Why Teachers Likely Take So Few Days Off

Teachers typically took only four days off during the school year, according to Education Week’s State of Teaching survey, part of our annual project.

Teachers can take off for various reasons--including illness, maternity leave, family care, mental health needs, bereavement, jury duty, military service, and personal vacations. But they take off significantly less than employees in other professions.

Even teachers with more than two decades of experience typically say they take only four days off during the year. Most teachers take less than a week off during the school year when they are not doing school-related work, which is significantly less time compared to other professions.

It’s tough to get a direct comparison on how this stacks up to other professions because of how the data is collected. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time employees in the private sector receive between 18 and 27 days of combined sick and vacation leave, depending on their years of service. State and local government employees receive even more, ranging from 24 to 34 days. But that collection doesn’t include how much time workers actually take off, although some research suggests more than third of U.S. workers never use all their sick time.

By contrast, the EdWeek survey specifically asked teachers about weekdays when they did no work at all—a different measure.

One key issue is that even when teachers take a day off, they often still have work to do. As one high school teacher from Maine who responded to the survey explains, “I was out sick with COVID last year, but I was still responsible for creating lesson plans and prepping for my classes.”

In the past year, how many week days off did you have where you did not engage in any activities related to paid work?

The findings come from a nationally representative survey of 1,498 teachers conducted by the EdWeek Research Center in October 2023.

The ‘why’ behind teacher time off

Teachers’ limited time off stems from both institutional constraints and professional norms:

• Rigid schedules: Teachers can’t easily adjust their workday for personal appointments or work from home due to the fixed structure of school schedules.
  
• Difficulty taking time off: Teachers face the challenge of creating detailed substitute plans for any type of absence—whether due to illness, personal appointments, or vacations. The preparation is often so time-consuming that some educators find it easier to work while unwell than to plan for a substitute. Additionally, teachers may worry about students falling behind without their regular teacher’s instruction.

• Professional dedication: Teachers consistently show lower absence rates, reflecting a strong commitment to their students and their fellow teachers.
  
• Lack of administrator support: Teachers often feel unsupported by administrators when taking time off. Some worry their absence might be met with frustration from school leadership, especially if finding substitute coverage is challenging.
  

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Teachers’ limited time off can leads to burnout

Some see the limited time off as a symptom of bigger tensions in the profession.

“When I was a high school teacher the burden fell on you to make the class work and you actually couldn’t take off much time because then they’d get a substitute teacher in there and basically it would be wasted days,” said Richard M. Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, who has studied teacher turnover.

“Teachers aren’t treated like professionals. They usually have little say in the workplace,” Ingersoll said.

Those complaints are longstanding. Sociologists have for years argued whether teaching is actually a “semi-profession,” one that demands a complex body of skills but contains little of the autonomy, pay, and prestige of other fields.

Bottom line: The findings contribute to the sentiment that teachers feel they cannot take time off from work, which seems likely to contributes to burnout and job dissatisfaction. The limited ability to disconnect from work responsibilities, even during designated time off, could threatenteacher retention and well-being.

Next steps: The challenge of providing teachers with genuine time off impacts schools nationwide. In early 2025, EdWeek’s second State of Teaching report, scheduled for early 2025, will examine educator morale at the state level to better understand current work-life balance among teachers.