have a really good school. These teachers can bounce from school to school because DC is so desperate to hire teachers. When they burn all their bridges in DCPS, they can go to the charters or to one of the other counties.

Every teacher is not a good one nor wants to be. Most are great, but we've got a few rotten eggs too.

Teaching has all the education requirements of a white collar job with the respect and treatment of a blue collar one. Actually, that's not even true because blue collar workers get overtime. Having breaks and holidays off has no bearing on what we're supposed to do if something unexpected happens throughout the school year. Sick kid? This will also count against your "Core Professionalism" score. You aren't sponsoring any after school activities this year? That's going to count against your "Commitment to School Community (CSC)" score. Signed in two minutes late (a full 43 minutes before first bell)? That's one full hour of leave. Your lesson was amazing, but I had to take off points because one kid in the class couldn't tell me what the objective was.

There are a lot of professions where going above and beyond is the status quo, but you'd be hard pressed to find one that didn't require so much and yet provide no form of annual bonus or merit-based pay increase. IMPACT is an all or nothing Everest with most people never reaching the summit. There isn't much incentive to go above and beyond. "Do it for the kids" gets stale and difficult once you have kids of your own. You'll get 100% out of me while I'm at work, but I'm leaving at 3:30 to go home and help my children with their homework, eat dinner, and be a parent.

Fine, but a stable classroom starts with the same teacher being present daily. Whatever helps that, we support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too much. Plus they also get vacation days which seems insane for a teacher on a school schedule.

Stop pulling “facts” out your arse. Teachers are given 12 days, or 96 hours, of leave. We have the option to use some of those hours for personal leave. We do not get sick leave AND vacation days. It all comes from the same bank of days/hours. If a teacher has missed more than the yearly allotted hours, he/she is likely using hours carried over from previous years, FMLA, of leave without pay.

12 - more than 2 weeks worth- is a lot for a job that already has many built in weeks of vacation.

NYC: 10 days
MoCo: 10 days

Thanks for your opinion. I'll make sure teachers save their cancer treatments, respiratory infections, heart attacks, surgeries and other medical issues until a more convenient "vacation" time. I will also make sure none of their family members die, their children graduate, or friends/family marry until it is convenient for you.

Teachers are humans and life does not stop just because school is in session. This is true for people in all career fields, whether they have less or more leave than teachers.

The teachers most in need of support due to serious or chronic illness tend to be known to their community. We've had two teachers deal with cancer treatment mid school year and they've received nothing but love and support while they dealt with treatment and recovery. They are not the ones anyone is talking about here. We've had other teachers who just routinely burn the maximum sick days available (and sometimes beyond), sometimes conveniently around breaks. Not sure if it's a sick out as passive aggressive protest or they're just burned out and don't want to be there.

[Anonymous]

Just something to keep in mind-
At times teachers are pulled out of their classrooms to attend a meeting on behalf of a child with special needs.
You may also be asked to attend court on behalf of a student who was abused.
Professional development sometimes happens during the work day.

Your teacher may be missing school for events that make them the kind of person who want them to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just something to keep in mind-
At times teachers are pulled out of their classrooms to attend a meeting on behalf of a child with special needs.
You may also be asked to attend court on behalf of a student who was abused.
Professional development sometimes happens during the work day.

Your teacher may be missing school for events that make them the kind of person who want them to be.

Those are all good reasons, but not the reasons I mentioned above

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just something to keep in mind-
At times teachers are pulled out of their classrooms to attend a meeting on behalf of a child with special needs.
You may also be asked to attend court on behalf of a student who was abused.
Professional development sometimes happens during the work day.

Your teacher may be missing school for events that make them the kind of person who want them to be.

Those are all good reasons, but not the reasons I mentioned above

I don't think OP was commenting on missing class once a month for PD or a meeting. I am a teacher and there are colleagues who miss at least 3 weeks of school total a year and it is just because they don't want to come to work. The students know who they are, and they know those teachers won't be there the days before or after any holiday break.

[Anonymous]

I think a couple of years ago DCPS published teacher absentism at certain schools. All I remeber was that Stuart Hobson MS had one of the highest rates at around 10%. Given any day, 1 out of 10 teachers was absent. Needless to say the rate was higher on Mondays, even higher on Fridays, and don't even ask about the day before holidays and long weekends.

[Anonymous]

I think taxpayers should have the data about teacher attendance. An easy statistic - there are 180 instructional days in DCPS. What percent were teachers present in the classroom?

[Anonymous]

Not true. Perhaps at your school but not everywhere. Please don't make a blanket statement like that. It is dangerous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too much. Plus they also get vacation days which seems insane for a teacher on a school schedule.

Stop pulling “facts” out your arse. Teachers are given 12 days, or 96 hours, of leave. We have the option to use some of those hours for personal leave. We do not get sick leave AND vacation days. It all comes from the same bank of days/hours. If a teacher has missed more than the yearly allotted hours, he/she is likely using hours carried over from previous years, FMLA, of leave without pay.

12 - more than 2 weeks worth- is a lot for a job that already has many built in weeks of vacation.

NYC: 10 days
MoCo: 10 days

Thanks for your opinion. I'll make sure teachers save their cancer treatments, respiratory infections, heart attacks, surgeries and other medical issues until a more convenient "vacation" time. I will also make sure none of their family members die, their children graduate, or friends/family marry until it is convenient for you.

Teachers are humans and life does not stop just because school is in session. This is true for people in all career fields, whether they have less or more leave than teachers.

The teachers most in need of support due to serious or chronic illness tend to be known to their community. We've had two teachers deal with cancer treatment mid school year and they've received nothing but love and support while they dealt with treatment and recovery. They are not the ones anyone is talking about here. We've had other teachers who just routinely burn the maximum sick days available (and sometimes beyond), sometimes conveniently around breaks. Not sure if it's a sick out as passive aggressive protest or they're just burned out and don't want to be there.