K-12 Employee Absences. What s the Real Story on. A Monthly National Analysis of Employee Absences & Substitute Fill Rates in K-12 Education

Transcription

1 February 2016? What s the Real Story on K-12 Employee Absences A Monthly National Analysis of Employee Absences & Substitute Fill Rates in K-12 Education

2 Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Key Findings 5 Final Thoughts 16 Scope & Validation 17 2 To learn more, visit:

3 Executive Summary Each spring, as the number of absences rise, substitute and absence management becomes a common topic of conversation among school districts and related organizations. And rightly so district and school leaders need to stay ahead of important trends affecting their schools.? While these conversations and analyses are relevant and important, we ve noticed that many industry-related reports represent a minority of districts, simply because access to comprehensive data is not always readily available. We wondered what trends would emerge if somebody had the resources to analyze diverse districts nationwide, rather than merely on a state or city level. Last month, Frontline put its huge pool of aggregate data to work. Not only do we have a customer base of over 7,500 school districts nationwide, but the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University determined that this data is representative of national figures. This level of data allows us to provide unique insight into district trends. In our first report, we laid the groundwork for the insights and trends we hope to uncover each month. While this month still presents only a short timeframe of substitute activity, perhaps too small to expose broad trends, we think analyzing and comparing February s data to January s provides valuable information and awareness into what the absence and substitute picture looks like among districts across the nation. 3 To learn more, visit:

4 Summary of Findings This report reviewed data from February 2016 and compared it to the results of January s report. While it is too soon to implicate large-scale trends, month-tomonth comparisons do provide interesting information. Employee Absences Employees took an average of 1.59 absences in February, an increase over January s While this increase is only a hundredth of a point, it does represent approximately 65,000 additional absences nationwide. As in January, employees who did not require a substitute took more absences than those who did require a substitute. Absences in February were highest among employees at medium-sized rural districts. Absences by Day of the Week Contrary to January s results, which surprisingly had the highest absences on Thursdays and Fridays, Monday rejoined Friday as one of the two highest absence days each week in February. 43% of all absences occurred on Mondays and Fridays. Absences by Reason 51% of all absences in February were due to illnesses slightly down from January s 53%. Additionally, 20% were due to professional-related activities, such as field trips and professional development. Fill Rates The average fill rate nationwide was 85%, a 4% decrease from January. Small urban schools saw the highest average fill rates of 91%. Employee-Sub Ratio & Fill Rates The average employee-sub ratio was 2.46 employees per substitute, slightly better than January s 2.5. That ratio means that districts had one substitute for every 2.4 employees requiring a substitute in the district. 4 To learn more, visit:

5 The February ratio more than doubles, however, when eliminating substitutes who didn t work in the past month. Districts with the lowest employee-sub ratio had the highest fill rates. Substitute Pool Health & Fill Rates 58% of substitutes didn t accept any jobs in February the same percentage as January. Small urban schools had the highest percentage of non-working substitutes, as they did in January: 83%. The higher a district s percentage of non-working substitutes, the lower its fill rates fell. Key Findings Total Average Absences Per Employee FINDING 1 How many absences did employees take on average in February, and how did that number shift from January? Let s take a look. Definitions: In this section, absence refers to an absence event, where any individual absence counts as one absence, regardless of duration. Absences in this context do not include vacancies entered in Aesop. Requiring a Sub refers to an absence for a position that may require a substitute, regardless of whether or not the specific absence this month required a substitute. Employee refers to any K-12 employee in the Aesop data, including both teachers and classified staff. On average, February saw 1.59 absences per employee (when any duration of absence counts as one full absence), a slight increase from January s average of Average Absences Per Employee However, there was a greater shift in the number of absences not requiring a substitute. To learn more, visit: 5

6 ABSENCES PER EMPLOYEE January Requiring a Sub 1.45 Absences February 1.40 Absences January Not Requiring a Sub 2.18 Absences February 2.47 Absences When broken down by district size and location, medium-sized districts in rural areas had the most absences per employee in February, while small urban districts had the least. Urban Suburban Rural Small Medium Large Extra Large To learn more, visit:

7 February Absence Increase approximately 65,000 = absences nationwide (An increase in absences from 1.58 to 1.59 is equal to approximately 65,000 additional absences nationwide.) Questions to Consider: February s increase means that schools saw approximately 65,000 more absences nationwide in February than in January. Was your district or school impacted by the increased absences? How does your district compare to national employee absence averages? To learn more, visit: 7

8 FINDING 2 Absences by Day of the Week January s lowest absence day was Monday, with Thursday and Friday coming in as the highest. This data was surprising, as Monday has historically been a high-absence day. Let s see how February s absences by day lined up. Definitions: In this section, absence again refers to an individual absence event, where any individual absence counts as one absence, regardless of duration. The percentages per day of the week were normalized to account for federal holidays and unequal days of the week in the month. The resulting percentages are weighted averages based on the number of school days in that given month. MONDAY & FRIDAY Highest Absence Days Not surprisingly, Monday resumed its role as one of the highest absence days of the week, rising from January s 18% to February s 21%. January ABSENCES BY DAY February 18% 19% 19% 21% 23% MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY 21% 18% 19% 20% 22% 8 To learn more, visit:

9 Questions to Consider: What were your district s highest and lowest absence days? Absences by Reason We ve already covered how many absences employees are taking on average, but have you ever wondered why they re absent? FINDING 3 Definitions: Absence Reason refers to the specific reason selected from a pre-defined district list when entering an absence. Absence reasons that varied by district were aligned to the absence reason categories used in this report. Over half of all absences in February (51%) were due to illness. January February Illness 53% 51% Vacation 2% 3% Personal 15% 16% Professional Development 10% 11% Bereavement 2% 2% Jury Duty 1% 0% Unexcused Absence 1% 1% Workers Compensation 1% 1% School Business 7% 8% Other 8% 7% To learn more, visit: 9

10 Questions to Consider: 51% of absences in February were due to illness. How might this correlate to the flu season or other illnesses? 20% of absences in February were for professional reasons (professional development, field trips, association/bargaining unit, school business). Does this statistic surprise you? How many of your district s absences are due to professional activities? Do you have a solid understanding of the reasons behind your own district s absences? FINDING 4 Average Fill Rates So how many of those absences were actually filled by substitutes? Let s take a look at how February s fill rates compared to January s. Definitions: Fill rate indicates the percentage of absences requiring a substitute that were in fact filled by a substitute. The percentage is calculated by dividing the number of filled absences by the number of absences that required a substitute. 85% Average Fill Rate In February, 85% of absences that required a substitute were, in fact, filled by substitutes. This marks a 4% decrease in the average fill rate from January s 89%. 10 To learn more, visit:

11 Here s a look at the difference in January and February fill rates based on district locale and size: Jan Urban Feb Suburban Jan Feb Jan Rural Feb Small 89% 91% 86% 83% 92% 90% Medium 90% 86% 88% 84% 91% 88% Large 89% 86% 88% 85% 92% 88% Extra Large 87% 82% 89% 85% 93% 89% As you can see, small urban districts had the highest average fill rate, at 91%. These are the same districts that also had the fewest absences per employee (1.07). MONDAY & FRIDAY Lowest Average Fill Rates by Day of the Week Similar to January, the average fill rates in February were highest on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and lowest on Mondays and Fridays. DAILY FILL RATES January February 88% MONDAY 85% 90% TUESDAY 88% 90% WEDNESDAY 88% 89% THURSDAY 88% 88% FRIDAY 85% To learn more, visit: 11

12 Questions to Consider: National fill rates declined in February. Did you see the same trend in your district? Have you considered the effect of professionally-related absences on fill rates and tried to schedule those events on easier-to-fill days? FINDING 5 Employee-Sub Ratio & Fill Rates Now let s compare districts employee-sub ratio, and see how it correlates with fill rates. Definitions: Employee-Sub Ratio refers to the average number of employees requiring a substitute compared to the number of substitutes signed up to work in the district. In this section, employee refers to an employee requiring a substitute. An employee requiring a substitute is often a teacher, but could also include other certified or classified employees Average Employee-Sub Ratio for All Substitutes On average, districts had 1 substitute for every 2.46 employees in the month of February. This shows a slight decrease from January s average of 2.5 a good thing for school districts. Now let s look at how this compared to district fill rates. The graph on the next page displays the relationship between district fill rates and the corresponding employee-sub ratio. 12 To learn more, visit:

13 January February % % 2.8 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES PER SUBSTITUTE % % 2.0 Average Fill Rates The decline in fill rates was relatively consistent across districts with different employee-sub ratios. As in January, the districts with the highest fill rates had the lowest number of employees per substitute, with a steady decline in fill rates as the employee-sub ratio worsened. Unfortunately, most districts have substitutes in their sub pool who aren t actually working. This can skew your employee-sub ratio. Let s take a look at the same data, splitting out substitutes that have worked in the past two months or in the past month January NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES PER SUBSTITUTE Subs working in past 2 months Subs working in past 1 month % 80-89% 70-79% 60-69% Average Fill Rates February To learn more, visit: 13

14 Questions to Consider: What does your employee-sub ratio look like? Do you have enough substitutes for the size of your school or district? FINDING 6 Substitute Pool Health & Fill Rates The last finding suggests that districts substitute pools might not be as healthy as you suspect. So we decided to check what percentage of districts substitutes weren t actually working, to verify if there were a correlation between sub-pool health and fill rates. Definitions: Sub Pool refers to the number of substitutes available to work in the district. When looking at sub pool health, we reviewed how often substitutes are working in the district. We also looked at the correlation between the percentage of non-working substitutes and district fill rates. 58% Percentage of Non-Working Substitutes in the Past Month In February, 58% of all substitutes did not fill an absence. While this matches January s percentage, we re interested to see if this percentage changes during the spring months, when absences increase. Here s a look at the percentage of substitutes not working, based on district locale and size. Urban Suburban Rural Small 83% 80% 75% Medium 56% 62% 60% Large 50% 53% 53% Extra Large 48% 45% 43% 14 To learn more, visit:

15 PERCENTAGE OF NON-WORKING SUBSTITUTES So what effect does a district s percentage of non-working substitutes have on its fill rates? As suspected, higher fill rates correlated to a lower percentage of non-working substitutes % 59% Average Fill Rates 80-89% 70-79% 62% 67% 60-69% 72% 7 Average Number of Absences Filled Per Substitute Viewing the average number of absences filled by each substitute can provide insight into substitute engagement. Substitutes on average filled 7 absences each in February, a slight increase from January s 6.7 average. Note: this data only includes subs that accepted at least one job in the past month. To learn more, visit: 15

16 Here is the breakdown based on district locale and size. As you can see, substitutes working in small urban schools filled the fewest number of absences, while substitutes in extra-large rural districts filled the most. Urban Suburban Rural Small Medium Large Extra Large Questions to Consider: Do you know what percentage of your substitute pool is actively working and why others are choosing not to work? Final Thoughts While we feel it is too soon to make broad statements on monthly trends, we do think there is value in month-to-month comparisons, as well as raising awareness among districts of the different factors that affect absence and substitute management. We look forward to future months, when a larger perspective on the data will yield even more valuable insights on substitute trends. 16 To learn more, visit:

17 Scope & Validation Scope Out of Frontline s more than 7,500 customers, 4,812 education organizations were studied in this report all users of Frontline s Aesop absence and substitute management system. This data includes: 4,486 Public School Districts Educational Service Agencies 100 Charter and Private Schools The 4,486 school districts represent diversity in locale and size. Broken down by locale based on NCES statistics, the data includes:: URBAN 407 Districts SUBURBAN 1,601 Districts RURAL 2,478 Districts Based on district size, the data includes: S 598 Small Districts (1-100 Employees) M 3,279 Medium Districts ( Employees) L 453 Large Districts ( Employees) XL 156 Extra Large Districts (2501+ Employees) Finally, this data represents over 2.6 million educational employees, including classified and certified staff. We have broken down employee types by those in a position that may require a substitute to cover their absence and those in positions that never require a substitute. This data is designated within the Aesop system. 2,630,473 Total Employees 2,153,796 Employees Requiring a Substitute 476,677 Employees Not Requiring a Substitute 1 As identified by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) To learn more, visit: 17

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20 About the Frontline Research and Learning Institute The Frontline Research and Learning Institute is a learning organization launched in early 2016 with one mission: to provide data-driven research, resources and observations to support and advance the educational community. The Institute s research is driven by the vast amount of data from Frontline s many education administrative solutions. With over 7,500 K-12 organizations and several million users, Frontline s systems are uniquely positioned to collect an array of information that can provide invaluable insights into issues affecting the education world. To this end, the Institute is committed to providing rigorouslyvalidated research reports and analyses for educators and education administrators. Furthermore, the Institute will provide Frontline clients with benchmarks to inform strategic decision-making within their organizations. Our Commitment to Integrity Maintaining the trust and confidence that clients have come to expect from Frontline Technologies is of utmost importance. All Institute publications will report only aggregate and anonymous data to protect the privacy of our clients and their stakeholders. Additionally, every report will be independently validated by reliable third-party organizations. Frontline Technologies All rights reserved.