KAWARTHA LAKES-“Our concern is that we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the escalation of those costs over the last three years or so and to the point that we are now seriously concerned about our ability to manage this increasing cost.” Larry Hope Director of Education for Trilium Lakelands District School Board told Kawartha 411.
A mid-year treasurers report presented to school trustees on Tuesday warned that the board could need almost $10 million dollars to fund occasional coverage of Teachers, Educational Assistants and designated Early Childhood Educators this year. That’s almost double the $5.5 million originally budgeted for the entire year. “As of February 28th we had met that number already and our projections are showing us that we would probably be somehwere between 9.6 and 10 million dollars in occasional staff coverage.” Hope told Kawartha411.
Hope says the extra funds would have to come from reserves and could impact other programs. “It will effect our ability to provide consistent programming to our students in classrooms as well.” Hope says. “It will have a negative imapct on what people have come to expect in our schools in terms of support and those things that are in place for the benefit of staff and students in our schools.”
There’s also a concern about how having multiple teachers in a classroom over the year effects students. “We know that having multiple teachers through a classroom or beside a student with special needs is not ideal. We fully expect to see the result of that through student achievement and wellbeing.” Hope remarks.
Hope says the board is also having a hard time the finding staff to fill in. “We are very concerned about our ability to arrange coverage for those absentee employees.  We have many days where we don’t have enough supply staff.” According to Hope they are using  school administrators, special ed staff or anybody else who might not have assigned classroom supervision of students to cover classes on some days because they can’t meet the demand. “This is untenable for us and certainly unsustainable.”
It’s unclear exactly what is causing the increase in the use of sick days but Hope says there could be a number of factors. “I don’t want to pin it on any one particular thing. We know we’ve got a changing workforce happening, we’ve got a lot people talking about things like retirement gratuity being tied to this issue, not being able to bank sick days, there could be a variety of reasons, but we also know that people legitimately get ill and we are trying to be cognizant of that and respectful of that.”
In 2012 the Province removed teachers ability to bank unused days until retirement and cut annual sick days from 20 to 11. They were also given five non-personal days a year and up to 120 days of short term leave.
We have contacted the Trillium Lakelands Occasional Teachers Local for comment and are waiting to hear back.
The price tag for sick days has climbed over the last few years according to the Board. Last year the entire cost for sick leave was $7.3 million, the year before approximatley $5.8 million and the years before that were down into the $3-4 million range. “We are seeing a very clear pattern in the growth of use of sick leave.” according to Hope. “This spike that we’ve seen over the last several years is really, really alarming to us and something I believe we need to pay close attention to.”
The board is required to balance the books every year but Hope says if this trend continues they may not be able to do that without cutting other programs.”The reality is the money has to come from somewhere”
He would like to bring everyone togther to discuss the issue and find a solution. “We would like to engage in some conversation with the union with regards to their thoughts and ideas as well as the School Board Association to get their thoughts and ideas on this.”
They are also having conversations with other boards to find out what they are doing to manage the costs but he says TLDSB is not alone in dealing with this issue. “TLDSB is part of a trend in terms of what we are hearing about this, its incumbent on all of us to work together to find solutions.”
More to come…
photo credit: US Department of Education LEEHS 19 via photopin (license)
