Education Week - February 2, 2022 - 14

EDWEEK EXPLAINS
Teachers' COVID Sick Leave, Explained
By Mark Lieberman
School districts now face a conundrum, with COVID-19 cases still surging
in many places and staff shortages persisting: How generous should they be
with offering paid time off for people who have to be out because of COVID?
In 2020, the federal government required employers, including school
districts, to provide COVID-specific paid leave. Until September 2021, the
federal government offered some fiscal support to employers that opted to
extend that additional leave.
Both of those policies have since expired, and only a handful of states
have passed similar policies.
Some districts aren't giving employees extra time off beyond their
previously allotted sick time, even as the worst public health crisis in a
century shows no immediate end in sight.
Administrators in those districts cite concerns about worsening the existing
crisis of staff absences and temporary school closures by giving people
opportunities to take time off even when they don't absolutely need to.
Other districts, though, have put together COVID-19-specific paid
leave policies for their employees, either in accordance with a state
mandate or of their own volition.
" On some level I think we're having a conversation about trust, " said
Gregg Palmer, superintendent of the Brewer district in Maine. His district
is allowing people at home because of COVID to use days from the
district's sick leave bank rather than draining their own accrued time off.
" Do families trust that we're keeping kids safe at school? Do staff trust that
we're looking out for their best interests? If we trust each other I think our
chances of getting through this go up. "
Here are a few of the guiding questions districts are using to shape paid
leave policies.
How many paid days off should
employees get?
Among districts offering COVIDspecific
leave, policies offer anywhere
from five days to 10, 15, and
even 20 days off on top of their allotted
sick leave.
Some district leaders are reluctant
to offer so many extra days off that a
surge of absenteeism among employees
causes further staff shortage woes.
" The more COVID leave you offer,
the more likely it is people will use
that leave, which then increases your
substitute costs, " said John Mulford,
deputy superintendent of operations
for the Springfield district in Missouri,
which offers employees five
days of COVID leave on top of their
regular eight to 12 sick days per year.
" That's more time that students
don't have the primary teacher with
them. It ultimately hurts the learning. "
Others have decided that offering
more time off will prevent people
from coming back to work prematurely,
further spreading the virus,
and will give people adequate time to
recover from an illness themselves or
take care of someone else who's sick
or stuck at home.
The Meridian district in Illinois
added 20 days of COVID-specific
leave for employees to use when
they're sick or out on quarantine.
" We looked at some of our worstcase
scenarios from the previous year
and tried to find a number that would
cover the majority of people detrimentally
impacted, " said PJ Caposey,
the district's superintendent.
Should unvaccinated employees
be eligible?
Many districts are offering paid
leave to all employees regardless of
vaccination status. But some have
decided that it's worth rewarding
employees who have taken an important
step toward protecting their colleagues
by getting vaccinated.
" If you're doing everything you've
been asked to do, you've gotten vaccinated,
you're coming to work, you
get COVID for no other reason than
you're working in a pandemic, and
you have to go home, I don't think we
should charge you a sick day, " said
Ken Wallace, superintendent of the
Maine Township district in Illinois.
" I feel differently in the same conditions
if you've chosen not to take the
vaccine and you catch COVID. The
data is right there in terms of the effectiveness
of the vaccine. "
The downside of this approach is
that it may require more paperwork
and logistics to verify that people
were vaccinated before approving the
use of COVID leave days. Districts
will also eventually need to consider
whether to require COVID-19 booster
shots as a condition for paid leave
eligibility.
Should classified and part-time
employees be eligible?
Teachers aren't the only school
workers who need time off to deal
with COVID. Many part-time and
classified school employees-like bus
drivers, custodians, cafeteria atten14
| EDUCATION WEEK | February 2, 2022 | www.edweek.org
dants, and instructional assistants-
already get less paid leave offered to
them than their full-time, tenured
colleagues. Paid leave policies that
exclude those workers risk exacerbating
the sense that those crucial jobs
are marginal, even as shortages for
those positions are particularly acute.
In the Johnson City district in Tennessee,
for instance, certified staff
members can take days off from a
sick leave bank, while classified staff
members can only donate unused sick
days to each other, according to a district
spokesperson.
Should workers get COVID leave
for days they already took off?
Some districts, like the Madison
schools in Wisconsin, are just now
creating policies for COVID leave
employees can use for this school
year. But many school workers have
already taken time off this school year
because of COVID-19.
Districts have to decide whether
those employees who used their own
sick leave or should get some of it
back. The Fox C-6 district in Missouri,
for instance, recently passed a COVID
leave policy that applies retroactively
to Nov. 18, when the district stopped
requiring masks in school buildings.
The Ouachita Parish district in Louisiana
passed a COVID leave policy in
mid-September that applied retroactively
to Aug. 1, before the school year
started.
Should people who are impacted
by but aren't sick with COVID be
eligible for COVID leave?
There are plenty of scenarios where
a person is affected by COVID-19 and
unable to come to work despite not
feeling sick themselves. They might
be taking care of a sick child or other
family member. They might be unable
to afford or secure day care for
a child who's not sick but is required
to stay home and quarantine after an
exposure. They might have been exposed
themselves and never end up
testing positive, but still need to remain
in quarantine.
All of these scenarios exist because
of the unusual circumstances the pandemic
has created. But districts don't
all agree on whether they should be
covered in COVID-specific leave
policies.
Some districts are taking a more
expansive view of COVID days off
than others. The Springfield district,
for instance, allows employees to use
COVID-specific leave when they're
taking care of a sick or quarantining
child-but only if that child is in 8th
grade or younger. " Typically a high
school student doesn't need a parent
to stay home with them, " Mulford
said.
The Fox C-6 district is among many
that require employees to show a positive
COVID test in order to qualify for
the extra days off.
Where did the employee's
exposure take place?
Some districts, like the Meridian
district in Illinois, are offering COVID
leave to employees only when they
can prove they were exposed or sickened
with COVID as a result of working
in the school building.
" If we can create a nexus to school,
we count it as such, " Caposey, the
Meridian superintendent, wrote in
an email. " So, if Mr. Smith has three
positive kids in his class and then
tests positive, we count it. If Ms.
Johnson is a direct contact of Timmy
and has to quarantine, we count it. If
we have no nexus at school, we do
not count it. "
Making those determinations can
be labor-intensive and " stressful, "
said Jessica Duren, human resources
director at the Portsmouth district in
Virginia. Her team has been going
back and forth on numerous occasions
with district employees who
claim they're eligible for COVID
leave because they were exposed at
the school building.
In some cases, employees are
choosing to quarantine out of an
abundance of caution that's not
backed up by local and federal public
health guidance, Duren said.
In others, though, employees are
complying with the policy even if it
appears they aren't. One person applied
for COVID leave for taking
care of their sick child. Duren's team
denied the request at first, failing to
make the connection to an at-school
COVID-19 case. But it turned out the
employee was a bus driver, and her
child had been exposed on her mother's
bus.
Parsing all these nuances " is a lot of
extra work, " Duren said.
How much is all of this going to
cost us?
There's no straightforward answer.
Some district leaders reason that they
would have to pay for substitutes for
employees who have to be out regardless
of whether the district is giving
them extra leave or not. Others counter
that employees will likely take
more days off if they're given more
opportunities to do so, necessitating
higher substitute costs.
Some districts are using federal
COVID relief funds and their own
contingency accounts to pay for substitute
teachers. But those federal
funds are finite, and many districts are
juggling dozens of priorities for them.
Cash-strapped districts may struggle
more than well-off districts to weigh
the cost of providing COVID leave
against the cost of withholding it.
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