Especially those who have been non-renewed without cause, I strongly urge you to use your paid time off generously. Why? Because you can cash it out later but if you want to ruin your day see what percentage your district will actually compensate back to you.
If you are in the same district or state, it may be worth it to keep the days. DH bought a brand new Tacoma with his sick day money, and the rest went into a retirement fund. I didn’t have as much time because I had taken care of a medical issue for myself and two terminally ill parents over the years, but I still had enough to put a bit chunk into my retirement account. Plus, our retirement benefit is calculated based on our highest paying years, and sick leave money gets added to your last year teaching. It makes a difference long term. Check to see how it works where you are before using them all!
When my husband retired, he had more than a year of sick days to add to his retirement calculations...it made a difference.
Toward the end of the year, payroll informs us that any unused personal days will transfer automatically into sick days unless you wish to be paid for them. The pay rate is the substitute rate!
I don't know how things are in other states, but here in CA--it really pays off in the end to save up sick days.
It does in Texas too... up to a point. They will only pay you for a certain amount of days. I have plenty. I have well over the amount they will pay me for.
We had a teacher do this. He started taking sick days every Friday. He called in sick the night before and got a different sub each time — when subs were available. The rest of us had to take up the slack he left and his kids had a crappy year. It was a profound loss for his students, and the rest of us lost respect for him. It's just wrong to call in sick when you don't need to.
