Well before the share of students missing more than three weeks of the school year skyrocketed to near-highest-in-the-nation levels during the pandemic, Oregon was battling a high rate of chronic absenteeism.
But under the radar, a parallel absenteeism issue draws virtually no attention, except in whispers among district administrators, school financial officials and human resource leaders: A huge share of teachers are also chronically absent from class.
Unlike a handful of other states, Oregon does not require districts to report data on teacher absenteeism, as it does for students. And because each of the state’s 197 school districts bargain their own union contracts, there is no universal standard for how much sick time and personal paid leave is available to educators…