Little Rock district taking better attendance on teachers

Teacher absences in the Little Rock School District are under scrutiny -- a byproduct of the district's January 2015 takeover by the state because of chronically low student achievement in math and literacy at some schools.

The Arkansas Department of Education early on in the takeover identified teacher absences as an area to monitor in the academically struggling schools of Little Rock and now in other districts similarly categorized by the state as needing intensive support.

"Research emphasizes the importance of both the teacher and the student being in class," the agency stated in a May 2018 legislative report on Little Rock schools. "When the teacher misses school, teaching quality is substantially reduced. While substitutes usually have lesson plans, a substitute probably does not know the students or their learning needs as the teacher does."

That state report on a handful of Little Rock's academically struggling campuses showed that 11 percent of the 46 core academic subject teachers at Cloverdale Middle School were absent 10 or more days in just the first semester of the 2017-18 school year.

At Hall High, 27 percent of the school's 109 core subject teachers missed 10 or more days that semester. And at J.A. Fair High, more than 30 percent of the 89 core academic teachers missed 10 or more days, the state report said.

The federal definition of "chronic" absenteeism for teachers is missing more than 10 days in a school year on sick and personal leave.

A yearlong Arkansas Democrat-Gazette inquiry into employee absences in the 23,368-student Little Rock district and in school systems statewide shows that the absences -- more than a third of which in Little Rock are the result of employees going to professional training sessions -- are expensive in terms of hiring substitutes.

Education leaders in the state and nation say teacher absences have an academic impact. But with the data that are available, the impact cannot be conclusively measured or separated from other factors affecting achievement -- such as concentration of poverty or student attendance.

The Little Rock district spent more than $4 million on substitutes and temporary employees in the 2017-18 school year, according to state data. It amounts to 1.6 percent of the district's $273,025,559 in current expenditures for this school year, according to the state's Annual Statistical Report.

That was in a year in which 22 of the district's 45 traditional and specialty campuses -- including Cloverdale Middle, Hall High and J.A. Fair High -- earned state letter grades of D's and F's. Those grades are based largely on the spring 2018 student scores and score improvements on the state-required ACT Aspire exams in math, literacy and science.

Top-scoring and academicially growing schools statewide receive financial awards from the state. And, in the case of Little Rock, the scores this spring will play a part in any release of the district from five years of state control and return to a locally elected school board.

In the first semester of this school year, the Little Rock district's 1,933 teachers, including prekindergarten teachers, were absent from their classrooms a combined 15,745 days. That's an average of 8.1 days per teacher, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analysis of district information shows.

The number of absences -- which include sick, personal, professional, family medical, disability, jury duty, court, suspension and military leave -- is exacerbated by vacant positions in the teaching ranks. An additional 1,672 days of absences were related to vacancies.

Of the average 8.1 days missed by Little Rock teachers in the first semester, 3.8 days -- on average per teacher -- were for sick leave; 1.2 days were for Family Medical Leave Act/Americans with Disability Act leave; one-half day per teacher for personal leave; and 2.5 days for professional development or training.

Almost a third of Little Rock teacher absences last semester -- 31 percent -- were for professional development, according to data supplied by the school district.

[RELATED: High cost, little consistency in tracking Arkansas teacher absences]

While schools and districts have little control over absences related to illness, time away from classes for professional development can be managed by school and district leaders.

"We know it is a double-edged sword," Veronica Perkins, the Little Rock district's chief academic officer, said about taking teachers away from their students for in-service training.

"But if we hold teachers accountable for student achievement, it's unfair not to provide them with the skills they need," said Perkins, adding that it is essential that district educators keep pace with advances in education to benefit students.

"We don't want to be left behind," Perkins said.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had difficulty determining the frequency of teacher absences in the Little Rock district because multiple data sets had different totals, despite covering the same time period. Reports calculated by hours of absences, for example, did not align with reports on days absent. In another case, the different types of absences for Hall High School did not add up to the total number of absences listed.

Additionally, the newspaper was unable to acquire specifics on absences for individual teachers or link the absences of individual teachers to the test results of their students.

Data that were provided by the school district's human resources department show that absenteeism among faculty members varied from school to school and year to year.

The five schools with the lowest average absences per teacher had state-applied letter grades ranging from an A to a D.

The school with the best teacher attendance last semester was the B-graded Pulaski Heights Elementary where the 23 teachers each had an average of 4.1 absences of combined sick, personal and professional leave -- a total of 94.5 days of absences. The school reported no teachers on extended medical leave and no job vacancies.

The five schools with the highest teacher absentee rates had no letter grade higher than a C.

Meadowcliff Elementary, which earned a D from the state last school year, had absences totaling 401.5 days, which include 3 days related to vacancies. Meadowcliff's 26 teachers each averaged 15.3 days of absences, which was the highest in the district. That included an average of 2.6 days for professional development. The school reported 124 days of absences attributable to extended medical leave.

J.A. Fair High, an F-graded school, had the second-highest rate of absences in the first semester, due in part to professional development.

Fair's faculty of 67 averaged 12.8 days of absence per teacher for a total of 1,006 first-semester absences, including 149 days caused by job vacancies. A total of 276.5 days were for sick leave, but even more -- 306.5 total days -- were for professional development. Each teacher took an average of 4.1 days of sick leave, 3.5 days of extended or anticipated medical leave, and 4.6 days for professional development.

The time required for a particular professional development course is often more than just a morning or a day.

The district this year, for example, has expanded the training begun earlier for kindergarten-through-sixth-grade teachers in the science of reading. It's an initiative advocated by the Arkansas Department of Education for educators in a state where fewer than half -- 46.8 percent -- of the state's sixth-graders scored at ready or exceeding-ready levels on the literacy portion of the Aspire exam. Just 35.1 percent of Little Rock literacy test-takers scored at ready or exceeding ready on that literacy portion.

To date, some 586 Little Rock district educators have had some portion of the training that centers on decoding, phonics and phenomic awareness. For teachers, that's six days of training over the course of two school years.

The list of training programs for teachers in Little Rock and across the state is extensive, including training on multisensory approaches to literacy (for students who struggle with traditional reading instruction), on math strategies, the use of professional learning communities, how best to organize school work, and the carrying out of student testing programs.

Still other sessions are for the smaller numbers of teachers who head special programs in fields such as career education, computer coding or the Education Accelerated by Service & Technology (EAST) lab initiative.

Jordan Eason, the Little Rock district's employee relations specialist, said principals have some say in teacher participation in a workshop or training program.

Cheryl Carson, principal at the C-graded Booker Arts Magnet Elementary, and Randy Rutherford, principal at the C-graded Parkview Arts and Sciences Magnet High School, said in interviews that they do plan for and track teacher participation in training over the course of the school year to ensure that classrooms can be covered by substitutes at those times.

Some professional development is offered after school or in the summer, and supported with stipends paid to participating teachers -- but much of the training is during the school day and largely out of the control of principals, Rutherford said.

Rutherford and Carson said they monitor sick leave.

"I watch Mondays and Fridays," Rutherford said about the popular days to take off, and he generally asks staff members who will be absent to call him directly about their plans to take leave.

Both say faculty absenteeism can vary year to year. Carson recalled a year when six members of her staff had babies and all needed time off.

Rutherford said Parkview's staff of longtime employees, thus older, often is called to help aging family members.

Little Rock district teachers are entitled by state law and by district policy to sick leave of 10-12 days per school year -- depending on the length of their work year -- for reasons of personal illness, bereavement, scheduled medical appointments or illness in the immediate family. An additional two days are designated as personal leave.

The district monitors absences of individual employees.

If a teacher misses three days in a 30-day period, not including medical leave, administrators hold a meeting with the teacher, said Eason, the district's employee relations specialist.

That conversation typically focuses on identifying and resolving the problems that the teacher is having in getting to and staying at work. A teacher can work with the Employee Assistance Program for counseling, or the teacher can work with human resources to develop a plan for any regularly scheduled medical absences, such as chemotherapy or other medical treatments.

"We can plan for those absences so that we can be sure that you have the good lesson plans ready if you are going to be absent every Friday for chemo," said Rhonda Benton, the district's now former human resources director. "We can be better prepared -- although the numbers won't lie. The numbers will show that the person is absent, but the quality of prep is improved."

A second period of three absences in a 30-day period starts a progressive discipline process. That consists of a written warning, then a written reprimand and then suspension without pay.

A suspension from work for being absent sounds silly, Eason said, but the district tries to keep the suspensions short, about two days, if possible.

"But you want to make an impact, a consequence," she said. "They will lose the pay."

After suspension, if excessive absences continue, administrators recommend firing the teacher, Eason said, although that has been rare. Maybe two or three people have been terminated primarily for excessive absences, Eason said.

Eason's job in the district didn't exist five years ago. The establishment of the job signals the importance the district places on reducing adult absences -- a strategy that Eason believes is showing success.

Chronic teacher absenteeism in Little Rock schools has steadily decreased since the 2009-10 school year, according to the federal Office of Civil Rights data. The district's percentage of teachers who missed more than 10 days on sick and personal leave has dropped every two years, from 66.1 percent in 2009-10 to 41.71 percent in 2015-16.

Pinpointing a successful strategy to lower the numbers even more isn't easy in the district, which has tried and abandoned the use of attendance incentive bonuses.

Little Rock school officials touted the turnaround of Henderson Middle School's teacher absenteeism, where former Principal Frank Williams had teachers fill in for one another and rewarded teachers who had perfect attendance with candy and a raffle. The use of substitutes dropped dramatically over the three years Williams was there.

But a closer look at the district data by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette shows that absences among teachers were similar during that time. The school just had fewer filled teaching positions in the 2016-17 school year, and thus fewer full-time teachers to be absent.

SundayMonday on 03/24/2019