Teacher Absenteeism: Engaging a District to Understand Why It Happens and What It Means

Abstract

A teacher being absent more than 10 days in a school year has been demonstrated to negatively impact student achievement (Miller, Murnane, & Willett, 2008), and the U.S. Department of Education calls teacher attendance a “leading indicator” of school improvement and educational equity (“U.S. Department of Education,” 2013). Miller reports that in Rhode Island, 50.2% of teachers are absent more than 10 days in a school year, which is the highest rate in the U.S. (2012). In the 2015-16 school year, 58% of teachers in the Providence Public School District (PPSD) were absent more than 10 days, a rate which has been consistent over the last three school years (LaRocca, 2016). In PPSD, this rate of absence impacts student achievement, creates operational challenges, and suggests employee disengagement.

The strategic project that is the focus of this Capstone was to lead a diagnostic process to understand the root causes of teacher and teacher assistant absenteeism in PPSD by engaging those who are part of the problem in defining the problem. In this project, I hypothesized that absenteeism was a sign of disengagement and that, therefore, engaging teachers, teacher assistants, and principals in determining the root causes of absenteeism would be a critical first step in addressing absenteeism. This project also represented PPSD taking a more multifaceted diagnostic approach to problem definition than the District typically has in the past.

Throughout this Capstone, I argue that diagnosis of the root causes of absenteeism and the engagement of those who are part of absenteeism in that diagnosis are necessary first steps to addressing absenteeism in a school district. We discovered multiple root causes for teacher absenteeism in PPSD, many of which compound each other and represent complex cultural challenges that cannot be solved by technical solutions alone. Viewing these causes through motivation theory additionally allowed for prioritization, and analyzing what was learned about the process yielded equally vital information about root causes. With this framing in mind, the most critical root causes for PPSD to address are a lack of trust and weak relationships between teachers and the administration, a lack of recognition for teachers, and teachers feeling overwhelmed and under-supported. These issues can be addressed at both the technical level and at the more complex, cultural level; technical intervention can begin to create behavioral change and traction for the complex, cultural interventions that will lead to more sustainable change around absenteeism.

Based on our experiences in PPSD, I recommend other school districts engage in diagnostic work when addressing teacher absenteeism and consider what is learned through the process and means of engagement as much as what is learned through information gathered about root causes. The diagnostic work that I led in PPSD was a critical step in defining the problem and has created the conditions and initial buy-in necessary to address teacher absenteeism further and to create more widespread ownership of the problem.