I’m a teacher in Arkansas (my first problem), and I have taken over a contract in my school district as of January. The last teacher quit on the spot.
As this is my first year teaching, I have been cursed with the common trend of first year teachers getting sick a lot. I had a stomach bug a few weeks ago that put me out 3 days. Two weeks later, I got the flu and was ordered by my doctor to stay home for the week. Apparently I only got 5 sick days because I took over a contract in the middle of the year.
Well, since I apparently used up my sick days while I had the flu, I was docked $500 from my pay (salary, btw). I had a doctor’s note for my time out with the flu and was explicitly told to stay home both times.
HR and payroll say there’s nothing they can do because “if they gave me more sick days then they’d have to give everyone else sick days.”
So now I get to choose between paying my bills and putting food on my table. Oh, and I have to assess whether either of those things are worth sacrificing to pay for gas for my hour long commute (1 hour there and 1 hour back, so I guess 2 hours commuting each day).
Oh, did I mention that I was told that I would have to pay my district money if I was forced to resign or was fired? Yeah, apparently I’ll have to pay money to my district if I have to resign because I can’t pay for gas, and I’d also have to pay money if I was fired because I missed so many days because I can’t pay for gas.
Yeah, so I already knew y’all knew teachers are getting fucked, but here’s a bit more depth on how.