Students vs. Staff: Who’s Absent More?

We know that learning suffers when students or their teachers are absent. Yet the focus is often only on student attendance — especially daily attendance rates, which can affect school funding. But what about staff absences? 

We revisited pre-pandemic absentee data with fresh eyes to see what your district might be able to do reduce absenteeism among employees requiring a substitute in today’s classrooms.

The Skinny on Absentee Data

Frontline Research & Learning Institute data from the 2013-2014 school year revealed that nearly 30 percent of employees requiring a substitute (what we’re calling “teachers” or “staff” here) are chronically absent, compared to only 14 percent of students.

Two caveats:

• The Department of Education (DOE) sets “chronic absenteeism” at 15 or more absences in a school year for students and 10 absences for teachers.
• Teacher absences are sometimes driven by school- or district-sponsored activities, like professional development. Excluding those events, chronic absenteeism among staff was 21.7%.

But no matter what, it’s clear to see that student and teacher absences add up to a lot of lost learning opportunities. Informed by these numbers, we can consider what you can do to keep your schools humming along, day in and day out.

No matter what, we can see that student and teacher absences add up to a lot of lost learning opportunities.

A Post-Pandemic Take on Staff Absences

How has life changed since that data was released? In the 2020 school year, Covid-19 sent districts into a crisis. Many institutions — certainly not just schools — learned more about public health than we ever anticipated. So, understandably, attitudes towards staff absences may have shifted to reflect more of a “if you’re sick, stay home” policy rather than the old “fight through it” mindset. However, while that make work just fine for other industries, in education, you know that students show up to classrooms each day — and they need a teacher when they do. So, as a district or building leader pressed between these two realities, what are the best steps to take to promote the health of your staff while ensuring a rigorous and consistent learning experience for your students? Let’s take a look.

Focus on Student and Staff Health

There’s no magic cure for reducing absences and saving instructional time in your schools.

• Strengthen retention methods that make your school a great place to work
• Ensure that schools are as clean as possible
• Improve the quality of school ventilation systems
• Continue health-related efforts like hand-washing programs
• Have accurate data on absentee numbers to support conversations with staff

Hopefully, taking action in some of these areas can help reclaim instructional time and keep everyone healthy and in the classroom. 

Manage Teacher Absences Strategically

The first step to reducing the impact of teacher absences on student learning is to reliably track employee attendance. This will give you the visibility you need to address absenteeism before it becomes an issue — you may find that certain employees are absent more often than not, or during particular times, sparking a constructive conversation. Or, you may find that specific schools in the district see higher absence rates than others, and can start exploring why.

Finally, you can examine your school or district’s absence data to see if professionally related absences are making the issue worse. If that’s the case, you can plan ahead to provide educators with plenty of professional learning opportunities and support — without causing a substitute shortage.

Keep Student Learning Going

Then, when teachers have to be absent — whether due to illness, PD or anything else — make sure that a qualified, prepared substitute is ready to fill in and keep students learning. Help them get ready with substitute-specific training courses for success in the classroom.

There you have it — with a strategic approach to lower absence rates and uninterrupted student learning, you’re on track to save more instructional time.