Is Professional Development Creating Chronically Absent Teachers?

Employee Compensation (Salaries, Pensions and Benefits) is 89% of CUSD's budget. On top of that, they are spending millions on conferences, travel, and professional development.

CUSD is spending more on Professional Development than it does on Books and Supplies.
http://www.ed-data.org

Agenda Item 3

$10,774.99 on Conferences (all but $60 from the General Fund)
$47,319 on Consultants (all from the General Fund)

Agenda Item 4

$250 OnSight Professional Development - 2 hours on classroom Management (Title II Funds) Proper Funding

Agenda Item 21

$26,000 OnSight Professional Development Professional Learning Communities (Educator Effectiveness Grant) Proper Funding

Agenda Item 22

$16,600 Professional Development - Transforming School Culture ($11,300 Marco Forster Title I Funds + $5,300 Educator Effectiveness Grant)

CUSD receives a Educator Effectiveness that must be spent on professional development, and Title II money that must be spent on professional development for Title I schools.

CUSD lacks sufficient funding to provide every student with District funded Art, Music and Science.

Until CUSD can provide EVERY STUDENT with District funded Art, music and Science, CUSD should NEVER use General Fund Dollars or Title I money for Professional Development.

Parents are starting to complain that Teachers are out of the classroom way to many days. CUSD is paying teachers not to teach.

A day at a conference is a day a student is without their teacher.

When a teacher attends Professional Development Training during the school year that means they are not in their classroom teaching. Students at best get 180 days of instruction from their teacher.

CUSD has a 180 school year, but many instructional days are filled by subs...

180 - 10 days for sick leave = 170

170 days - 2 days for professional days = 168

if your child is in a 3/4 or 4/5 combo class add 80 minutes per week with a sub.

and if you're teacher happens to be a Union Rep subtract another 5 days

170 days - 5 = 165 days + days for professional develpment

http://www.cuea.org/a_Version_03/contract/2015-17_Contract.pdf

Instructional time: page 5

K: 292 minutes a day
Grades 1-3: 285 minutes per day
Grades 4-5: 392 minutes per day
Middle School Grades 6-7-8 SHALL NOT EXCEED 1,400 minutes weekly
High School Grades 9 - 10- 11- 12 SHALL NOT EXCEED 1,400 minutes weekly

*If your child is in a 3/4 or 4/5 combo class their teacher will be out of the classroom 80 minutes each week for instructional planning time. That is a guaranteed sub 80 minutes each week.

Leaves: at page 10

Sick Leave: Each full time unit member shall be entitled to 10 days paid leave of absence per school year for illness or injury.

Professional Leave: page 39

No less than 2 days

Association Release Time: page 44

50 days (no more than 5 per employee)

Professional Development is Expensive - one example...

Teachers That Miss More than 10 days of School are Chronically Absent and that Hurts Student Achievement

• On average, public school teachers were in the classroom 94 percent of the school year, missing nearly 11 days out of a 186-day school year (the average school year length). Teachers used slightly less than all of the short-term leave offered by the district, an average of 13 days in the 40 districts.
• 16 percent of all teachers were classified as chronically absent teachers because they missed 18 days or more in the school year, accounting for almost a third of all absences.
• In spite of previous research to the contrary, this study did not find a relationship between teacher absence and the poverty levels of the children in the school building.2
• Districts with formal policies in place to discourage teacher absenteeism did not appear to have better attendance rates than those without such policies, suggesting that the most common policies are not particularly effective.

With 10 days of sick leave and a minimum of 2 days for Professional Development (12 days total) every teacher in CUSD would be marked "Chronically Absent".