Numerous school districts are abandoning their extra sick leave offerings for employees who have to miss work due to COVID鈥攅ven as a highly transmissible variant of the virus drives up infection rates yet again.
In recent months, districts in Cobb County, Ga.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Houston; Little Rock, Ark.; and Montgomery County, Md., among others, shifted to requiring employees to use their own sick days when they鈥檙e out for COVID reasons, rather than offering COVID-specific leave like they did from 2021 through earlier this year.
The Higley district in Gilbert, Ariz., last school year invested $675,000 in federal COVID relief funds鈥攁bout 11 percent of what it received from the American Rescue Plan鈥攖o create a sick leave bank for employees who missed work due to COVID. But this year, the federal funds are running dry, and the district鈥檚 operating budget doesn鈥檛 have room. Employees will have to use regular sick days if COVID forces them to stay home.
鈥淟ess than 1 percent of our total staff and student population have recorded a case of COVID so far,鈥� two days into the school year, which stated July 25, said Tyler Moore, the district鈥檚 chief financial officer. 鈥淭he need was not there as it was last year.鈥�
These districts are now in line with the thousands more that stopped offering employees additional time off to deal with COVID once the federal government stopped requiring them to do so on Dec. 31, 2020. The policy changes come as fears of staffing shortages and operational chaos mount ahead of the upcoming school year.
Employees who lack a strong bank of sick days could have to sacrifice pay while quarantining, or head back to work before they鈥檙e recovered from COVID or finished taking care of loved ones.
鈥淚f you are telling people they can鈥檛 come to work, you can鈥檛 take their sick time. If they don鈥檛 have sick time, you can鈥檛 take their pay,鈥� said Nancy Velardi, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association for the 96,000-student Pinellas district in central Florida.
After the Pinellas district nixed its COVID leave policy in March, Velardi and her colleagues successfully lobbied to extend the policy through the end of last school year and provide back pay to those who lost income. She was planning to raise the issue again for the upcoming school year at a school board meeting Tuesday.
More than 250 district employees had to take up to a week of unpaid leave last year because they had previously drained their sick days on a surgery or another illness, Velardi said.
鈥淪ince most people are living paycheck to paycheck, that was an incredible hardship,鈥� Velardi said.
Policies shift as virus threat persists
More than half of school district leaders and principals who answered a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey in February said they weren鈥檛 offering employees any emergency leave due to COVID beyond their typical sick-day allotment.
Slightly more than a quarter, though, said employees got between six and 10 extra paid days off. Another 3 percent said employees got up to 20 extra days.
That survey landed in the middle of the devastating winter surge brought on by the omicron variant of COVID. Since then, hospitalizations and deaths have taken a nosedive nationwide, and most governments have loosened public health protocols like requirements to wear masks indoors and isolate for 10 days if exposed to the virus.
In some cases, changing policies around COVID leave reflect evolving attitudes towards the threat the virus poses. A spokesperson for the Hillsborough school system in Florida, which now requires employees to use their own sick time to deal with COVID, said the district is following state health guidance and 鈥渉andling this like any other communicable disease, like the flu.鈥�
But hundreds of Americans from the virus, tens of thousands are hospitalized, and a substantial portion of people who contract COVID, including many educators, report long-term symptoms, which can persist for months or even years.
The highly transmissible nature of the currently circulating variant, known as , means the number of people testing positive is higher than during previous surges. Nearly 42 percent of U.S. counties currently have high levels of community spread, an increase of more than six percentage points over the previous week. Another 37 percent have medium levels, according to .
COVID-19 vaccines and boosters blunt the risk of severe disease and death, but only one-third of Americans . Three in 10 educators said this spring they hadn鈥檛 had a booster shot, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey.
A growing number of people are also reporting , which means people may end up having more than one bout of time off work.
Some districts, like the , have held firm with COVID leave. At the state level, California is requiring districts to offer COVID leave to school employees through at least Sept. 30.
But most states don鈥檛 have such a policy. For instance, Kentucky lawmakers in March changed the state鈥檚 COVID leave requirements for schools, before becoming eligible for additional paid time off.
Best practices keep evolving, and it鈥檚 tough to keep up
Some district leaders aren鈥檛 sure how to handle the convergence of rising virus risk and dwindling policy response to the pandemic.
Ken Wallace, superintendent of the Maine Township district in Illinois, said he hasn鈥檛 figured out how his district will handle paid time off for employees who test positive this year.
He鈥檚 hopeful that society can eventually start treating the disease like any other. But he鈥檚 seen firsthand how COVID can be disruptive even when it doesn鈥檛 send someone to the hospital. His son recently contracted the virus and missed work because he had a 100-degree fever.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no doubt that the current variant is both very contagious and certainly has the potential to keep people out of work,鈥� he said.
Moore in Arizona worries about growing competition among area districts to recruit and retain employees. For the first time, the district hasn鈥檛 fully staffed its teacher force going into a new school year. If COVID worsens agains, extra paid leave could be a worthwhile recruiting tool.
鈥淚t seems like an everyday battle in which another district is making some type of additional compensation or benefit enhancement to their employees,鈥� Moore said. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e not keeping pace, it鈥檚 the wild west out here.鈥�
In the Pinellas district, Velardi said she and her colleagues are debating whether to ask the district to extend its COVID leave policy, or to settle for permission to use the district鈥檚 sick leave bank to support people who need more sick days off than they were allotted.
Right now the district only opens the sick leave bank for 鈥渃atastrophic illnesses.鈥� Velardi still isn鈥檛 sure whether COVID qualifies. But after seeing her husband get COVID three times, she鈥檚 inclined to believe the need for ongoing paid leave is paramount.
鈥淲e still don鈥檛 know enough about the long-term effects of COVID not to consider it a catastrophic illness,鈥� Velardi said.
