by Kim Isaza
kisaza@mdjonline.com
December 20, 2009 01:00 AM | 1661 views | 34
|
9 
|
| 
MARIETTA - As officials from Cobb and Marietta school districts brace for more budget cuts in 2010, one potential source of savings is substitute teacher costs.
Those costs, obviously, increase the more teachers are out of the classroom, be it for illness, inservice or other reasons.
The number of days a teacher must be away from class to attend training varies by school, and even by teacher. But teachers also get a seemingly generous number of paid leave days to use during the school year.
The Cobb County School District has 8,308 teachers across its 114 schools. Teachers work 190 days per year, and each of them may take up to 14.25 paid leave days during the school year, though all but three of those are designated as sick days.
In fiscal year 2009, CCSD spent $8.6 million to pay substitute teachers - though it had only budgeted $4.6 million.
In Marietta City Schools, teachers may take 13.5 paid leave days in a school year. That district has 573 teachers, and in fiscal 2009, spent $489,976 to pay substitutes, coming in more than $100,000 under budget.
Those leave days are mostly comparable to other metro Atlanta districts. Gwinnett teachers can take 12.5 days and Fulton, 15.
Education officials say that other factors related to teacher absences must be considered. For one, teachers are around lots of children, who often spread illnesses.
"Teachers do get sick, partly because they're exposed to more germs than say, someone working on a Ford assembly line," said John Adams, Cobb's director of employee relations.
Cobb schools spokesman Jay Dillon added: "The large majority of school teachers are women, and a substantial percentage of those are mothers of small children. When children are sick, mom has to take a day off to care for them. That's a reality that the education business has to deal with probably more than any other industry."
Adams said teacher absenteeism isn't a big problem in the district, but could always be improved. Especially since teacher absenteeism has also been shown to affect students' standardized test scores.
"Most of our teachers are good, committed folks that work hard and come to work. Do we have a small minority that may game the system a little bit? Yes. You'll have that in any workforce with 15,500 employees."
Looks like it's time to implement the open records law. What was the sub budget vs actual expenditure for fiscal year 2008?
To angry ole man. I am sorry for all your anger towards teachers. If you have such a disdain for teachers, I would suggest you should probably stay away from the schools. To answer your question, I was a room Dad and very active in the PTA and school activities for both my children through their elementary school years. They are now in high school. I have been in the class room and I for one appreciate and have a great respect for all teachers. Everyone is not blessed with the gift of teaching. Those who are should be held in high regard. I certainly could not do what they do and I am pretty sure most of the negative posters here could not either. The teachers are not at fault here.
My final point is to clarify some misconceptions from previous posts, the company I work for and the industry I work in still provides the benefits I noted in earlier posts. Also, I am not retired and my wife is still a current Cobb Co. School teacher. Our goal is to get up everyday and go to work and do the best we can with the talents we have been blessed with. We are like most people who want to go to work without the extra baggage of people who don't know any better trashing our efforts. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and cast stones.
Remember: Teaching is the one profession that teaches all the other professions.
I think the bigger question is, how and why did the district budget ONLY $4.6 million?
I took a pay cut this year. How about you?
I do know the teachers are dumping the kids off in those areas because I am the parent in there when they are dumping the kids.
I assist in the computer lab, science lab... on my rotation as do the other parent volunteers so that the teacher doesn't have too. I know the teacher is not in the lunchroom because I am there sitting with my kids. While the lunch room monitors watch the kids. Hmmm I am also doing my rotation for the library staff and I know the teacher isn't there for PE, music, art...
how often sir are you in the school? How often have you witnessed what is really going on in the classroom. Or is it all just pillow talk from where you get your information?
I know for which I talk because I am there. Tell me in your 30 years in corp America have you been able to roll over all the days that you don't take?? All those sick days? i think not. You were in the lucky generation where the companies always will take care of you.
I angry with the teachers whining all the time. There are plenty of tough jobs out there - I don't think teaching is the toughest by far.
Are you kidding me? I'm ending up with unqualified SUBS in the classroom. That's the point.
Cobb County's Director of Employee Relations suggests that teacher absenteeism affects students' standardized test scores, yet a "small minority" of teachers are gaming the system. Um...call me silly, but I kinda want to see my kids' test scores improve. And, doubling the sub budget is hardly a small minority padding a few extra sick days.
And to that retired teacher husband, chill out dude. You've been out of the work world too long. Companies don't provide the benefits you used to get. Those days are gone. I think the thing about the Avenue meant during school hours. I've seen the same thing myself.
"But wait- Teachers do get paid over the summer, they just do not work. If you look at what a teachers pay is PER DAY WORKED and then multiply that by a normal 260 day work year, that is what they would make annually, they just do not work that many days."
Your math and logic are flawed. Just where would teachers make this daily rate for 260 days? I know of no school districts that run 260 day years-and municipalities would go BANKRUPT if teachers were paid their daily rate for that many days. Look at the salary schedule for Cobb. It is posted on the website under Human Resources. It very clearly states that teachers work and are paid for 190 days. While checks may be spread over 12 months, in fact the school disctricts are holding onto OUR money-WITHOUT interest I might add! In what other profession does your employer hold back a portion of your regular annual salary for payment later in the year? None that I know of!!
You are correct in only one thing. Most of my experience has been in the corporate world where I have dealt with many different types of businesses and professions. I do not know where you worked in your career but the standard I have seen for over 30 years of working, for a starting college-educated professional in the work place is 2 weeks vacation and roughly a week for sick for starters. I am sorry if you never had such benefits. Maybe that is a reason for part of your anger. Maybe some counseling would be of benefit.
Also, those of you that harp on teachers getting paid in the summer are off base as well. This is the way the contracts are set up. It is a great system since it spreads their pay over 12 months rather than the 10 months they are in school. It allows them to maintain proper household budgeting which allows them to shop at Target and the Avenue occasionaly (What a stupid comment from a previous post)
If the stats were available to indicate how many days our teachers required subs due to the training, seminars and meetings that are required of the school system, we would have a better idea as to the reason the costs for subs have gone up.
Again, please stop dumping on the teachers.