Off days burden schools

      With the school year dragging through its ninth month and attention spans shrinking fast, it's no surprise to find attendance dipping in May.
      What may be a surprise, though, is who's not showing up: teachers.
      As many as 1,000 teachers are expected to be absent today, many in a rush to take their personal leave before the year is out. Contracts with the Clark County School District require teachers to take that time off before the last 10 days of instruction -- this year by May 23 -- or take a $70 pay bonus instead.
      Many prefer the day off, and Fridays in May become peak days for educators eager for an extra three-day weekend. On May 9, 982 teachers were absent, a figure that includes hundreds of absences for illness and other personal needs but is also 212 more absences than the day before.
      The unofficial teacher skip days result in a shortage of substitute teachers, district personnel manager Don Eldfrick said. The district has 1,677 substitutes listed in a database, but none is obligated to agree to work if the district calls this morning.
      Half chose not to accept assignments today, and 103 classes are not covered. Schools will be forced to use administrators, secretaries and teachers on preparatory time to supervise students.
      Most troubled by the substitute scramble are elementary school pupils who respond best to their main teacher, said Kay Carl, assistant superintendent for elementary education.
      "It is absolutely devastating to the little ones," Carl said. "When so many take off like this, it becomes a big, big problem. The last thing we want is for those children to be sitting around doing work sheets or watching movies all day because there's no substitute to follow through with a teacher's lesson plans."
      In many cases, that is all high school students wind up doing.
      "Half the time, teachers leave lesson plans, but they're not anything really difficult or anything that needs to be taught," said Madeline Flippen, secretary to Principal Ken Bedrosian at Cimarron-Memorial High School. Flippen is responsible for ensuring all classes are covered and occasionally has supervised classes herself.
      Eldfrick blamed the problem on rapid growth in the student population, a factor that forces the district to hire as many teachers as possible for permanent positions and leaves fewer qualified substitutes in the market.
      The district interviews new candidates four times a year to enlarge the substitute pool, but the shortage means Eldfrick often must allow someone with a bachelor's degree in another area who has taken six college hours in education. The preferred candidate would have a degree in education.
      "Let's be honest. Nobody is going to do the job as well as that teacher," Eldfrick said. "It does have an impact on the continuity of education. But this problem is not a reflection on the teachers. The district has a very generous leave policy that makes them entitled to the day off."
      The local teachers' union chief disagreed with that description of the leave plan. Under the policy, teachers receive two days of personal leave only if they take fewer than five sick days during the year.
      "I would characterize the personal leave policy here as significantly less generous than what I'm used to because it is only earned if they do not use sick leave," said Stephen Confer, executive director of the Clark County Classroom Teachers Association. Confer came to Las Vegas from Fort Wayne, Ind., in October. "These are people who have excellent, excellent attendance records."
      Some parents were not impressed and noted teachers work 180 days of the year.
      "These teachers get all kinds of vacations off all year long, and they think they need a rest just before their three-month summer?" asked Dan Kranz, whose stepson attends Chaparral High School. "I wish I could do that in my job."
      That is not fair, said substitute teacher Gerald Saperstein, who is filling in at Cimarron-Memorial this week.
      "These teachers work long, long hours and have to take their work home with them at night and on weekends to write lesson plans or grade papers," Saperstein said. "You may think they don't work a lot, but they do."
      With only a few weeks before final exams, some students resent losing their teachers' help.
      "We don't have that much school left, and we have tests coming up," said 11th-grader Jeremy Ranger, 16. "I hope none of my teachers are out on Friday."