Sick Day

As soon as I see a text from daycare I know. “Your child has a fever. Please come pick her up.” And I do, of course. It was only an hour earlier than usual, but I got there as fast as I could. This morning, both girls did not feel well so I made the call to my school and here I am. We get 10 sick days where I teach. I don’t believe I’ve ever used one because I was sick myself. I’ve only been a mom for 20 months, but I’ve used more of my sick days this past year than I did all of my other years of teaching.

While we do have these 10 days to use, I still feel like this construct does not fully support anyone. When I was pregnant, I had to fill out all of this paperwork because I missed a lot of school due to my difficult pregnancy and to make sure all of my t’s were crossed and my i’s dotted. But the truth of the matter is…my doctor’s office was not open late and I had to schedule appointments during work hours. Now that my girls are here, I can’t send them to daycare with a fever, so either myself or my husband have to stay home with them or we need to know in advance enough to ask their grandparents for coverage. This puts me in a difficult position when they’re sick in November, because what happens if I get sick? Or they’re worse off in March? By then, my days will be stretched thin and I would need to go in to work even when I might not be at my best.

I don’t know what a solution is to this sick day issue. Some companies give “flex days” so they can be taken as sick or holidays,etc but I don’t see the DOE doing that because school is closed on most holidays. It it better to have the days than to not have them, and this is what is standard but I wonder if there is any other way that it can be done?