Area Teachers Frequently Suffer From 'Friday Flu'
DENVER (CBS4) - As Jefferson County Public School teachers staged a "sick-out" last Friday to protest the policies of their new board of education, a CBS4 Investigation has found that calling in sick on Fridays is more common for teachers in Jefferson County than on any other day of the week.
"The data would indicate that there are more teachers out sick on Fridays," said Amy Weber, Jefferson County Public Schools' human resources director. CBS4 analyzed teacher sick days and personal days in Jefferson County, Denver Public Schools and Douglas County. All showed significantly more teacher absences on Fridays than on any other day of the week.
In Jeffco, Fridays accounted for 27% of the days teachers called in sick, according to district figures. That's significantly more than they called in sick any other day of the week. Last year, Jeffco tallied almost 9,000 teacher sick days on Fridays -- twice as many calling in sick as on Wednesdays.
Weber said she is not precisely sure why so many teachers don't make it to class on Friday, but suggested, "There's an awful lot of teachers that come to work and really make it work when they are sick the best they can. Maybe by Friday they have given up the ghost and say, 'I have got to get a handle on this cold.' " Weber said the vast majority of teachers are dedicated and hard-working and are not gaming the system.
Weber said a pattern of Friday sick days is typically handled by individual school administrators. "On occasion a building administrator will call me and ask questions about absence patterns that a particular teacher has and at that point we would dig into that and work with the building principal." Jeffco teachers are allowed nine sick days a year, according to Weber. She said she probably gets two to three inquiries a year from school principals about suspicious sick patterns for individual teachers.
District numbers also show teachers take the most personal leave days on Fridays -- three times as often as they take personal leave on a Tuesday or Wednesday. A whopping 38% of personal leave is taken on Fridays by Jeffco teachers.
Weber says despite those numbers, "Jeffco teachers work really hard to come to work and do the right thing."
In Denver, administrators have noticed a similar pattern on Fridays.
"Fridays are our most frequent day for teacher absences," said Shayne Spalten, Denver Public Schools' human resources director. Roughly 25% of teacher absences in DPS come on Fridays compared to 15% on Mondays. Why?
"You may have teachers who are feeling lousy all week hang in there until the end of the week and so you see a higher number of illnesses on Friday," said Spalten. "I think this is an issue that districts are facing nationwide and I think we've tried to respond really aggressively," said Spalten.
She said in the last year, DPS has taken a number of steps to curb the "Friday flu." She said it starts with the district and principals making their attendance expectations of teachers clear. "In some places that may be really clear, in others that may not be," she said.
Spalten said DPS has instituted incentive programs for teachers who have excellent attendance records, has expanded its hiring of full-time substitute teachers, and has increased pay incentives for subs who work more than 30 days during the calendar year. The district says it is trying to create a more welcoming environment for subs at schools.
MAP: See the absence rate per teacher in Denver Public Schools
Douglas County schools also register the most sick and personal days for teachers on Fridays.
"We know for a fact that sometimes people take a sick day when it's really a personal day," observed Janet Alcorn, a former teacher and Jefferson County school principal who now serves as an educational consultant. "I have no doubt that some teachers are just feeling more stressed about their jobs and are just taking some sick time to have a mental health day," said Alcorn. She says school principals can help deter these Friday absences. "Principals should work on creating a culture where, no, that is not a good choice, that is not how we act as a staff, that is not how we perform as educators in this building."
The Friday absences in school districts are creating enormous pressure for substitute teachers and detracting from student learning, according to the experts. "Somebody who is not the classroom teacher won't necessarily negatively affect the students but may not contribute positively to the learning situation," said Alcorn.
Most substitute teachers are making about $100 per day or less. In Jeffco, subs are paid $72 per day. Last year on Fridays, Denver Public Schools could not find subs to fill in 19% of the time.
"For schools, what it means is teachers may be covering each other's classrooms to make sure there is a teacher in every classroom serving students," said Spalten. The ability to find subs is proving more and more difficult for DPS. In the 2011-2012 academic year, the district was able to find subs on Fridays 88% of the time. That fell to 83% in 2012-2013 and fell even further last year, with the district only finding Friday subs 81% of the time.
The numbers are even worse at some schools. At Smiley Middle School, which is listed as on probationary status, substitute teachers could only be found last year 68% of the time. At Lake International School, which is also on probation, the number was even lower: 60%. DPS says a bevy of factors lead to these kinds of numbers: As the economy improves, fewer and fewer subs are willing to work for $100 per day. The district also says most subs want to work near their homes, and are not willing to travel far to fill in.
The National Council on Teacher Quality reports that 12.4% of DPS teachers are "chronically absent," meaning they miss 18 or more school days a year. The council reported 27% of DPS teachers were considered "frequently absent" for missing between 11 to 17 school days last year. DPS's Spalten is aware of the troubling numbers.
"I think our top concern is that we have an excellent teacher in each classroom," she said.
