Answers wanted on Camden absences
posted by Loki on Jan.29.2010 at 9:32 pm
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By JOSEPH GIDJUNIS
Courier-Post Staff
Schools Superintendent Bessie LeFra Young and state monitor Michael Azzara have been summoned to Trenton to answer questions about the district’s teacher absenteeism rates and record-keeping, a state official said.
The Courier-Post reviewed teacher absenteeism data from the 2008-2009 school year and found teachers missed an average of 11 days of class time, and some schools had teachers miss upward of 17 days.
“We do not find this acceptable,” said state Education Department spokeswoman Kathryn Forsythe. “Acting Commissioner (Bret) Schundler will be meeting with Superintendent Young and the state monitor to see how we can successfully address this issue.”
Camden school administrators, however, doubted the accuracy of their own absenteeism statistics.
The report provided to the Courier-Post through an Open Public Records Act request is the best available in the district, but it is marred with errors, said Azzara, who was authorized to speak on the subject by Young.
In statement released by the district Thursday, school officials said, “the report provided to the Courier-Post was flawed with unverifiable data created in an Excel format arbitrarily.”
“The District is in the process of investigating why the internal controls and standard operating procedures for staff time and attendance have not been followed,” the release said.
However, school officials did not release a revised report Thursday on absenteeism that backed their claims of bad data.
District officials went on to say that the “vast majority of our staff have less than 11 days absence over the 183-day school year.”
Officials did acknowledge an absenteeism problem at South Camden Alternative School and say proactive steps are being taken to correct the matter.
On Sunday, the Courier-Post reported that students in Camden schools are being shortchanged on their education by teachers who are absent from the classroom more than their colleagues across the country, and come to school less than their own students.
At South Camden Alternative, teachers missed an average of 23 days.
In two Camden schools, teacher absences exceeded that of their students. At Washington and Cooper’s Poynt elementary schools, teachers missed an average of 14 days of school, with students missing 10 and 13 days respectively, according to Camden teacher and student attendance rates.
Woodrow Wilson High School is reported as having the most absences in the district, 1,599, although the school also has the most teachers, 139.
Camden High School, with 138, reported 1,248 absences during the same time period, but school officials freely admit the real number is likely worse. The week of the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday, with just four days of school, Camden High School needed an average of 20 substitutes a day.
State law allows for 10 sick days, but Camden’s teachers are granted more generous benefits including up to 13 sick days, two personal days and two days for professional development. Other life events also incur additional paid time off.
“Teacher attendance is always an issue that is discussed and we’re always looking for ways to improve it,” Azzara said in the newspaper report.
Teachers and other administrators dismiss the statistics because they believe a few bad apples as well as long-term illnesses, pregnancies or other life events skew the figures. There is also some concern that teachers are being singled out as the sole reason for poor test scores.
“There are a number of things that factor into teachers being absent,” said Claudia Cream, principal of Camden’s Parkside Elementary School. “I can’t speak for the entire district, but those places I’ve been assigned; teachers don’t abuse their sick days.”
Cream singled out one of her teachers, Mary Robinson, who has taught in the district 34 years. She has missed just one day in all those years, Cream said.
“There are a lot of teachers who have a lot of accumulated sick time. You can’t judge all by the actions of a few,” Cream said.
The average teacher absenteeism rate nationwide is about 5.3 percent on a given day, said Raegen Miller, an education policy researcher. Camden teachers were absent over 6 percent on a given day. This rate is about double the 3 percent for all private sector employees in 2008, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Under contract rules last year, Camden’s 1,637 teachers could take up to 24,555 sick or personal days last year. Teachers took half of those days, and banked the rest for the next year.
Camden budgeted $2 million this year to pay substitute teachers to fill in for absent teachers.
Camden calls a regular core of about 81 substitutes to fill teacher vacancies. The starting pay is $88 per day, but the majority of subs make $108, said Al Driggins, chief steward of the local Communication Workers of American union representing the substitutes.
Driggins said despite differences in pay, they all have one thing in common — they work every day. As of August, Camden Schools reported having 81 substitutes on staff and all 81 worked daily.
In Camden, as in most districts, teachers can accumulate unused sick time and cash out at $90 per day. There is no limit to how many days may be acquired if the teacher was hired before Sept. 1, 2007, but educators hired after this date are capped at $15,000.
Figures on how much money the school district is on the hook to pay teachers was not immediately available, but in 2008 alone, if teachers decided to cash all their days out, it would amount to $1.13 million.
A new report published this month found teachers without tenure had lower absenteeism rates than teachers with the additional job security.
In 2004, Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union approved an agreement giving principals power to dismiss teachers with less than five years of experience without elaborate documentation and lengthy hearings. The policy appears to have reduced teacher absences by 10 percent, and teachers with 15 annual absences took 20 percent fewer days, according to a report in the National Bureau of Economic Research by Brian Jacob, an education policy professor at the University of Michigan.
Studies have found that for every 10 days a teacher is absent, test scores could drop by up to 3.3 percent. Other subjects saw decreases in achievement, too, according to a 2007 study.
“I know I have to be in the classroom,” said Karen Borrelli, a health and physical education teacher. “This is something that contributes to kids achieving at the highest level. We all know that.”
But Borrelli said a few long-term absences, especially in a small school like Brimm Medical Arts, where she teaches, can alter the real picture.
“We had one teacher getting cancer treatments, another lost her husband. Someone else had a heart attack,” Borrelli said. “Put that into a small building, you’ll come up with a high average. But that’s not what’s happening.”
Reach Joseph Gidjunis at (856) 486-2604 or jgidjunis@gannett.com