Commentary
Think back to when you were a student. How much learning took place when your teachers were absent?
Likely not as much as when they were present. That’s because substitute teachers often aren’t as familiar with the subject being taught. Even if they do know the material, they probably don’t know the students, which makes classroom management more difficult. In other words, frequent teacher absences are bad for learning. The more days a teacher misses, the more of a negative impact we can expect to see on student achievement and behaviour.
Teacher absenteeism also significantly affects school board budgets. For example, last school year each teacher in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) took an average of 20 sick days. In total, this cost the TDSB $213 million, which works out to 8.7 percent of the board’s total payroll.
Across Ontario, the average teacher uses approximately 16 sick days per year, not quite as many as at TDSB, but still significant. Considering that Ontario has only about 195 school days per year, it’s concerning that teachers are (on average) absent nearly 10 percent of the time.
Some school boards have resorted to drastic measures to deal with this problem. Both the TDSB and the Toronto Catholic District School Board are even using private investigators to catch teachers who are fraudulently using sick days. However, heavy-handed approaches such as this one ignore the fact that school boards must do more than simply crack down on the misuse of sick leave. They should ask why so many teachers choose to be absent in the first place. Deal with the causes of the problem rather than just the symptoms.
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A recent auditor general’s report, for example, found that both students and staff at TDSB do not always experience a safe learning environment. In fact, violent incidents increased by 67 percent between 2017/18 and 2022/23. The report also noted that sick-day use increased by 58 percent over approximately the same period.
Teachers are more likely to take sick days when they feel unsafe at school, so school boards should do a better job of keeping both teachers and students safe. This means cracking down on student misbehaviour and ensuring that violent students receive significant consequences—including suspensions and permanent expulsions.
Another thing that undoubtedly will help reduce the number of sick days is to stop imposing useless fads on teachers. Teachers want to do their jobs effectively, and this isn’t likely to happen if they are subjected to endless diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) sessions.
The harm teachers often experience during DEI sessions is real. In 2023, former Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto took his own life after experiencing ongoing harassment for daring to challenge his DEI trainer. In addition, recent research shows that far from promoting tolerance and inclusion, mandatory DEI sessions simply create more animosity and division. The TDSB recently called on the Ford government to force all teachers in the province to obtain DEI certification. Hopefully, the government ignores that call.
It would also help if school board trustees and senior administrators tightened their own belts. For example, it’s no secret that Ontario school boards are administratively top heavy. Few things are more frustrating than seeing administrative departments grow in size while classroom teachers are continually told to do more with less. This leads to teacher burnout, which obviously increases the total number of sick days.
Finally, teachers also don’t appreciate hearing about lavish professional development retreats for senior administrators at high-end hotels or trustees flying to Italy on the taxpayer dime. Although these abuses of tax dollars are the exception rather than the rule, they shouldn’t happen at all. They feed into a culture that gives employees tacit permission to take liberties with their benefits. This culture obviously doesn’t justify the abuse of sick leave, but it does make it much more understandable.
A balanced approach is needed to tackle this problem. While it’s obviously necessary to crack down on the handful of teachers who misuse their sick leave, it’s much more important to address the underlying factors that make teacher absenteeism more likely. Dealing with causes rather than symptoms is always a better long-term strategy. Teachers should be at school as much as possible. Students—and taxpayers—deserve no less.
Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
