I have taken "mental health days" before, but do so very rarely. I am hardly ever out with the exception of conferences/workshops. I have the maximum number of sick days that you can get, so I don't hesitate to take a day if I feel I need it.
Only once. It was field day in June at the middle school where I worked. My only responsiblity would have been to "help out where needed." It was about 100 degrees that day and I didn't feel like baking in the sun. The school was RIFing me anyway, and I hadn't taken a single sick day the whole year. So, I didn't feel guilty.
By this time last year I had already taken 2 or 3 days. We got 10 and I used ALL of them to escape my dreadful job. I haven't used any yet this year. I'm not sick of my job yet! Winter will get me though. What a depressing stretch of time...January-March goes on FOREVER.
We get 10 days per year that accumulate. This is my first year with this district and I just used all 10 days for my maternity leave plus 4 weeks of unpaid leave. Ouch. And, with children at home I'm sure I'll be taking days to care for them when they are ill. So, no--I won't be taking any days off this year that aren't sick days. It's been such a pain to prepare things for the sub, I'd rather just be at school! I've been going in every Saturday for 4-5 hours to get stuff prepared each week. Ugh.
We get 10 sick days a year and like something ridiculous like two personal days that are divided out in like 2 hour increments each month. Since my family lives up in NY I usually use personal days around the holidays to spend more time with them. I have used sick days as mental health days which we aren't really supposed to do, but then again we work so many days in my district it is very hard to take care of personal business. It's not a big deal for me to plan for a sub because thankfully all I need to do is leave a copy of my schedule.
That stinks. We've had Labor Day off, a couple late start days, an ISE day or two, and then election day and veteran's day are approaching holidays for us. Plus I had 1 day of staff development and 2 more coming up. I am most tempted (and most in need of) a mental health day around the end of February usually, but I always end up chucking the idea when I think about preparing for a sub...
in our school when there is no sub, different teachers give up their planning period to teach classes that need teachers
I get ten sick and 3 personal days per year. I have over 100 sick days in the bank as I tend to not need them (knock wood). If I know ahead of time, I take a personal day.
I always seem to get sick at least once a winter, and save my sick days for when I'm actually sick. We get 10 a year and 3 personal days, sick days accumulate up to 30 max. It seems to be the trend at my school to use all personal days, since they don't accumulate. When my grandmother passed away I was teaching part time, and I didn't get a set amount of sick/personal days. I just told them not to pay me for the day I needed to be away, but if I recall correctly they paid me anyways. I think it would be really nice to accumulate a years worth of sick days and retire early! Nice deal
In my district, we get paid for unused sick days when retiring...max is 180 days. It's a lump sum and taxable, so it wouldn't make sense to 'early retire' as our pension funding formula is based on average of last three years' salary.
Do sick days carry over? Like if you don't use all your sick days--do they carry over into the next year?
Ours used to carry over until new legislation has eliminated the ability to bank and has wiped out those that we have already banked (almost 130 for me).
