School Board hears proposal on leave policies

FAYETTEVILLE -- A proposal to change policies on sick days and personal days for teachers generated debate among School Board members Thursday.

Some board members had concerns about plans to reduce the number of personal days provided to teachers during the school year, concerns district committees representing staff will review Monday, said Greg Mones, director of human resources for the Fayetteville School District.

"We're looking at the number of absences," said Superintendent Paul Hewitt. "We want our teachers here with our kids."

Current policy provide teachers with up to 16 days of sick and personal leave during the school year, Hewitt said.

Board Secretary Traci Farrah said the proposal seemed to penalize teachers when one reason for teachers being away from their classrooms is for training. She thought the policy on personal days helps retain teachers.

"We're trying to cut down on teacher absenteeism and have more student and teacher contact," Farrah said. "A lot of the contact the kids are missing are during professional development days."

Farrah objected to reducing personal days and instead favored giving principals more authority to limit the number of teachers taking personal days and refuse some requests for personal days.

Hewitt said the administration will make changes to address the days teachers are out for training, but the goal was to find incentives for teachers to be in their classrooms.

"Do we want to have an incentive for teachers not to be with kids?" he said.

The district's personnel policies committees spent months drafting policy proposals to increase attendance for staff members, especially teachers, Mones said. Committees for teachers and other staff positions crafted similar policies, but much of the discussion Thursday focused on the policies for teachers.

Teachers receive 10 sick days annually, with the ability to accumulate 120 days of sick leave over their careers with the School District, Mones said. Once they reach 120 days, teachers are allowed to carry over three sick days per year.

The committee proposed removing the provision for teachers to carry over three days per year for teachers with 120 days of sick leave, Mones said. Those teachers instead would be paid at the end of the school year $60 for any unused sick days over 120 days. Teachers could be paid up to $600.

The policy also provides for teachers to be paid when they retire for their accumulated sick leave of more than 45 days, Mones said. That means a teacher with 50 sick days would be paid for just five days. Some teachers instead choose to take more sick leave in their final years of employment.

The proposed change for sick leave is to pay teachers for all of their sick leave on retirement, Mones said.

"It's rewarding people for being at work," Mones said.

Teachers can take sick leave not only for themselves, but for illness or death involving a spouse, child, parent, grandparent or a grandchild, Mones said. Sick leave also is allowed for the care of other relatives living in their household.

Teachers also are given personal days for any reason, whether closing on a house or for a vacation day during the school year, Mones said. The policy provides teachers with two days of personal leave at their full daily rate of pay, plus four days with their pay docked $60 to pay for a substitute.

Personal days also carry over each year, though a teacher can have no more than four personal days to take at their full daily rate of pay, Mones said. Teachers on average earn about $300 per day.

The committees proposed keeping two personal days, but eliminating the four days teachers could buy and instead of the personal days carrying over, teachers be paid $60 for each unused personal day at the end of the school year, Mones said.

NW News on 04/29/2016