Training-Day Absences Criticized By Board

By DENNIS J. CARROLL

POJOAQUE VALLEY SCHOOLS

Board: Attendance also less than stellar at PVHS

Pojoaque Valley teachers were admonished by the president of the school board last week for a persistent practice of missing in- school training days.

Reuben Roybal called faculty attendance at some sessions “dismal.”

“That’s a day of work,” Roybal said, noting that teachers apparently have been scheduling those days to take leaves of absence or for such tasks as doctor appointments.

Roybal’s remarks came in the

wake of a report by Assistant Superintendent Janette Archuleta on attendance by teachers and non-certified staff members at in- service training sessions between Aug. 15, 2006 and Feb. 8 of this year.

The worst offenders were the teachers at Pojoaque Valley Middle School, where absentee rates from training days ranged from 4 percent (one teacher) to 46 percent (13 of 28 teachers.)

Absentee rates of 10 percent to

38 percent at the middle school were common, according to Archuleta’s report.

Teachers at the intermediate school had the best record of attendance at the district’s 12 in-service days of the period covered in the report. Absentee rates ranged from perfect attendance to a high of 22 percent (4 of 18 teachers didn’t show up).

Absentee rates were similar at Pablo Roybal Elementary School, with absentee rates ranging from perfect attendance to 22 percent (11 of 49 teachers absent).

At Pojoaque Valley High School, attendance was also less than stellar, according to the report. Absentee rates ranged from a low of 2 percent (1 of

51 teachers) to a high of 31 percent on three occasions (16 of

51 teachers were no-shows). It was common for between six and 16 teachers to skip professional training.

Absentee rates for noncertified staff members were similar to teachers’ rates at all the schools.

In her report, Archuleta noted that the highest rates of absenteeism were on professional development days that preceeded three-day weekends, such as Columbus Day in early October and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in late January.

For example, on Oct. 5 2007, an in-service day in all district schools, 13 teachers at the middle school skipped, 16 teachers at the high school missed the sessions and 11 were no-shows at the elementary school. Only one teacher was absent at the intermediate school.

Archuleta noted that training days scheduled during the state basketball tournaments in March also had lower attendance rates

“The board has concerns that teacher attendance has not been adequate this year,” Roybal said. He noted that the district spends thousands of dollars for the sessions, often bringing in special consultants on particular subjects, and that the teachers have a responsibility to attend.

“I was very concerned as to how the attendance has been this year,” Roybal said, noting that the pattern is apparently not a recent development. “There are budgetary and accountability issues.”

In an e-mail several days after the Wednesday board meeting, member David Ortiz said the board bears much of the responsibility for the absences because it has approved scheduling the training days prior to three-day weekends.

“I don’t agree that we should be critical of teachers for using their leave when it does not impact teaching,” Ortiz said. “To do so is to be critical of those who dedicate themselves to teaching when they could earn much more money doing something else. We should be more supportive of teachers and less critical.”

Archuleta said the district budgets about $100,000 each year for professional-development programs including in-service training sessions with experts on various subjects.

“We have a variety of (development) activities for our staff. Some of professional development has to do with safety, some is related to our school-improvement plan or data analysis or standards- based instruction.”

She said that on some in-service days, teachers might get two- hours of training on recognizing child sexual abuse, followed by an assessment of math data, then spend an hour working on their improvement plans or standards implementation.

“There can be very different things within one day,” Archuleta said. “Teachers are expected to be in attendance as part of their 182-day contract.”

She said the district will make several changes to encourage better attendance, including avoiding scheduling just before three- day weekends.

In addition, development sessions will be designed to address specific staff development needs at individual schools rather than districtwide, Archuleta said, and school year calendars, which include in-service days, will still be set with the cooperation of administrator/faculty committees at each school

Middle-school principal Eileen Chavez noted that some of the teachers who have missed in-service training have accumulated an excess of 100 days of earned leave that they have not used and are nearing retirement or are about to retire.

“While the ideal would be that they attend when students are in class as well as for in-service days, my preference is that they are in school to teach the students,” Chavez said in an

e-mail. “It is much easier to make up a training than to recoup what students lose when their teacher is not there.”

Chavez also noted that the district has not set conditions on when leave time is taken.

She described her teachers as “very dedicated and hard-working and (they) go beyond what their attendance during in-service suggests.”

Chavez also suggested that, as the principal, perhaps she could do a better job of “providing them the training that would draw them in on those days.”

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