DALLAS – A 2012 article published by Education World addressed an incentive program in the Dallas Independent School District, designed to cut down on teacher absenteeism.

The program offered financial rewards to teachers with excellent attendance. It was designed in the wake of a previous teacher attendance incentive program which was not successful, according to the article.

Marita Hawkins, a district official, was quoted as saying, “Now we are strictly targeting attendance. We’re still trying to save some money, but we want to improve student performance by improving teacher attendance. Teacher attendance is a factor in graduation.”

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It’s not clear if the program met its targets, but if it did, the targets must have been pretty low. The Dallas district is still plagued with a lot of teacher absenteeism, which costs the district a lot of money and cheats students out of a lot of productive learning days.

Ironically, the Dallas district offers relatively few sick and personal days, compared to many school districts around the nation. While 10-12 sick days and 3 personal days are pretty typical, Dallas only gives teachers and other staff members five paid days off mandated by the state, as well as three paid days granted by the district.

But a lot of employees obviously use most of the days that are available.

In 2013-14, 18,439 Dallas school employees (including teachers) took a total of 144,235 sick and personal days, which averages out to 7.8 days per employee – which almost matches the number of paid days off they are granted per year.

Those employees were collectively paid $34.3 million for the days they were missing from work. That’s not a smart application of funds, no matter how you slice it.

The Dallas district was also forced to spend $12.9 million on substitute teachers. Perhaps in a large school district that’s considered pocket change, but to taxpayers it’s a lot of money.

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Several smaller districts in the Dallas area also wrestled with the same problem.

The Hays school district seems kind of lucky in one respect. The district gives employees five days of paid local leave and three days of paid discretionary leave, on top of the state’s mandatory five days of paid personal leave. That equals 13 days of paid leave per year.

In 2013-14, Hays school employees took a total of 15,203 sick and personal days, which only averaged out to 6.8 days per employee. That’s a lot less than what employees could have taken, yet it’s still a significant number of absences.

The district did not report the amount that was spent on salary for absent employees, but it did fork out $1.3 million for substitute teachers that year.

The Elgin school district, which is even smaller, gives employees five days of paid local leave per year, on top of the five state days. In 2013-14, 526 district employees took a combined 4,755 paid days off, for an average of nine days per employee.

The district reported paying $166,815 in substitute teacher costs.

In the Johnson City school district, which has only 114 employees, has the same policy as Elgin – five paid local days off and five paid state days off. Staff members took a combined 1,244 sick and personal days, for an average of 10.9 days per employee. That average is more than the 10 paid days off they are given per year.

Johnson City reported spending $39,940 on substitute teachers, which doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but it’s probably a significant amount for such a small district.