Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > April > 19
Saturday, April 19, 2008
DPS teachers: Getting sicker every year
I finally got all the data from Dayton Public Schools regarding teacher illness over the last three years. You might remember this was issue prompted some discussion last month. Here’s what the data shows:
More teachers are getting sick with long-term illnesses.
I defined a long-term illness as 20 consecutive days out sick. It’s important to seperate out these incidents because the district counts a person who is out for an extended period for a serious illness as sick every day that they miss. Here are the number of long-term illness incidents for the past three years:
2005-06: 62
2006-07: 50
2007-07 year to date: 67
So you can see this has been a particularly bad year for long-term illness in the district. It’s hard to know what this means. To some extent, this number may be a result of bad luck. Some years, for whatever reason, more people get seriously ill. It may demonstrate the fact that Dayton has a somewhat older teaching force, especially after laying off hundreds of less experience (and mostly younger) teachers last summer. Or it could show teachers breaking down under the stress of tougher working conditions, as the teachers’ union argues.
The average teacher has been sick more often.
To get a sense of what the typical teacher’s experience with illness is, I asked the district to take out the long-term illness incidents and then divide the number of total sick days that remain by the total number of teachers, counselors and others represented by the teachers’ union. Here’s what those numbers showed:
2005-06: Average number of sick days per person was 6.4
2006-07: Average number of sick days per person was 7.0
2007-08 (projected): If the current trend holds, the average number of sick days per person at the end of the school year will be 7.9
So it seems teachers’ union president Pat Lynch was right when she argued to the school board that teachers are getting sick more often. There has been a 12.9 percent gain in sick days used by her members this year over last, according to the district’s human resources office.
Lynch believes it is because the district has rearranged the school day and eliminated down time and planning periods for many teachers. She also says with so many cuts teachers are breaking down under the stress of doing their own jobs and picking up tasks that others used to do.
This also struck me while looking at the numbers — even 6.4 sick days per year seems like an awful lot for an average. I think I was out sick twice last year and I can’t remember a year I was out more than four times for non-extended illnesses. The data sugggests for every person who missed no days for illness there was someone who might have missed 10 or more.
I’d like to know what you (especially Dayton teachers who read GOTB) think of these numbers. Share your thoughts in the comments.
(Image credit: Dazoo)
Permalink | Comments (31) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Services »
