A post in another thread raised a question for me. Can you use your sick days to hire a sub when you need an extra adult for a day? Like you would still be there, but you call in sick just so you can have somebody helping you do an activity or something that requires you to be in too many places at once? If so, I could have used that for my spray paint project this year. I didn't even know that was allowed.
It probably depends on district and principal. I think the days I was working in collaboration with the regular classroom teacher were generally "assessment days" (they had to do Benchmark testing with each kid, which took a while) or personal days. That being said, they would often take a sick day for an appointment, but then come back as soon as it was done so that there was double the power.
No, I don't think that we'd be allowed to do this. It's possible that the school office manager could find a way to make it happen if there were no other option.
It can be done. As a sub I was the person brought in to complete a project that the kids started during my LTS. They called me a "floating sub".
I've done it tons of times. In fact, I did it today. I've done it when I needed to do individual testing, when we had a field trip and I needed an extra volunteer. We don't get a prep period, paras are unheard of in regular ed, and until recently the entire second grade only had one parent cleared to work with children.
I think it depends on the district. Here the administration uses some discretionary funds to hire subs to assist at times of assessment or for some team planning periods that the administration feels is worth while. As for using your sick day and hiring someone and coming in anyway, never heard of that being done here.0
I have never heard of that and I think it is a terrible idea that would set a terrible precedent. I shouldn't have to take sick time to get a required assessment done. If that is the norm in some schools I can't imagine the pressure on other teachers who might be saving sick days.
I don't think that was the intention of the post. I mentioned assessment days as separate days from the sick days, in my example. Peregrin was mentioning it just as in case you want a second hand in the classroom.
If you are 'off sick' and have an accident at work are you covered by insurance? What happens if later in the year you actually are sick and you have used your sick days? In the UK sickness is monitored and if you are having above the average number of days off expect an interview with the Headteacher!
I thought the point of sick days was that it doesn't matter when or how they're used. That's why they give you an allotted number of days. In our district, they're not allowed to question what we use them for. As for the insurance, I'm not sure.
Legally the insurance would cover you if you are in the building (even if you're "out sick"). The floating sub idea just seems easier and quicker
I've never heard of this happening here, but I think it would be strongly discouraged for many reasons. When I was doing Special Ed, I usually took one or two sick days to catch up on paperwork, but I worked from home. In the circumstances described by the OP, admin would work with us to help us find that extra body we need in the classroom for a specific activity.
In my district, it is true that personal days can be used at any time for any reason. Sick days, however, are for actual illness, either of oneself or one's family member.
In my district sick days are for sick days, it can matter how they are used. In the situation you describe I think it would depend on the principal if it was allowed or not. We have personal and NQA days that are not supposed to be questioned.
In the UK we get sick days but are are supposed to be too sick to work. You can take 5 consecutive days without having to produce evidence of sickness, the 6th and subsequent days you are required to produce a doctor's note certifying your sickness. The way you talk about them it sounds like you use them as vacation days.
You need to just ask your P and see if it's okay in your building. Some teachers have done that in my building. Our days are all "annual leave" days (no difference between sick and personal days) and they're not allowed to ask what we're using them for or deny them unless you're out for more than 3 days in a row. Even though they can technically do the 3 day thing, they really don't in my building. We've had teachers take vacations before. Our AP took a week long vacation in the middle of the year this year.
Yes. And teachers do. Some of our teachers have said straight to our principal that they're going to be too sick to come in on certain days because they'll be in Disneyland. LOL. Our P is fine with it and knows that this happens as long as it doesn't happen with too great of frequency or used to get out of district training days. Our district complained that so many teachers ended up "sick" only on district training days.
In most places in the US, you get a certain number of sick days, but then a certain number of those can be used as "personal necessity days." With us, we get "no tell" days based on the number of sick days one has accumulated. I often use my no-tell days to do work related things on site. In fact, I'm doing it tomorrow - the last day of school - so that I have an extra pair of hands to help out with my kids.
How unprofessional! So if you 'pull a sickie' where does the money come from to pay for the sub? Over here it comes from the school's budget. A headteacher would never turn a blind eye to anyone asking to take a sickie as it would cost the school money. On the other hand we do have 'leave of absense' days. These may be paid for things like Jury service, Armed forces reserves, school Governors, childrens' university graduations, funerals of close relatives or they may be unpaid for things like weddings.
I haven't seen it done recently, but when I first started teaching, one of the veterans, now retired, told me that she used to hire a sub to come in and "babysit" her class when she had a lot of other work (grading term papers, projects, etc.) to get done. It was like having an extra teacher workday for her. I don't know if she used sick or personal leave, but I doubt it matters much. We get MUCH more sick leave time than personal leave time, so it's not uncommon for teachers to use sick time for personal reasons. No one questions it. I use personal days when it's common knowledge that I'm going out of town or doing something like that, but I've taken "mental health" sick days too, which are very nice.
