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The many teachers I know just call in sick rather than be charged $50 for a personal day. No, teachers should not have to pay for the sub. If a person works in an office and has time off, the company might pay for a temp but the employee does not pay. Granted, this is not private industry. Just give teachers X amount of days leave per year: sick, personal, bereavement leave, etc. Teachers currently receive many sick and vacation days. They even get to cash in their sick leave and vacation days not used when they retire or take extra long maternity leaves. Many companies do not let employees accumulate sick days or vacation - use it or lose it. And employees in private industry don't get the summer off, a week or more of at Christmas, spring break, etc. Just do away with the personal days all together and keep the sick leave; call them "sick" or "personal" days.

There are cases too where the PTA has paid the $50 fee for subs so teachers could have grade level meetings on a certain day. PTAs should not be paying for subs either. Teachers should have a day when they can have a grade level planning day.

In what occupation other than teaching are employees expected to pay the company back??

We have limited personal time within our company and there are times when a teacher may need a day off and are not sick....

The principal should determine if this is abused or not and so many days per teacher should be allowed. Things come up.

PTA's are not suppose to pay any salary.
Here is the quote for the Treasurer's handbook.
Should PTAs pay salaries?
No. PTAs are not employers. Paying a salary is
not as simple as just writing a check for a certain
number of hours worked. There are many
responsibilities associated with paychecks:
federal and state payroll taxes, health insurance,
liability and workers compensation insurance,
etc. A suitable compromise to a request from the
school to pay a salary would be to work with the
principal on materials or supplies needed for a
curriculum or program, thus “freeing up” a
portion of the school’s budgeted funds to pay a
salary. If no suitable arrangement can be made
and it is determined that additional staff is
needed, consider speaking before the Board of
Education, County Commissioners or School
Superintendent on behalf of your school
petitioning for additional staff. It is not the PTAs
responsibility to pay for school employees. It is
however the PTAs responsibility to advocate on
behalf of school needs to those responsible for
the hiring guidelines for the school. If the PTA
did pay for school staff, the responsible party
may never know the true need of the school.

I am a teacher, so I do not agree with having to pay for personal days. Like an above poster mentioned, most teachers just use their sick days for funerals, doctor appointments, etc. This is encouraged at my school because we all know that no one should have to pay to take care of a health need, family emergency, or other situation. I agree that teachers should be given a certain amount of days to use for the year and that be it. As for cashing days in at retirement, that is a nice option...if you choose to retire from teaching. The majority of teachers leave within their first five years, yet new teachers are often encouraged not to use their days so that they can save them up for when they retire. Moreover, keep in mind that NC is one of the few states that requires teachers to pay to use their personal leave.

The days of teachers getting summers off and week-long breaks are over. For me, I spend summers working at my second job full-time (since I can only work part-time during the school year) putting together curriculum, tweaking lesson plans, gathering supplies, and doing all of the things I will not have time for at the beginning of the school year. And despite my best efforts, I still end up having to do some grading and planning over vacations. Also, the many teachers that coach or teach music must still coach and work on performances during breaks, so they never truly get a vacation. With all of the extra time that teachers spend outside of regular school hours tutoring, teaching, coaching, and grading, can you imagine what it would cost if teachers were paid by the hour? The amount that the personal leave adds up to is small in comparison.

To the first anonymous post:

I'm getting a bit sick of hearing people outside of the teaching profession implying that we get "paid summer vacations". This is simply NOT true.

Here's how we get paychecks during the summer, if we chose to do so. The school system withholds about 20% of every paycheck during the 10 months of the year that we are teaching classes. Over the course of 10 months, that adds up to two months' salary. They bank that money (not sure if they earn interest on that money or not) and then pay it out to us in two monthly installments in the summer months. And, if I'm not mistaken, there is some sort of new tax bill that we may have to pay if we chose to spread our 10 months of pay over a 12 month period.

If YOU want a "free paid summer vacation" just ask your bosses to keep 20% of every paycheck and then give it back to you 10 months later! And then possibly there will be a tax issue with this decision.

This is in response to the idea that we get "plenty of vacation days" and therefore we should pay the subs for personal days. Our "vacation" days are called annual leave, and teachers are not permitted to use annual leave days when students are in classes - only on teacher workdays. That only leaves sick leave or personal leave (which costs $50 per day) for days when students are in school.

As for “getting paid” for Christmas vacation and Spring Break, here’s how that works. The school calendar includes 10 days in which there is no school for teachers or students which are designated as “annual leave days” – one day at Thanksgiving, 4 at Christmas, 4 in Spring Break, and one at the end of the school year. So, the first 10 annual leave days you earn are already spoken for and locked into the yearly calendar as set forth by the BOE.

For the first two years that you teach, you earn exactly 10 annual leave days, so every one of them is used up as stated above. That means a new teacher cannot take off one single teacher workday (even if school is closed due to bad weather) without losing a full day’s pay (or making up the time during evenings or weekends, in the case of snow days.)

For years 3, 4, and 5, teachers earn a total of 11.5 annual leave days per year. Again, 10 of these days are already spoken for. That means they can take 1.5 teacher workdays off during the year (including any snowdays that occur) without a penalty.

Once you get to years 5-10, you get 14 days per year, but of course, 10 of them are already spoken for. So, after 10 years of service they get 4 “freebies” which can be used during teacher workdays only.

So there goes your idea that all teachers get a ton of vacation days and still get Christmas, spring break and summers off with full pay. It comes at a cost.

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/fbs/personnel/benefits/policymanual.pdf

Let's see if I get this correct. Teachers don't mind telling a "little lie" and call in sick when they are not sick. Is the kind of role model we want for our children? The idea of combining sick days and personal days seems right to me. Teachers would not be inclined to lie. Keep in mind that a lot of teachers get time off (come in late or leave early) that is not charged against them. The only place where the time off is better than our teachers have is on the college campus. Don't kid yourself, the less teachers work, the less your children learn.

to the last two anonymous posters

the first poster DID NOT say teachers got "paid summer vacations". the poster said you got summers off, a week or more at Christmas, Spring break, etc. NO PERSON in private industry receives that much "time off" unless they are some high paid executive

MOST people in private industry CANNOT accummulate sick leave, vacation leave, etc. if you don't use it, you lose it!

Teaching is a hard job with many hours put in but so are many other jobs that DO NOT get this much time off. As for coaching, meetings with parents, afterschool functions, most people in corporate life who are not "paid by the clock" have many hours out of the office that they are expected to put in also. They take work home and have many meetings outside of 9 to 5.

You have the options to choose other jobs that do not give you all the time away from the job.

Debra, I do personally know where PTAs kicked in the fee to pay for subs so teachers could have a grade level meeting.

to 12:23 pm anonymous posting

If you only get 10 days annual leave what do you call all the days you do get off in the summer?

What other job would allow someone to enjoy being off when their children are off?

Andi, you sound like a very dedicated teacher that gives of himself. Elementary school teachers get paid for tutoring after school. They also get paid if they tutor in the summer. There are other professions beside teaching where people work two jobs to make ends meet or because one's schedule allows - example: firemen, policemen, etc. It's great to be a teacher and have that flexibility in the summer to earn some extra cash.

I am extremely fortunate to have a job that I care about and while it does help to be able to work in the summer, I would have no problem with teaching year-round so that I didn't have to do that. :-)

There is a corelation between the absences of regular teachers and the academic achievements of the students. We cannot make progress by adapting ideas that hurt us.

At our local middle school we have a new principal this year. The principal has made a rule that all teachers who are sick have to call him personally. The result has been that sick days have dropped significantly this year!

Not many businesses offer paid personal days to their employees. You don’t show up you don’t get paid. Teachers still get paid for those days, they just subsidize substitute $50.00 to work for them. Only one comes out short are kids and taxpayers.
Garth

I understand your point, but how many businesses expect their employees to pay for their own supplies in addition to supplies for their customers?

As for teacher attendance affecting student achievement, I completely agree that a teacher must be present to be effective. It is difficult to be effective though when you need to attend your grandmother's funeral out of town. It's also difficult to be effective when you know that your mother needs to go to an important doctor's appointment and her nurse is not available to take her that day. I'm sorry, but I can't spare fifty dollars to pay for a sub when an emergency occurs. I'm already working on providing for my family, repaying loans, and buying materials/supplies for my classroom. It's okay though because many of my teacher friends are leaving or retiring early, and with all of the things that GCS and other school systems have to entice new teachers, I'm sure there will be plenty of "new blood" that will be more than willing to pay $50 to use a personal day.

Garth,

Every company that I have ever worked for that hired "college educated" professionals gave employees personal days that increase with the years of employment. They also allow for funeral and family leave separately. They do not require that all of these days be taken on certain days.

Teachers should make every effort to be in the classroom, but seasoned professionals should be given time off for emergency family and medical needs or special out of town occasions. It should not be abused, but their should be allowences for those that have dedicated years to the job.

First - fourth year teachers maybe not so much, but if they stay after five...rewards should kick in.

I would also like to see free in-state college tuition
for every teacher's child that put in over 10 years to public schools.

Why should teacher's children get free in-state college tuition? What about other public servants - firemen, policemen, librarians, school board members, city council?? Where would you draw the line.

There is not such thing as "free" tuition. Someone will have to pay for it. Colleges would have to increase their tuition for other students and other parents with college students would be paying it!

Nothing is "free" with the government. Someone is paying for it.

This simply adds to the many other reasons that people do not go into the teaching "profession".

I am a teacher and paying for personal days is not an issue. I've never taken one in 17+ years of teaching. It would be stupid. I just take a sick day if I need to be out and that rarely ever happens; it's a pain in the rear to have to write all those lesson plans, get a sub., etc. Teaching is not like other jobs where you just call in sick and continue your work when you return.

Rather than worry about teacher absences lets worry about student attendance instead. I've taught elementary/middle school and each year I have several students who miss 35+ days each year. The parents are never held accountable. If they feel the social worker is "closing in" the family just moves (many times to another jurisdiction), the attendance problems continue and the new teacher has to start the paperwork all over again. Nothing ever gets done and the child is still functionally illiterate in 5th grade. Then the community blames the teachers. Sorry but I can be the best teacher in the world but parents have to care enough to send their children to school on a regular basis.

My experience with personal leave is that most companies combine sick days into personal leave days and make no distinction. This works well for the employer as the employee does not have to specify why they are bing absent (does not make the employee lie about being sick). Once personal leave days are gone, any absence, including illness, is an unpaid day or a vacation day. Most employees do not want to use their vacation days in that manner, nor want to go unpaid. This encourages employees to be judicious with their absent days.

I understand the district's concern about having to pay a sub when a teacher is absent, but most employers of professional employees do allow personal days to allow employees to take care of personal matters that can't be addressed on weekends. Private businesses also have the issue of staffing a position in the event of an absence, but it is really a cost of doing business. So, if the district is prepared to pay teachers for sick days, just combine all paid days off into personal leave days and be done with it. Making teachers pay for personal leave days is nothing more than a employee relations nightmare that is not necessary.