Absenteeism in LAUSD
* Of the 33,378 teachers represented in “Teachers’ Absenteeism Troubles L.A. District” (May 9), 20,839, or 62.4%, missed seven to nine days, or less. That’s less than one day per month. And 5,364 missed no days. Zero!
I’ve been a public schoolteacher since 1969 (in LAUSD since 1973). This year, I’ve been absent three days. I love my work, but I’ve seen everything in the classroom change. Students and teachers are now subjected to the most extraordinary distractions imaginable. An occasional “mental health” day can serve everyone.
Teachers must no longer be the fall guys for all that ails society. If taxpayers would pay us a decent salary so we could afford to live in this city, maybe “mental health” days would not be as prevalent as they seem.
GARY N. SCHNEIDER
Los Angeles
* Our society will never shape up until we stop passing the buck. A simple concept, really, but one that is seldom learned and never used in the L.A. Unified School District. Principal Althea Woods chooses to blame teachers’ absenteeism for the school’s “abominable” test scores.
Do these children come from stable homes? Are their parents using drugs? Are the fathers around? Are they gang members? Are they being abused? Does someone hug them every day? Are they using drugs? These are the reasons test scores are so low and why the school system is in such a catastrophic state. Stop blaming a $30,000-salaried teacher for the ills of schoolchildren.
WENDY TABER
Northridge
* Teachers are now being hung out to dry because they actually use sick days! Imagine--a salaried (not a very high salary) adult taking legitimate illness leave during the work year . . . my, my. Your reporter hammered on the statistics, but failed to go further to the root cause of this problem.
The data on the number of substitutes called needs more detail. There are many “long-term substitutes” teaching in classes where no certificated teachers have been hired or assigned by the district. Substitutes are doing the best they can for the students however long they are assigned to a class but they are not permanently there.
Also, there are thousands of students being taught by a succession of substitutes rather than full-time teachers because there is a growing shortage of teachers in LAUSD. Why? Teachers are laboring daily in classrooms with the highest class sizes in the nation. They are teaching for the second year with a 10% pay cut, providing funds which kept the district financially afloat. They are also the most needed but least respected LAUSD employee group. Teachers are people; they get sick. Exposure to hundreds of children every day is exposure to all the illnesses they carry with them to school.
Substitutes also received a bad rap in your article. One of the most difficult jobs is being a substitute teacher. Imagine going on to an unfamiliar campus, meeting with 35 to 40 students either all day or five different sets of classes in a day, picking up a lesson plan done by someone else, teaching different material and subjects daily, and maintaining discipline in a class that equates substitute with a license to misbehave. It’s not a pretty picture, but we have thousands of teachers willing to brave all that on a daily basis.
Your article rightfully pointed out that there is little incentive to maintain a bank of days. They cannot be applied to retirement credit or be cashed out upon retirement. UTLA negotiated a teacher attendance plan in the hope that it would provide some money for those who didn’t use all their yearly illness days and save LAUSD money in the process. Despite attempts to promote this program by UTLA, the district has done nothing to either publicize or promote the plan districtwide or in the schools.
HELEN BERNSTEIN
President, UTLA
* I suppose I am not the only substitute teacher disturbed by remarks made by the full-time teachers, principals and parents who were quoted in the article on teacher absenteeism in LAUSD. Substitute teachers were blamed for a variety of things, even low sixth-grade test scores.
I have been employed as a substitute teacher in the Azusa Unified School District for 15 years. I have worked with poor substitute teachers, but I have also worked with poor full-time teachers and poor principals. No profession is exempt from incompetence.
Substitute teachers are usually called two hours before they are to be at the school, often to a classroom they have never seen and to teach 30 or 35 children they have never met. There are always at least four children who are angry because their regular teacher is absent. Believe me, these angry children can and will make your life hell.
I am fortunate to work at Gladstone Street Elementary School where my work is valued and appreciated. I feel sorry for the substitute teachers who work at the schools mentioned in the article. It must be difficult to work with people who have such a low opinion of you.
KATHLEEN GRAMS-GIBBS
Glendora
