The Dog Ate My Car Keys

Student attendance translates to money for California’s public schools. That explains the Los Angeles Unified School District’s effort to lure students to school with goodies like field trips and class parties, and the threat that poor attendance will lower grades. But teachers are absent at a rate higher than students, and the district has no carrot-and-stick for them. Instead, a new district policy simply asks them nicely to show up for work and includes a veiled threat of disciplinary action if they use sick leave inappropriately.

State law guarantees teachers 10 fully paid sick days each school year and an additional 90 days off at half pay. About 20% of L.A. Unified’s 34,000 teachers take no more than a day or two off every year, but 25% take their full complement of 10 and then some. It costs the district about $122 million each year to replace them with substitutes.

A day off a month is not outlandish -- teachers spend their days in stuffy classrooms crowded with germy children. But is it a coincidence that the most common “sick” days are Fridays, paydays and the day after a holiday weekend? So many teachers were absent on the first two Friday paydays of this semester that 1,000 classes wound up without teachers when the district ran out of subs. Studies show a direct link between the number of days a teacher is absent and the performance of the teacher’s students.

According to school reports, about 65% of teacher absences are because of illness or injury. But more than 25% are for other reasons: a midweek fishing trip, a chance to hit the Nordstrom sale. It’s hard to urge students not to play hooky when their teachers are doing it. And the absentee problem is compounded by new demands for training that pull teachers from class several days each term.

A policy that has no teeth and relies on goodwill won’t be enough to counter the forces that keep teachers away. Neither will strong-arm tactics that turn principals into the illness police. District officials might do well to put their statistics aside and look at the schools where teacher attendance is consistently high. A supportive principal, committed staff and well-considered curriculum would probably do more for teacher morale than another edict from on high.