Education: Let West Virginia teachers bank unused sick leave
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As lawmakers struggle with ways to improve education in West Virginia, one gigantic piece of the puzzle is doing right by our teachers.
Del. Trenton Barnhart, R-Pleasants, is lead sponsor on legislation that might help.
House Bill 5087 would allow Tier II teachers to bank unused accrued annual leave or sick leave toward retirement, as those teachers were able to do years ago.
"We've got to get our employees working," said West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty. "We have a chronic absentee rate with our employees. That is embarrassing. The Legislature is going to have to make their days worth some value in order for them to want to save them. That's when the problem started there.
"I don't blame our employees ... it's the way the system works," Hardesty said. "But people hired before 2015 had a reason and a rationale to save their days and for the most part they saved them. So, we all have to come together and find solutions."
Yes, there will be cries that being in the classroom to educate their students should be reason and rationale enough, but that's not real-world thinking. West Virginia teachers face challenges in the classrooms that would drive even the most dedicated to be tempted to take a mental health day once in a while.
Perhaps if they know there is a long-term personal benefit at stake, too, it will make it easier for them to steel themselves to head into school.
"This is a good benefit to provide to our teachers to incentivize them to stay and also provide an even better education to our students," Barnhart said.
Surely the House Finance Committee, and then the rest of our legislators, will see it that way, too.