I am allowed to use 10 days for personal circumstances, which includes illnesses. I am allowed an additional 5 days where I am required to come in to work, but am not in my classroom. I deter from taking personal days because my students have specific needs that the classroom teacher specializes in and understands how to address their needs. On ill days, my teacher aide usually takes over and the substitute teacher kind of does "teacher aide" tasks.
Not really, haha! I make it fun and my students find my lectures/activities engaging, though they tend to still moan and gripe. They’re so dramatic!
Wow....I am definitely glad that this is the case. I find higher level math scary. That must be why I teach elementary.
I'm looking to move into administration. Nothing is wrong with my current place of employment, I am just ready for the change.
That’s wicked awesome. I’m jealous!!! I’m looking to move into administration eventually. Currently, I still have to take the CPACE, but once I do, I will start as a VP, work my way up to a principal position, and then eventually head on to a district office if given the chance. Ideally, I want to be an superintendent eventually because they make bank. For example, the superintendent in my home town was hated by certain teachers in the district because she made $270,000/year, which was more than what most doctors and the Governor of California made at the time. However, I idealize her and think she is absolutely brilliant. She is a math major like me and she’s very eloquent when she speaks. I admire her power and everyone looked up to her, even though they despised her salary package. She ended up working as the superintendent for 7 years, the longest ever for a superintendent in that district. She could have kept working, but she was eligible to retire making that and so there was no point for her continue working as she was maxed in pay. I hope to be just like her one day. She’s my hero, haha!
You shouldn't have to explain your personal days. We just request them and take them if approved. I don't get paid for unused days and they don't roll over to the next year so I definitely take them all.
Everyone is replaceable. Life goes on in your absence....if one needs a personal day, take it. The ‘accepted’ reasons in my districts are personal, legal or family matters that cannot be handled outside school hours. We don’t get more specific than that.
We don't have any difference between sick or personal days- they're all "annual leave" days. Our contract states that leave days are supposed to be used for illness or for things that you can't do during off work hours (i.e. appointments, a house emergency, etc.) but we don't have to give a reason for taking the day off and can just enter our own absences into the sub system. Admin is not allowed to ask why we took the day off. The only exception is if it's a PD day or a day directly before/after a regular school break- those we need special permission for. Most years I do take a couple of "mental health" days. This year I haven't yet. Partially because I don't want to write sub plans and partially because I feel a little guilty- I already miss a lot of student time due to required meetings for my job. I also now tutor 3 days per week after school, and we don't get paid for that time if we're not there. I'm sure I'll end up taking a day at some point. Currently, our annual leave days roll over from year to year. There is a rumor going around that the district is planning to get rid of that starting next year, which I think is a horribly dumb idea. If the days become "use them or lose them" people are going to take way more, if not all of them! We get 12 days per year. The only year I even came close to taking that amount was last year when a close family member passed away and I had to go back to my hometown for a week and I got the flu in the same year. Most years I use maybe 3-4 days.
I don’t really feel that I *need* a personal day. A personal day — for my life only — is more of a want than a need. As such, unless I am dying, incapacitated, involved in a motor-vehicle accident that prevents me from commuting to work, or stuck in a traffic jam, then I will dutifully show up every contracted day without fail. And according to all of my superiors (VP’s, P, CEO, and school board members), they worry if I ever take an extended leave of absence [1+ day(s)] because it would be crippling to the math and science programs. That is why I said what I said. For instance, I jokingly floated the idea of leaving last year just to see what would happen and I was later approached by the CEO and told, “You can’t leave. What can I do to get you to reconsider?” I laughed out loud because I was only kidding, but I still leveraged the situation to get a few added perks out of it.
I took three sick days last week, which was my only days missed this year besides jury duty. When I asked for an excuse through Friday, the doctor just smiled and told me to come back in Monday for another one. Sounds ominous.
We get three personal days a year and do not have to state a reason when we request them, so I do not. There are years I don't use any of them (they roll over into sick days) and some years I use 1 or 2 of them.
That said, given you have a schedule of all AP classes, those are the classes that can definitely afford a day or two with a sub as most of them are self-motivated and able to work without a teacher for a longer period of time.
Maybe one day, two days tops. But for my AP Calc BC and Calc 3 students, not beyond that, except for some of the more motivated/child prodigies I teach.
