It's the first Sunday of April, and Tommy Teacher is sitting at home in the afternoon, enjoying the day, when his phone rings.
On the other end is a friend of his with an offer.
"Hey, Tommy, I have tickets to the Reds Opening Day game tomorrow. They're right behind the visitors' dugout, five rows back. Want to go?"
Tommy's been a lifelong Cincinnati Reds fan. It's an offer that's too good to be true. Of course, there's one big problem. He has to work the next day. School is in session.
But he comes up with a solution.
"Sure," he tells his friend. "I'll drive and I'll pick you up at 8 in the morning."
Then he calls his school principal.
"I'm sick, and I won't be at work tomorrow. Can you call a sub for me?"
So, Tommy Teacher calls in sick, despite feeling just fine. And instead of going to school on Monday, he heads north across the river to watch the Reds open up what will probably be another disappointing season.
Is that right? Is that even legal? Kentucky's new governor thinks it is.
Something similar happened during last year's legislative session, but instead of going to ballgames, Kentucky teachers called in sick by the hundreds to go to Frankfort to protest pending legislation. So many teachers fraudulently called in sick in some school districts that superintendents were forced to cancel classes those days.
Common sense indicates that this is an inappropriate use of sick leave. Various state laws do as well.
Public school employees are paid with tax dollars, the same as state employees. There are definitive policies and guidelines for state workers on how leave time is to be used. Sick leave is reserved for specific purposes. Sudden illnesses, scheduled medical appointments, caring for sick relatives, and bereavement are the allowed uses for sick leave. If a state employee wants to be off for other reasons -- say, to attend a ballgame or go to Frankfort to protest something -- they are required to use annual leave (the state's term for vacation) or accrued compensatory time. Improper use of sick leave is against both state law and agency policy. Employees who do so are subject to discipline, which can range from a verbal or written reprimand to suspension or even dismissal.
On New Year's Eve, Gov. Andy Beshear gave his blessing to the teacher sickouts, claiming they were protected First Amendment speech. He rescinded an earlier declaration by former Gov. Matt Bevin's Labor Cabinet that the sickouts were illegal. It's yet another instance of how he has pandered to the educational bureaucracy since he took office last month.
If teachers want to protest, good for them. They have an absolute First Amendment right to free speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. They do not, however, have a right to improperly use sick days to take off work to go rally on the Capitol steps when they should be using personal leave. And if their school districts don't allow personal days, then they should be protesting at local board of education meetings to have them approved, as each individual district sets its leave policies.
The declaration by the Bevin administration amounted to a "don't do it again" scolding, because neither the Labor Cabinet nor the Department of Education decided to prosecute any teachers for the violations. (There was never any danger of individual school districts punishing teachers for their time and attendance fraud, because the administrators are sympathetic to the teachers' cause, and they even allowed some to take school buses to Frankfort for the rallies/protests.) Beshear's announcement gives them free rein to do it all over again during the upcoming session without fear of punishment or reprimand.
But this gives new Attorney General Daniel Cameron yet another opportunity to stand up for what's right. He can enforce the state's sickout and public employee time and attendance laws and regulations. He can certainly prosecute any teachers who call in sick but show up in Frankfort at protests. Whether he will or not remains to be seen. He can either make some sort of announcement as to how his office will handle the matter, or he can wait to see if it comes up during the 2020 legislative session and then act accordingly. It's yet another test of just how vigilant he will be in protecting Kentuckians from the bad policies of the new governor.
In the meantime, though, teachers have the green light to use their sick days for whatever reason they want. Go to a Reds game, as in our fictional example? Fishing? Deer hunting? An impromptu shopping or movie trip? A long weekend in Gatlinburg? It's all fair game now, thanks to a governor who would rather cater to a core constituency of his instead of enforcing the law and ensuring proper proper conduct by tax-paid public employees.
