Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect the correct number of teacher absentee days and hours. The correction does not change the magnitude of the increase in teacher absences between 2019-20 and 2023-24. What was initially reported as absentee days was in fact absentee hours.
As an estimated 83,000 students returned to Denver Public Schools this week, new records show a dramatic increase in teacher absenteeism throughout the district over the past three years, and leaders are unsure why.
Records obtained by Boardhawk through the Colorado Open Records Act show 68,818 teacher absentee hours (or 8,602.25 days) at 157 DPS schools last school year compared to 39,772 teacher absentee hours (or4971.5 days) at 162 schools in the 2019-20 school year — a 73% increase.
The attendance records do not detail the causes of the increase, but the vast majority of those absences was listed as sick time or excused time under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The federal FMLA provides eligible employees up to 12 work weeks a year of unpaid leave for childbirth, newborn care, adoption or serious health problems for employees or their immediate family members.
Data from the most recent two school years do not differentiate between sick days and FMLA leave. In 2019-20, when the two numbers were kept separately, DPS teachers took 25,527 sick days and 2,656 FMLA days.
Records show DPS teachers utilizing either sick days or FMLA rose from 28,183 hours in 2019-20 to 49,962 hours last school year – a 77 percent increase.
See the bottom of this story for a list of schools with the largest number of teacher absences.
DPS employees receive one hour of sick time for every 20 hours worked. Teachers also are entitled to limited personal days off depending on eligibility and other factors.
“One lesson we learned from the pandemic is the importance of staying home when we feel sick to prevent spreading illness to students, colleagues, and the community,” said Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, which represents nearly 5,000 teachers. “The demands placed on educators have also increased without taking anything off of their plates. We’re seeing larger class sizes and overwhelming caseloads leading to significant stress.
“It’s also important to recognize that educators have families, too, and sick days are often used for their own illness, a family member’s illness, or even the loss of a loved one,” he added.
One veteran DPS principal said frequent and/or prolonged teacher absences have caused problems with student learning, staff morale and budgets. The principal asked not to be named because of concerns over possible retaliation for speaking out.
The principal’s school has students with disproportionate needs who, the principal said, can ill afford the kind of learning disruptions that result when their teachers are absent.
According to the principal, shorter-term absences increasingly occurred with little or no notice and were tacked onto the front- or back-end of holidays or school breaks with suspicious frequency. Because DPS has a chronic substitute teacher shortage, the principal said other teachers often had to skip planning periods or lunch hours to cover for absent teachers.
“It was just terrible for staff morale,” the principal said. “Teachers who actually showed up regularly were resentful and exhausted, and the extra pay they received did not make up for that.”
The principal said that last year, another district principal had so many teacher absences that he had to cover classrooms himself for multiple class period about one-third of instructional days. “None of the actual work of a principal gets done in that situation,” he said.
The principal stressed that many teachers are “true professionals,” and if they had to miss class, they left lesson plans and gave as much advance notice as possible. But a growing proportion of absences were last-minute, with those teachers failing to submit lesson plans, resulting in lost days of learning that caused their students to fall farther behind.
Are there enough substitutes?
Recruiting and assigning quality substitute teachers are challenges for all school districts, exacerbated in Denver by increasing teacher absences.
“Retired teachers often become substitute teachers,” Gould said. “We have worked with retirees to eliminate and streamline the process to become a substitute so that students can benefit from their expertise.”
DPS spokesman Scott Pribble said the district manages a centralized human resources system that screens and assigns substitutes and welcomes qualified applicants. Denver pays up to$240 a day ($30 an hour) this school year depending on experience and other factors.
“If anyone is interested in applying to be a guest teachers, they should visit our job board,” he said.
The likely impact of COVID this school year
It’s difficult to predict how attendance by teachers and students will shake out this school year, but COVID may be a factor during the winter months. While cases of the virus peaked prior to vaccines becoming widely available in 2021, the federal Centers for Disease Control reports that COVID cases nationally have spiked this summer, increasing by more than 14% since last month.
In Colorado, the state Department of Public Health and Environment also reports a steady rise in COVID cases, with nearly 2,500 people developing the virus during the week of Aug. 4, the latest month of statistics. Officials are hopeful the surge will slow in September when a new booster is rolled out for children and adults to combat the new strain.
“Make a plan now for you and your family to get both updated flu and COVID vaccines this fall, ahead of the respiratory virus season,” advises CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen.
Alan Gottlieb contributed to this report
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Schools with most absences
As the largest schools with the most classroom teachers, Denver high schools reported some of the numbers of teacher absences last school year:
East High, 4,263 absences including 2,231 sick days or FMLA leave days (East is the city’s largest school with 2,505 students and more than 110 teachers last school year).
North High, 3,687 absences, 1,911 sick/FMLA days.
South High, 3,223 absences, 1,731 sick/FMLA days.
Lincoln High, 2,553 absences, 1,176 sick/FMLA days.
Washington High, 2,552 absences, 1,278 sick/FMLA days.
Kennedy High, 2,238 absences, 1,042 sick/FMLA days.
Northfield High, 2,145 absences, 1,244 sick/FMLA days.
West High, 1,595 absences, 875 sick/FMLA days.
Jefferson High, 1,454 absences, 801 sick/FMLA days.
Montbello High, 1,447 absences, 695 sick/FMLA days.
Manual High, 689 absences, 410/FMLA sick days.
Other DPS aschools with high rates of teacher absences in 2023-24
Farrell B. Howell ECE-8, 2,155 absences, 1,178 sick/FMLA days.
Green Valley Elementary, 2,044 absences, 1,004 sick/FMLA days.
McAuliffe International, 1,886 absences, 955 sick/FMLA days.
Florida Pitt-Waller ECE-8, 1,812 absences, 1,014 sick/FMLA days.
Place Bridge Academy, 1,721absences, 887 sick/FMLA days.
McGlone Elementary, 1,677 absences, 896 sick/FMLA days.
Roberts ECE-8, 1,556 absences, 703 sick/FMLA days.
NE Early College, 1,522 absences, 806 sick/FMLA days.
Kaiser Elementary, 1,332 absences, 710 sick/FMLA days.
Hamilton Middle, 1,304 absences, 737 sick/FMLA days.
Note: By comparison, DPS reports that attendance rate for students in 2022-23 (the most recent data available) was 88%.
