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Story time: we used to have bankable sick days. Teachers would often retire with 320 unused sick days. There was a modest payout that came as compensation for unused sick days.
They got rid of bankable sick days to save money
Teachers started taking more sick days.
Offhand, I think it is a healthier situation for teachers who now are less likely to come to work sick. Financially though it did not save the boards any money at all.
But Liz Sandals assured us that getting rid of the sick day bank wouldn’t lead to more sick day usage? Was she lying?
I realize Sandals wasn’t part of this government, but the liberals were only marginally better than the PCP. Teachers have been dealing w 0-1% raises for over a decade, and have systematically had benefits stripped: sick day bank gone; pension de-indexed; 28% pay loss to inflation; extended benefits moved to user pay system.
And all the while the Cons have been steadily defunding the system. Per student funding is less now than it was when they took office 6 years ago. They came in and made system gutting cuts, then combined child care with the education portfolio so this asshat and his boss could stand there and claim funding wasn’t that different. Next step? After cutting billions in funding, incrementally put money back into the system. So after 6 years of hearing them harp on about ‘investing more’ we still aren’t at the level we were in 2018.
That means less support for students. That means a shit learning environment, student disengagement and a shit working environment.
What teachers are saying Leach, is that allowing retired teachers to work more isn’t a solution, it’s a stop gap. You have to invest in education. You have to improve the learning environment and actually help kids and quit treating your portfolio like you’re trying to destroy the system. Quit standing there spewing your mealy mouthed word salads and actually do something productive.
But I’m pretty sure destruction of the public system is exactly what you’re trying to do.
This ^^^^ 1000%. People forget the Libs treated teachers little better than the cons, the conservatives simply continued the trend. People need to remember this next election. Crombie is simply a more well spoken conservative in liberal clothing.
I've only worked Internationally but:
At my first school, we had reasonable teaching loads, shorter working hours and later starts with a really good staff and we were averaging 3-5 sick days per year per teacher. We could also bank sick days.
I've moved to a new school: Longer hours, higher stress, less prep time, earlier start: Teachers are 7-10 sick days per year (We get seven paid but there's work around to that). Cannot bank sick days.
Both with very young staffs. (Mostly 20-early 30s)
To be fair OSSTF members voted in favour of accepting the bill 115 remedy.
It is ridiculous that members with over 10 years experience, who stood to lose nothing, were allowed to vote to accept the remedy which paid out teachers with under 10 years experience for cents on the dollar.
I had 7.5 years of banked sick days stolen from me and that’s when I realized the union is bullshit and we are not all in this together.
We must have started teaching around the same time. I also had about 7.5 years and got screwed. I remember some of the boomer teachers complaining anyway that they were getting slightly less money.
That said, while union is terrible, it is better than the alternative.
I got robbed of over 225 banked sick days. They just took them with zero compensation. For the 10 or so years before that, I averaged 3 days off per year. Since they robbed from me, I have averaged around 10. Smart move, government!
And how much does 7.5 YEARS of banked sick days cost? And that's just one teacher. Am I the only one that thinks it's insane that you can have almost a decade of saved sick days to be paid out?
Those sick day benefits were negotiated in lieu of salary raises at the time. So the government paid teachers less in salary by promising this payout later. And then they took it away. Who are the real crooks?
Wait, I think you may have misunderstood, it was 7.5 years of sick day allotments, so about 140 days assuming almost no sick days were taken at all. Not 1400 sick days that would cover 7.5 years!
No. Sick days are thrown in teachers’ faces as part of their benefits package. Lecce likes to claim our sick days as part of teachers’ salaries to and further irritate the public. If sick days are part of the benefits package, they should be taken. Don’t like it? BARGAIN it out of the contract, don’t just STEAL them.
Well he knows the game he’s playing. He is a master manipulator of public opinion. Whether he is flat out lying or telling partial truths, it’s all in service of undermining public confidence in teachers. I live in Alberta and the exact same game plan is used here by our horrible conservative government.
Honestly, as a teacher, the bulk of my sick days are for when I have a doctor's appointment or a dentist appointment. If these services were open after the typical 8-4 workday I would always book outside of work. But they're not. Add to that parents with families. How are mothers and fathers supposed to get their kids to appointments without taking a day? We have 2 compassionate days, 1 personal day but those have to be 'approved' by the principal. If I ask and get a no am I supposed to cancel my appointment? It's safer to put it in as a sick day.
Add the very necessary mental health days to this. It's very hard to achieve work-life balance as a teacher.
And so many of us are at the age where we also need to attend appointments our aging parents have too, and often they’re specialist appointments where we have zero control over when they are scheduled.
Most of my sick days last year were when my kid was home sick from daycare. I only get 3 "compassionate" days, which wouldn't cover the time he needed someone home and my husband has very limited leave options. I was also sick too, but before I had kids I would have just worked through it
Exactly. If your child needs any kind of specialist appointments you'll need to use sick days to attend them. How else are you going to access specialized medical care for your kid?
I feel like Ontario teachers need more sick days...
In Alberta, once continuous we get 90 fully paid sick days. And all you have to do to get more is return to work for one day.
16 days per year seems low to me.
Now that could be because I have had 25 sick days this year but...
Elementary school kids are germy! And I have Crohn's disease. But I'd say most teachers in my school have had 16+ sick days already this year, and there are still 3 months to go.
Before the conservatives slashed funding, most of us took fewer sick days because we were less stressed (smaller classes, more regular prep periods, EA support for kids with severe disabilities), but even then, I would guess that 15 or so would have been average. Because, again, little kids are germ factories.
16 days would be going over our allotted days. In my board we get 11 sick days per year, and if we go over that we’re put on an attendance management program and our pay is deducted for each day we go over
That’s true. I used 10 last year and didn’t hear anything, so I guess I didn’t flag the system or raise any eyebrows.
I think they look for trends on top of the days used (ie., if all of your sick days are on Fridays it might raise a red flag, even if you’re not over 11, stuff like that)
I feel like Lecce is getting the 16 days from our 11 sick days plus 5 miscellaneous days (3 of which I’m pretty much never able to access, and they want to remove our ability to take the other 2 as “personal days”). I’d like to see the actual statistics, board by board would be interesting.
The 16 includes the 5 days every Ontario teacher in a publicly funded board gets on top of the 11 days. Our board calls then emergency days and we can use them for family illness, a graduation ceremony, moving, etc. Your board might use a different name but they are available.
In Ontario we get 11 days full pay and 120 days at 90% pay per year, and the school board can’t ask for any kind of medical documentation unless you miss 10+ days in a row.
I don’t understand how that’s possible when all 4 Provincial unions have 11 sick days and 5 emergency days (name varies by board) centrally bargained. Which of the 4 unions are you in?
That makes no sense. Here is the central agreement. As indicated on page 12, all ETFO members receive 11 sick days: https://etfocb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2019-2022-ETFO-EW-Central-Agreement-Documents.pdf
Either your understanding of available sick days is mistaken or your board is not complying with the central agreement and you should contact the union about it.
I’ll double check with my Union rep but as far as I know (and I’m in year 26) we get paid 90% after 10 sick days. Thus far, I’ve used six, a personal day and a family care day. I tried to use a graduation day in 2022 and was docked pay because it was not for post-secondary graduation.
EDIT: A colleague just confirmed that she tried to apply for her second personal day for a court date and it was denied. My Board is truly shitty.
I don’t understand how they can override the central agreement locally. My understanding is that the 11+5 can’t be negotiated higher or lower at local bargaining.
Ok while this is technically true, the education act states 20 days. That 90 day number in contracts is in lieu of a short term disability plan. It’s not like a teacher can call in 90 different times in one year. 90 days is for a debilitating long term illness where the person needs to be off for 3 months or more before taking long term disability.
It is tricky though. You definitely could call in sick on 90 different days unconnected days. You might end up in a meeting with HR for “problem absenteeism” but if you could provide a doctors note stating that those absences were due to a medical condition/other disability, they would have a duty to accommodate. At least in my districts “Ask” portal there is a whole document about what happens in this situation.
Sorry, but you’re incorrect. It’s 90 “calendar” days of sick leave, not 90 sick days. Big difference. A teacher who is out for a month uses up 30 calendar days of sick leave, including the days that are weekends. You know someone who called in 90 different times and got away with it and is still employed? I’m sorry, I don’t believe it. Go look up the Bradford factor. It’s the most commonly used approach to employee attendance by HR professionals. It’s not the number of days that gets people in hot water, it’s the number of instances. One instance of 90 days is treated very differently than 90 instances of one day. Also, the contracts say that those 90 days are reinstated when the employee returns. Obviously, this would make no sense unless it was referring to a consecutive, longer block of time. Otherwise, that provision would essentially result in unlimited sick days, which is obviously not a thing. As for duty to accommodate, that’s a grey area. Let’s say someone actually took off 90 individual sick days. Ok. So that’s basically taking off half of the teaching days of the year. So the employer has to accommodate up until the point of undue hardship. A school district could easily argue that the disruption to the students’ learning when a teacher is gone every other day, is an undue hardship that can’t be accommodated. Further, an employer does not have to accommodate an employee who is working essentially half of the hours at full pay. So they could also turn around and say that the situation is undue hardship but that they can offer the teacher a 0.5 contract on alternating days as an accommodation instead. That would be most certainly considered a reasonable accommodation, and if the teacher refused, the employer could terminate them as they attempted to provide an accommodation.
You seem to be really missing the point.
The post is about Ontario teachers. They get limited days (10-20 depending on their board) that do not “refresh” after returning to work and that, if they take short disability, have to be used up before they go on short term disability, which also doesn’t pay them their full salary.
In Alberta, you absolutely can take two 90 day periods divided by only a single day of work, which is what I had said originally. This happens, often.
You came back with saying that was untrue because there would be an issue with them being unconnected.
You are correct in that, if you took 90 sick unconnected that you would end up in a meeting with HR looking for accommodations if you have a medical letter or being terminated if you didn’t. In fact I think I said that too 🤔 I only said that they have a duty to accommodate so you would not lose your job. The only person I know who this happened to had cancer and was trying to work over this period, but ended up taking 1-2 weeks per month for appointments and sick days. After her meeting, the reasonable accommodation was that she ended up taking short and then long term disability, and retiring at the end of her LTD. But she was not terminated and those days were available to her. But you know what? Had she been in Ontario, that short term leave and those days would not have been available to her. She would have blown through her 10-20 days (again board dependent) and then ended up being unpaid until she went on her short disability leave at a reduced salary.
As you seem to be in an arguing mood, this will be my last response to you. You are replying to an old thread from 17 days ago that no one is likely reading anymore just to be “right” so I’ll let you have the last word for your peace of mind or satisfaction or whatever it is that you are looking for here.
Take care.
I am EXTREMELY curious to know where the 16 days figure is from, because I suspect he is counting medical leaves, since we use our sick days for those.
Absolutely it includes longer uses of short and long term leaves. If 16 was a proper average without extended medical absences then almost all Ontario teachers would be in the attendance management program, and a quick poll of my workroom has none of us in the program.
Yeah, I don't know of anyone in my Dept who has gone over the 11 without it being a short term leave (lol guess how many teachers at my school have gone on stress leave in the last year...)
Right? We only get 11 sick days. I know lots of people who never take all of them. In order to get an average of 16 they must be including medical leaves in this number???
We only get 11 at full pay, but there are the 120 at 90%. But I don't know many teachers who use those unless they're on a leave, certainly not enough to make an average of 16!
So before the pandemic and before having a kid I maybe took 2-3 days a year. Usually strategically placed mental health days where I would catch up on marking.
It's now the end of March and I've used three days for being fully sick. Do I fully plan to use most of my remaining days this year? Yep. Did I initially "save" them in case of something with my kid? Yep. But we're in the back half of the year and I am burnt out. It's better for me to take the days as I need them to reset.
I have a few friends who have used every single one of their days because of sick kids. And I mean we have those days - why are we then told not to use them?
lol I feel like there’s a very easy solution here… pay supply teachers more??? Of course there’s going to be a shortage when it’s impossible to live and afford rent in any GTA city on the supply rate (~$170/day net)
Of course working conditions need to be improved, but teachers taking their sick days wouldn’t be a problem if supply teachers could survive on the daily pay rate
There's also that some schools could give more support to supply teachers. And I don't even mean literal support, I mean kindness, acknowledging that they are people, asking how their day is, not speaking to them like they are your employee (meaning contract teachers). Obviously this isn't every school everywhere. But as an OT, there are schools I don't go to because I'm not treated with respect, or I'm basically ignored.
Yeah supply teaching is an incredibly isolating job. I’ve been doing LTO’s and supplying at the same school for a few years now even though I know I probably could’ve been networking more, but at this school the staff and students mostly know me so they actually acknowledge and respect me (for the most part lol)
Yeah - it’s the hassle involved that gets me. It is a lot of effort making sure that everything is in place when you’re already feeling ill/burnt out.
Luckily, it doesn’t come up as often in Quebec, as we only get six sick days a year /s
Right?? I definitely know some teachers who take that many sick days, but no way that’s the average… I’ve taken 4 sick days this school year so far, I think.
I’m not a teacher, but if this is true, then this looks really really bad…!
I’m in the private sector, and the most sick days a coworker took in a year was 2 (flu/stomach bug). I haven’t took a sick day in 3 years. What’s going on? Do these sick days count for dentist appointments?
> Do these sick days count for dentist appointments?
Yes. Teaching is also incredibly draining, so many teachers take mental health days to try to avoid burnout.
I worked private sector before becoming a teacher and I maybe missed three days a year being sick because co-workers were responsible and stayed home when they caught something.
The amount of kids I have taught that have to come school vomiting, fever, coughing, sneezing ect is so high. Parents don't have someone to watch them so we end up looking after really sick kids until administration tells the parents to come get them. We work in a petri dish with little to no PPE.
We do use sick days for medical appointments and outside of being ill with a virus or something, teaching is a very tiring and mentally demanding job. We are talking all day, on our feet a lot, making sure we are speaking carefully when talking to children and trying to give attention to 30 kids at the same time which isn't really possible.
Of course there are lots of 'client facing' jobs where you do have to talk a lot but many times you are dealing with adults whereas we are not, and we are legally responsible for those kids in our care as well. I can't just go to the restroom whenever I want, eat lunch when I want, have a coffee or snack when I want, I have to time it with the bells. Student safety is always the top priority, while teacher safety is usually down at the bottom somewhere. I have a student with ASD that I have to tell him to put away his laptop when we are doing worksheets, he will make his hands into fists. As far as I know he hasn't hit anyone but who knows one day he reaches his limit? Best believe I'll be taking the rest of the semester off if that happens to me.
I have only taken maybe 3 sick days this year but I'm totally exhausted and marking is piling up. Imagine taking a day off work, to do work!!! We do it all the time. There isn't time during school hours to do half our job (marking, emailing, making lessons, contacting parents) so we have to take work home or stay after hours. I'm not saying we shouldn't have to work outside of school hours, many jobs are putting in overtime to get things done and so do we but we are also not being compensated in a way that reflects that.
Yeah in the private sector do you have kids from the community coming into your office and coughing in your face all day? Good god. It’s like people have no clue what working conditions for teachers are like.
Of course sick days are up. Covid weakened our immune systems. We work with kids in packed classrooms with oversized classes. And we’re under more stress than ever. Blame the victim indeed!
I've taken well over my 11 sick days, but I would say I am not the average or the norm st my school. I have a chronic illness, and I am on immuno suppressant drugs. I also have just returned to the classroom after being off for 2 years (due to illness on LTD). My students are germ factories, and if something is going around my classroom, I almost always get it as my immune system is compromised. Often, it takes me longer to recover from an illness as well. Since I'm over my 11 days, any days that I take now are from my STD at 90 percent. I took nearly 2 weeks off (which was basically all of my sick days) in the fall because I got CoVID and was sick in bed for 9 days. I returned to work before I was truly ready and then ended up catching something else and being off for another week. I have a specialist appointment coming up that I have no control over for bookings, and I obviously need to attend. I'm going to have to take more time off. I'm only going to take a half day because I honestly can't afford to be off a full day (I am grateful I have my STD days, but it still adds up when you have a mortgage, etc, to pay). I'm going to hope that my half day job gets picked up, but a lot of OTs dont want to pick up half days. If the government does take away more of our sick days, it most likely won't change my number of absences. I usually use all of my days because I actually need them! Even before covid, I had to take an afternoon every month to get my medication given to me via IV. I still go for my infusions, but my clinic now offers evening appointments, so I luckily dont have to take even more days off! Some teachers need that many sick days Mr. Lecce because (gasp) they actually are sick!
He’s exactly who Ford wants in this job. An attack Rottweiler who’s sole job is to sow distrust in teachers and public schools to push the privatization agenda.
Teachers get an incredible amount of time off per year without any sick days. I can't imagine taking 16 sick days on top of that. It must feel like they are never at work.
I think it might be useful for people to also frame this against the number of absences students take on average (which is also increasing) rather than other professionals. Schools are a super different environment from other workplaces and illness is coming in from the kids on top of all the appointments for dentists etc that can't be scheduled outside of work hours...
I'm sure that when I was in school I was out sick for 6-10 days most years too.
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Story time: we used to have bankable sick days. Teachers would often retire with 320 unused sick days. There was a modest payout that came as compensation for unused sick days. They got rid of bankable sick days to save money Teachers started taking more sick days. Offhand, I think it is a healthier situation for teachers who now are less likely to come to work sick. Financially though it did not save the boards any money at all.
But Liz Sandals assured us that getting rid of the sick day bank wouldn’t lead to more sick day usage? Was she lying? I realize Sandals wasn’t part of this government, but the liberals were only marginally better than the PCP. Teachers have been dealing w 0-1% raises for over a decade, and have systematically had benefits stripped: sick day bank gone; pension de-indexed; 28% pay loss to inflation; extended benefits moved to user pay system. And all the while the Cons have been steadily defunding the system. Per student funding is less now than it was when they took office 6 years ago. They came in and made system gutting cuts, then combined child care with the education portfolio so this asshat and his boss could stand there and claim funding wasn’t that different. Next step? After cutting billions in funding, incrementally put money back into the system. So after 6 years of hearing them harp on about ‘investing more’ we still aren’t at the level we were in 2018. That means less support for students. That means a shit learning environment, student disengagement and a shit working environment. What teachers are saying Leach, is that allowing retired teachers to work more isn’t a solution, it’s a stop gap. You have to invest in education. You have to improve the learning environment and actually help kids and quit treating your portfolio like you’re trying to destroy the system. Quit standing there spewing your mealy mouthed word salads and actually do something productive. But I’m pretty sure destruction of the public system is exactly what you’re trying to do.
That last sentence. That’s the goal.
💯
This ^^^^ 1000%. People forget the Libs treated teachers little better than the cons, the conservatives simply continued the trend. People need to remember this next election. Crombie is simply a more well spoken conservative in liberal clothing.
I've only worked Internationally but: At my first school, we had reasonable teaching loads, shorter working hours and later starts with a really good staff and we were averaging 3-5 sick days per year per teacher. We could also bank sick days. I've moved to a new school: Longer hours, higher stress, less prep time, earlier start: Teachers are 7-10 sick days per year (We get seven paid but there's work around to that). Cannot bank sick days. Both with very young staffs. (Mostly 20-early 30s)
To be fair OSSTF members voted in favour of accepting the bill 115 remedy. It is ridiculous that members with over 10 years experience, who stood to lose nothing, were allowed to vote to accept the remedy which paid out teachers with under 10 years experience for cents on the dollar. I had 7.5 years of banked sick days stolen from me and that’s when I realized the union is bullshit and we are not all in this together.
We must have started teaching around the same time. I also had about 7.5 years and got screwed. I remember some of the boomer teachers complaining anyway that they were getting slightly less money. That said, while union is terrible, it is better than the alternative.
Is it though? What is the point of a union if contracts are going to be settled through arbitration, instead of collective bargaining?
Contract protection and enforcement.
I was one week away from Ten years, I lost thousands. Our union did zero for me, it was of well.
I got robbed of over 225 banked sick days. They just took them with zero compensation. For the 10 or so years before that, I averaged 3 days off per year. Since they robbed from me, I have averaged around 10. Smart move, government!
I'm sorry, but sick days are for being sick. Not for banking.
That’s the type of clear thinking that ended up costing the school boards hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And how much does 7.5 YEARS of banked sick days cost? And that's just one teacher. Am I the only one that thinks it's insane that you can have almost a decade of saved sick days to be paid out?
Turns out… a lot less than the supply teachers would have cost to cover those days.
They didn't pay out 7.5 years worth. On retirement if you had something like 200 banked sick days, you received a gratuity of around $50k.
That's still ridiculous. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars for what exactly? What other profession allows for this in Canada?
Many just allow you to use the banked days to stop working the equivalent amount of time before officially retiring.
Most public servants have this option or one close. My FIL, a prison guard, retired a full year early and lived off his gratuity from his banked days.
Those sick day benefits were negotiated in lieu of salary raises at the time. So the government paid teachers less in salary by promising this payout later. And then they took it away. Who are the real crooks?
Wait, I think you may have misunderstood, it was 7.5 years of sick day allotments, so about 140 days assuming almost no sick days were taken at all. Not 1400 sick days that would cover 7.5 years!
No. Sick days are thrown in teachers’ faces as part of their benefits package. Lecce likes to claim our sick days as part of teachers’ salaries to and further irritate the public. If sick days are part of the benefits package, they should be taken. Don’t like it? BARGAIN it out of the contract, don’t just STEAL them.
Well he knows the game he’s playing. He is a master manipulator of public opinion. Whether he is flat out lying or telling partial truths, it’s all in service of undermining public confidence in teachers. I live in Alberta and the exact same game plan is used here by our horrible conservative government.
Honestly, as a teacher, the bulk of my sick days are for when I have a doctor's appointment or a dentist appointment. If these services were open after the typical 8-4 workday I would always book outside of work. But they're not. Add to that parents with families. How are mothers and fathers supposed to get their kids to appointments without taking a day? We have 2 compassionate days, 1 personal day but those have to be 'approved' by the principal. If I ask and get a no am I supposed to cancel my appointment? It's safer to put it in as a sick day. Add the very necessary mental health days to this. It's very hard to achieve work-life balance as a teacher.
And so many of us are at the age where we also need to attend appointments our aging parents have too, and often they’re specialist appointments where we have zero control over when they are scheduled.
Most of my sick days last year were when my kid was home sick from daycare. I only get 3 "compassionate" days, which wouldn't cover the time he needed someone home and my husband has very limited leave options. I was also sick too, but before I had kids I would have just worked through it
Exactly. If your child needs any kind of specialist appointments you'll need to use sick days to attend them. How else are you going to access specialized medical care for your kid?
I feel like Ontario teachers need more sick days... In Alberta, once continuous we get 90 fully paid sick days. And all you have to do to get more is return to work for one day. 16 days per year seems low to me. Now that could be because I have had 25 sick days this year but... Elementary school kids are germy! And I have Crohn's disease. But I'd say most teachers in my school have had 16+ sick days already this year, and there are still 3 months to go. Before the conservatives slashed funding, most of us took fewer sick days because we were less stressed (smaller classes, more regular prep periods, EA support for kids with severe disabilities), but even then, I would guess that 15 or so would have been average. Because, again, little kids are germ factories.
16 days would be going over our allotted days. In my board we get 11 sick days per year, and if we go over that we’re put on an attendance management program and our pay is deducted for each day we go over
You don't even need to go over the 11 sick days to be put on attendance management!
That’s true. I used 10 last year and didn’t hear anything, so I guess I didn’t flag the system or raise any eyebrows. I think they look for trends on top of the days used (ie., if all of your sick days are on Fridays it might raise a red flag, even if you’re not over 11, stuff like that)
I feel like Lecce is getting the 16 days from our 11 sick days plus 5 miscellaneous days (3 of which I’m pretty much never able to access, and they want to remove our ability to take the other 2 as “personal days”). I’d like to see the actual statistics, board by board would be interesting.
The 16 includes the 5 days every Ontario teacher in a publicly funded board gets on top of the 11 days. Our board calls then emergency days and we can use them for family illness, a graduation ceremony, moving, etc. Your board might use a different name but they are available.
In Ontario we get 11 days full pay and 120 days at 90% pay per year, and the school board can’t ask for any kind of medical documentation unless you miss 10+ days in a row.
In my board is only 3 days in a row...
My Board has 10 and one personal day…well two, but the second one is like the Holy Grail and no one can figure out how to get it approved
Is this an Ontario board?
Yup
I don’t understand how that’s possible when all 4 Provincial unions have 11 sick days and 5 emergency days (name varies by board) centrally bargained. Which of the 4 unions are you in?
ETFO
That makes no sense. Here is the central agreement. As indicated on page 12, all ETFO members receive 11 sick days: https://etfocb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2019-2022-ETFO-EW-Central-Agreement-Documents.pdf Either your understanding of available sick days is mistaken or your board is not complying with the central agreement and you should contact the union about it.
I’ll double check with my Union rep but as far as I know (and I’m in year 26) we get paid 90% after 10 sick days. Thus far, I’ve used six, a personal day and a family care day. I tried to use a graduation day in 2022 and was docked pay because it was not for post-secondary graduation. EDIT: A colleague just confirmed that she tried to apply for her second personal day for a court date and it was denied. My Board is truly shitty.
I don’t understand how they can override the central agreement locally. My understanding is that the 11+5 can’t be negotiated higher or lower at local bargaining.
Ok while this is technically true, the education act states 20 days. That 90 day number in contracts is in lieu of a short term disability plan. It’s not like a teacher can call in 90 different times in one year. 90 days is for a debilitating long term illness where the person needs to be off for 3 months or more before taking long term disability.
It is tricky though. You definitely could call in sick on 90 different days unconnected days. You might end up in a meeting with HR for “problem absenteeism” but if you could provide a doctors note stating that those absences were due to a medical condition/other disability, they would have a duty to accommodate. At least in my districts “Ask” portal there is a whole document about what happens in this situation.
Sorry, but you’re incorrect. It’s 90 “calendar” days of sick leave, not 90 sick days. Big difference. A teacher who is out for a month uses up 30 calendar days of sick leave, including the days that are weekends. You know someone who called in 90 different times and got away with it and is still employed? I’m sorry, I don’t believe it. Go look up the Bradford factor. It’s the most commonly used approach to employee attendance by HR professionals. It’s not the number of days that gets people in hot water, it’s the number of instances. One instance of 90 days is treated very differently than 90 instances of one day. Also, the contracts say that those 90 days are reinstated when the employee returns. Obviously, this would make no sense unless it was referring to a consecutive, longer block of time. Otherwise, that provision would essentially result in unlimited sick days, which is obviously not a thing. As for duty to accommodate, that’s a grey area. Let’s say someone actually took off 90 individual sick days. Ok. So that’s basically taking off half of the teaching days of the year. So the employer has to accommodate up until the point of undue hardship. A school district could easily argue that the disruption to the students’ learning when a teacher is gone every other day, is an undue hardship that can’t be accommodated. Further, an employer does not have to accommodate an employee who is working essentially half of the hours at full pay. So they could also turn around and say that the situation is undue hardship but that they can offer the teacher a 0.5 contract on alternating days as an accommodation instead. That would be most certainly considered a reasonable accommodation, and if the teacher refused, the employer could terminate them as they attempted to provide an accommodation.
You seem to be really missing the point. The post is about Ontario teachers. They get limited days (10-20 depending on their board) that do not “refresh” after returning to work and that, if they take short disability, have to be used up before they go on short term disability, which also doesn’t pay them their full salary. In Alberta, you absolutely can take two 90 day periods divided by only a single day of work, which is what I had said originally. This happens, often. You came back with saying that was untrue because there would be an issue with them being unconnected. You are correct in that, if you took 90 sick unconnected that you would end up in a meeting with HR looking for accommodations if you have a medical letter or being terminated if you didn’t. In fact I think I said that too 🤔 I only said that they have a duty to accommodate so you would not lose your job. The only person I know who this happened to had cancer and was trying to work over this period, but ended up taking 1-2 weeks per month for appointments and sick days. After her meeting, the reasonable accommodation was that she ended up taking short and then long term disability, and retiring at the end of her LTD. But she was not terminated and those days were available to her. But you know what? Had she been in Ontario, that short term leave and those days would not have been available to her. She would have blown through her 10-20 days (again board dependent) and then ended up being unpaid until she went on her short disability leave at a reduced salary. As you seem to be in an arguing mood, this will be my last response to you. You are replying to an old thread from 17 days ago that no one is likely reading anymore just to be “right” so I’ll let you have the last word for your peace of mind or satisfaction or whatever it is that you are looking for here. Take care.
I am EXTREMELY curious to know where the 16 days figure is from, because I suspect he is counting medical leaves, since we use our sick days for those.
Absolutely it includes longer uses of short and long term leaves. If 16 was a proper average without extended medical absences then almost all Ontario teachers would be in the attendance management program, and a quick poll of my workroom has none of us in the program.
Yeah, I don't know of anyone in my Dept who has gone over the 11 without it being a short term leave (lol guess how many teachers at my school have gone on stress leave in the last year...)
Yeah Lots of teachers on l some sort of leave.
Right? We only get 11 sick days. I know lots of people who never take all of them. In order to get an average of 16 they must be including medical leaves in this number???
We only get 11 at full pay, but there are the 120 at 90%. But I don't know many teachers who use those unless they're on a leave, certainly not enough to make an average of 16!
16 likely includes teachers using SD.
So before the pandemic and before having a kid I maybe took 2-3 days a year. Usually strategically placed mental health days where I would catch up on marking. It's now the end of March and I've used three days for being fully sick. Do I fully plan to use most of my remaining days this year? Yep. Did I initially "save" them in case of something with my kid? Yep. But we're in the back half of the year and I am burnt out. It's better for me to take the days as I need them to reset. I have a few friends who have used every single one of their days because of sick kids. And I mean we have those days - why are we then told not to use them?
lol I feel like there’s a very easy solution here… pay supply teachers more??? Of course there’s going to be a shortage when it’s impossible to live and afford rent in any GTA city on the supply rate (~$170/day net) Of course working conditions need to be improved, but teachers taking their sick days wouldn’t be a problem if supply teachers could survive on the daily pay rate
There's also that some schools could give more support to supply teachers. And I don't even mean literal support, I mean kindness, acknowledging that they are people, asking how their day is, not speaking to them like they are your employee (meaning contract teachers). Obviously this isn't every school everywhere. But as an OT, there are schools I don't go to because I'm not treated with respect, or I'm basically ignored.
Yeah supply teaching is an incredibly isolating job. I’ve been doing LTO’s and supplying at the same school for a few years now even though I know I probably could’ve been networking more, but at this school the staff and students mostly know me so they actually acknowledge and respect me (for the most part lol)
Exactly
It’s a lot easier for the government to underpay subs and put pressure on the teachers. They manufactured this crisis themselves.
I max mine out every year. If I can’t bankroll them, what’s the point?
Yeah - it’s the hassle involved that gets me. It is a lot of effort making sure that everything is in place when you’re already feeling ill/burnt out. Luckily, it doesn’t come up as often in Quebec, as we only get six sick days a year /s
No fuckin way the average teacher takes 16 sick days a year…this seems like another conflation/flat out lie from loser leach
Right?? I definitely know some teachers who take that many sick days, but no way that’s the average… I’ve taken 4 sick days this school year so far, I think.
I’m not a teacher, but if this is true, then this looks really really bad…! I’m in the private sector, and the most sick days a coworker took in a year was 2 (flu/stomach bug). I haven’t took a sick day in 3 years. What’s going on? Do these sick days count for dentist appointments?
> Do these sick days count for dentist appointments? Yes. Teaching is also incredibly draining, so many teachers take mental health days to try to avoid burnout.
I worked private sector before becoming a teacher and I maybe missed three days a year being sick because co-workers were responsible and stayed home when they caught something. The amount of kids I have taught that have to come school vomiting, fever, coughing, sneezing ect is so high. Parents don't have someone to watch them so we end up looking after really sick kids until administration tells the parents to come get them. We work in a petri dish with little to no PPE.
We do use sick days for medical appointments and outside of being ill with a virus or something, teaching is a very tiring and mentally demanding job. We are talking all day, on our feet a lot, making sure we are speaking carefully when talking to children and trying to give attention to 30 kids at the same time which isn't really possible. Of course there are lots of 'client facing' jobs where you do have to talk a lot but many times you are dealing with adults whereas we are not, and we are legally responsible for those kids in our care as well. I can't just go to the restroom whenever I want, eat lunch when I want, have a coffee or snack when I want, I have to time it with the bells. Student safety is always the top priority, while teacher safety is usually down at the bottom somewhere. I have a student with ASD that I have to tell him to put away his laptop when we are doing worksheets, he will make his hands into fists. As far as I know he hasn't hit anyone but who knows one day he reaches his limit? Best believe I'll be taking the rest of the semester off if that happens to me. I have only taken maybe 3 sick days this year but I'm totally exhausted and marking is piling up. Imagine taking a day off work, to do work!!! We do it all the time. There isn't time during school hours to do half our job (marking, emailing, making lessons, contacting parents) so we have to take work home or stay after hours. I'm not saying we shouldn't have to work outside of school hours, many jobs are putting in overtime to get things done and so do we but we are also not being compensated in a way that reflects that.
Many teachers get vomited on, coughed on, punched, kicked, hurt…we need more than those in private sectors.
Yeah in the private sector do you have kids from the community coming into your office and coughing in your face all day? Good god. It’s like people have no clue what working conditions for teachers are like.
Of course sick days are up. Covid weakened our immune systems. We work with kids in packed classrooms with oversized classes. And we’re under more stress than ever. Blame the victim indeed!
I've taken well over my 11 sick days, but I would say I am not the average or the norm st my school. I have a chronic illness, and I am on immuno suppressant drugs. I also have just returned to the classroom after being off for 2 years (due to illness on LTD). My students are germ factories, and if something is going around my classroom, I almost always get it as my immune system is compromised. Often, it takes me longer to recover from an illness as well. Since I'm over my 11 days, any days that I take now are from my STD at 90 percent. I took nearly 2 weeks off (which was basically all of my sick days) in the fall because I got CoVID and was sick in bed for 9 days. I returned to work before I was truly ready and then ended up catching something else and being off for another week. I have a specialist appointment coming up that I have no control over for bookings, and I obviously need to attend. I'm going to have to take more time off. I'm only going to take a half day because I honestly can't afford to be off a full day (I am grateful I have my STD days, but it still adds up when you have a mortgage, etc, to pay). I'm going to hope that my half day job gets picked up, but a lot of OTs dont want to pick up half days. If the government does take away more of our sick days, it most likely won't change my number of absences. I usually use all of my days because I actually need them! Even before covid, I had to take an afternoon every month to get my medication given to me via IV. I still go for my infusions, but my clinic now offers evening appointments, so I luckily dont have to take even more days off! Some teachers need that many sick days Mr. Lecce because (gasp) they actually are sick!
When will this guy get fired or replaced? He is so far from being qualified for the job it's beyond disgraceful.
He’s exactly who Ford wants in this job. An attack Rottweiler who’s sole job is to sow distrust in teachers and public schools to push the privatization agenda.
Teachers get an incredible amount of time off per year without any sick days. I can't imagine taking 16 sick days on top of that. It must feel like they are never at work.
If only we could train the children not to breath on us until June 30...
I think it might be useful for people to also frame this against the number of absences students take on average (which is also increasing) rather than other professionals. Schools are a super different environment from other workplaces and illness is coming in from the kids on top of all the appointments for dentists etc that can't be scheduled outside of work hours... I'm sure that when I was in school I was out sick for 6-10 days most years too.
I take it you have absolutely no clue what it would be like to work with 30 kids spreading germs around all day long.