This past week has been absolutely lovely with 2 snow days and 1 more snow day for the students (but an optional workday for teachers). The words “optional workday” should be read as “we don’t want you to stay home, but if you come in to work and slip and fall on the snow and ice that we haven’t removed yet, you can’t sue us; it was YOUR decision to come.”
The snow could not have come at a more opportune time for me. I have been nursing a very bad cold that is trying desperately to turn into bronchitis, or worse. The days of rest were exactly what I needed to stave off the worst. I could take what, for all intents and purposes, were sick days without having to pay for a substitute teacher, lose sick days, or write 11 pages worth of lesson plans per day. (By the time I’ve done all that, it’s really not worth it to stay home, which is why most teachers keep working when they’re sick.). However, these precious days of recuperation are not without their cost.
Now, most teachers live for snow days. It just wouldn’t be a proper school year without one of these glorious little unexpected holidays. However, MY colleagues were all moaning about the decision and wishing the days weren’t called. There were various extenuating circumstances, like being in the middle of mid-year standardized testing and having report cards due, but the main reason is because for every snow day called, our school district will take away one of our annual leave days. Keep in mind, we also still have to make the day up. Two of our future teacher workdays have now been taken away and the children ordered to appear for school as usual.
Every other school district for which I have worked has built in snow days to their calendar. They expect it will happen, and when it does, everybody just enjoys their little surprise respite from school free and clear. Nobody has to make it up; nobody loses leave days; nobody gets hurt.
Because the leave days were taken from us, now many of us (including yours truly) will not have enough annual leave days to cover spring break (for which they also dock our annual leave time), even though we came in on the third day, walking precariously over the uncleared snow and ice in front of our school doors to be present and accounted for. When we run out of our precious annual leave days, our pay will be docked. I will be missing pay from my check that month, removed because I did not have enough annual leave, even though I won’t have been able to come in to my building to work either the snow or the spring break days, and despite the fact that I was even working on school duties while I was at home those days.
I swear, this school district makes an art form out of cheating its teachers out of their benefits and pay any way they can find. When they can’t find a way, they invent a new way. If only they would channel that energy for good purposes instead of evil, this might be a truly great place to go to school.