Here's Why Teachers Call in Sick When They're Not Sick
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder explains why teachers use sick days for personal needs — because personal days can be denied, but sick days can't.
Key Takeaways
- Sick days offer autonomy - Unlike personal days, sick leave can't be turned down by administrators
- The system incentivizes dishonesty - When personal days require approval, teachers use sick days instead to guarantee time off
- Trust teachers with their time - Making personal days easier to use would reduce the need for this workaround
Transcript
All right, you want to know why people take sick days when they're not actually sick?
Here's why.
If you saw the video that I did recently on the teacher who got fired or could get fired for going to a concert and using sick days, I think what it comes down to is that nobody can tell you no on sick days, right?
If you're sick, you call in sick, you're not there, they can't make you be there, you're just not there.
And I think the accountability, you know, like if somebody is really misusing their sick days, you know, that could be docked pay or something.
Like I said in my other video, I really think that was going too far to fire someone for calling in sick but if people can be turned down for anything other than sick days like what do you expect people to do right if you have to go to your son's college graduation like one commenter said you know like are you really gonna care if you don't get paid for that day like a lot of people would say I don't care dock my pay I'm going to go to this I'm not going to miss out on this and even if you take a personal day In a lot of cases, your supervisor can say no.
If it's a Friday, they might automatically have to say no.
You're not allowed to take a personal day on a Friday.
And it's like you don't always get to control when important events that involve other people take place.
So sometimes that's all you can do is call in sick.
And I think we've really got to take that seriously.
Like if we don't want people to call in sick when they're not sick, we also have to be understanding and recognize that people have things in their lives other than work.
And they're going to go to those things one way or another.
So I think we have to be understanding about this.
I think at the same time, we have to recognize that not everything was like that.
You know, like maybe that concert in Nashville that that teacher went to, maybe there was going to be another date that wouldn't have required missing some school.
because to me, like we're only in school 180 days a year, right?
Like it is not a lot of days and I don't want to miss any more than I have to.
I'm already missing days for professional development.
I'm already missing days when I'm like actually sick and I don't want to miss more than that as an educator.
And like when I retired from Seattle Public Schools, it was with like weeks and weeks of sick leave.
I probably could have taken months and months off if I had actually been sick and not lost any pay.
But I think we have to be reasonable with people.
We have to recognize that people know for the most part want to be there and we have to not allow their reasons for not being there if they really need to to be vetoed by somebody else but i like i also think there's there's a lot to consider with you know like if your colleagues are going to have to cover your class if you can't get a sub when you're you know absent without a lot of advance notice because you call in sick at the last minute to go to a concert like i think there are some things that we have to be considerate of each other and consider of our students about but i don't know let me know what else comes up for you in this whole calling in sick when you're not sick discussion.