Attendance Policies

There’s a dark undercurrent at the school district. It seems the upper-management isn’t happy with teacher absenteeism in our schools lately. I can’t say as I blame them, any day a teacher isn’t there is pretty much a day lost for the class and I understand the district has spent thousands on substitutes this year already.

So word is going round and principles are beginning to come down on teachers skipping school… except this is only going to cause discontent because teachers and staff have been allocated sick days. You can’t give something to someone and expect them not to take it. That HR approach (at least everywhere I’ve ever worked) only pisses people off, and does absolutely nothing to promote better attendance. Instead of focused instructors, we open the door to have disgruntled employees that feel they can’t use a benefit given, and that will never make test scores higher.

This really isn’t all that hard. Instead of haranguing all teachers and staff because of a few bad apples, why not make a policy that affects the most grievous offenders without giving truckloads of crap to the folks who honestly got sick (probably from so snot nosed kid) and need a day of rest? Set the bar at 2-4 absences in a 90 day period and encourage those with good attendance records with some kind of reward.

This isn’t Human Resources Rocket Science. Seriously, “more flies with sugar than vinegar” fits the situation aptly.