The White County Schools spent more than $88,000 over budget on substitute teachers this school year.
The White County School Board wants to find a way to reduce teacher absences. Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said the teacher absences have been excessive.
“I just think we are missing a lot of school,” Dronebarger said. “It’s important, I mean, we can’t teach kids if we are not there, and just like we can’t teach kids if the kids aren’t there. You know, we have worked really hard at making sure that we have a 90 percent above attendance rate for our students. We are proud of that, we worked really really hard at that, but that’s not where our attendance rate is for our employees.”
Dronebarger said excessive teacher absences have been an issue for the past several years. Dronebarger said one way the board could reduce teacher absences is with an attendance bonus.
“You know, a couple of years ago, I took a lot of flak for trying to work on our absentee rate, and I’m still open to suggestions,” Dronebarger said. “There are some things we’ll look at. You know, we could look at, you know, we could do an attendance bonus at the end of the year.”
Dronebarger said the school system does have hardworking teachers and that he does not want them to be afraid to miss work if needed.
“I always encourage people to use their days, their personal days as they like, and as they are approved, and certainly use sick days as applicable, and if they are sick, that’s what they are for,” Dronebarger said. “But we are using a lot of days.”
Dronebarger said he knows other school systems have teacher attendance bonuses and that he will look into how it could possibly be implemented. Dronebarger said the attendance bonuses will likely be something that will be discussed next June.
