There’s a bug going around the Lansing School District that causes the afflicted to call in sick on Fridays. Symptoms include sudden doctor appointments, itchy staff development workshops and other flu-like symptoms.

A Lansing School District report released at the Oct. 13 school board personnel committee meeting shows Friday to be the most missed day of the week for teachers.

School officials say that it’s not a thirst for a three-day weekend that’s keeping teachers out of class but real professional and personal reasons.

There were 306.6 total Friday absences in September, of the district’s 1,250.6 total absences for the month in currently filled positions.

Friday was the first or second most missed day for 11 of 19 categories of reasons to miss a day listed in the report, including family illness, doctor appointments and bereavement. Staff development is another reason teachers miss days, said schools spokesman Steve Serkaian. Development is part of the district’s professional development process, he said, and teacher attendance is required by contract.

“It would be difficult to analyze, quantifiably, why Friday absences are higher than other days without subsequent months to compare,” Serkaian said. “And so we just have to take the data at face value — that there’s an increase of absences due to personal illness and doctor’s appointments that occur on Fridays.”

This, and other explanations chip away at the nearly 40-absence spike on Fridays over Tuesday, the other high-absence day. Jerry Swartz, president of the Lansing Schools Education Association, which is the teachers’ union, said many missed Fridays are taken up by events that require teachers to be out of the classroom. Conferences and other required programs are often scheduled for Fridays, and many teachers try to arrange doctor appointments and personal matters for the last day of the week. Swartz also said that most students are absent on Friday and teachers prefer to plan their absences for this day so they can be present when the greatest percentage of students are. Swartz gave other reasons that could contribute to the Friday absence spike for teachers. He said school employees who work overtime, like guidance counselors, can be compensated for this time with days off, which are often taken on Friday.

Swartz said he does not consider Lansing’s Friday absences for teachers out of the ordinary, and that he has hope for greater understanding of trends like this through new computer software, used for the first time to generate this month’s report.

He also said it is not uncommon for an ill teacher to take a sick day on Friday after trying to last the week. “Don’t negate if there are people struggling with health issues. Teachers often push themselves to the end of the week,” he said. “You find this in the human services; you’ll find that they are overwhelmingly so devoted to these kids.”