Current Arrangement:
Our current agreement gives us 11 days off per school year. One of these is automatically donated to our sick leave bank to support teachers who have babies, get sick, family matters, etc. It's a think the union agreed to and it has worked so far. It's not as good as having like, paid maternity leave (especially since K-12 education IS primarily staffed by women...) but it softens the blow.
The other ten days are for staff to use. At the end of the year you have the option of rolling them over (up to 30 days total) or getting paid out over the summer at 40% of your daily rate.
I've always just rolled mine over until last year because I'd finally hit that 30 days maximum I could save up. I figured if life was going to really screw me over I'd need them badly. I liked the support of knowing I had the days vs the immediate pay out.
Proposal:
Still 11 days, with one day going to the sick bank.
What is changing is the payout schedule for unused days. If you choose to roll them over, awesome, good, no payout, just security.
If you don't use any of your days then you get 100% of your daily rate for those 10 days. If you make $150 a day, then you end up with a summer check of $1,500. (Note, this is a made up number for a daily rate, don't come for me on that.)
It drops from there.
9 days - 90%
8 days - 80%
7 days - 70%
6 days - 60 %
5 days - 50%
4 days (or fewer) - 40%
It's clearly there to incentivize people to not take days off. Which I 100000% get. If you're not there SOMEONE still has to take care of your children/class. Right now getting a sub is a joke, and so we've run the school a few days by the skin of our teeth. I've subbed in every level but kinder so far this year and it is HARD on the kids to not have their teacher and be faced with a stranger. The little kids cry (especially if it's a less familiar face like one of our middle school teachers), the middle school kids take advantage (with some suspensions happening after the fact because admin/mental health are also subbing and can't respond BEFORE things become a crisis), and a lot of things just don't get done.
So all in all, it's better for everyone but the person who doesn't take their days if people don't take their sick days. We have a handful of teachers who have NEVER taken a day because they just haven't had the need to do so. They have to take the payout.
That means they've been penalized in the past for not using their days because they're only getting the 40% rate for that day. Using the above metric that means they'd be netting $600 on that summer check.
All in all this seems like a win for everyone? No one loses anything if they take their days, they still get the basement 40% if they have 4 or fewer. Those who don't take their days are then punished less for doing so. I KNOW it will benefit me - I only intend to take off one day this year if/when my grandfather passes (It's time. I can't be sad about it because he's so ready to go.)
I can't think of a single reason why it's going to be a bad policy change if approved by the district/state (we're a sub-set type of school that sits midway between charter and neighborhood school and so our leading plan has to be approved at the state level).
And yet....
It's still is somehow rubbing it wrong that we are asking people not to use their sick days. It's their sick days. Haven't we as a society moved towards encouraging people to use their days? Where does this policy sit in relationship to that movement?
whoever judged you for letting your kid walk to school can go fuck themselves. Yes there are dangers... but there are dangers EVERYWHERE. I totally support kids walking. (Full stop, no qualifiers.)