Teacher sick days

Although teaching jobs may be hard to find — a newspaper report says some school boards are having a hard time finding enough substitutes these days — because a record number of teachers are calling in sick… its being blamed on the fact that teachers can no longer bank their sick days for retirement.

Both the Education Minister Liz Sandals and PC education critic Lisa MacLeod weighed in…

“We know with these sick days the teachers are using them because they’re going to lose them. That has caused problems with making sure that younger teachers are getting jobs in our classroom, they’ve prevented that from happening they’re making it more difficult, this is the play of the unions in this province.”

“When you have an allowance which says you can have a maximum of eleven sick days at 100% pay, that doesn’t mean that you’re owed 11 days of sickness. Sick days are for when people are sick.”

The Ontario Education Minister says school boards that find it difficult to find substitutes have to revisit their calling list because there are thousands of teachers waiting for work.