When a “Work From Home” Day Isn’t Really Work – The ALT Catch-22

For many Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs), the work-from-home day sounds like a dream come true. You stay at your apartment, you’re technically on the clock, but no one expects you to do much of anything. Unless they call you. And usually, they don’t.

It sounds flexible, even relaxing. But as many ALTs are discovering, this vague arrangement comes with a hidden cost — especially when it comes to taking sick leave.

The Confusing Setup of WFH in ALT Contracts

Here’s the problem. You are officially assigned a certain number of “work-from-home” days each month. During training, you are told these are not days off. They are work days. Yet, your dispatch company provides zero tasks, and no one expects you to send reports, plan lessons, or check emails.

So what are they? In practice, they become paid do-nothing days. But because they are technically work days, using a sick leave day (a paid holiday) means you have to “make up” that day later — by coming into the school on one of those originally scheduled WFH days.

In other words, using a sick day costs you a day of paid relaxation.

Why You Avoid Taking Time Off

It’s easy to see why this system encourages teachers to avoid calling in sick. You might wake up with a fever, a sore throat, or a pounding headache, but you weigh the options:

• If you stay home sick, you lose one of your precious WFH days.
• If you drag yourself into school, you have to sit through a full day of classes, but at least you keep your “free” WFH day.

For many, the choice becomes obvious: go in sick, keep the rest day for later. This isn’t good for your health, your students, or your morale.

The “Go to School, Then Leave Early” Loophole

Some ALTs have found a workaround. Instead of using a full sick day, they go to the school, check in, and then leave early — often within an hour or two. The school gets its attendance record checked off, and the ALT gets to go home and rest.

It feels absurd. You’re essentially showing up just to prove you existed on paper. But for many, this is the only way to avoid losing a WFH day later down the line.

Why Is This the System?

This setup might come from the contract between the dispatch company and the city’s board of education. Some contracts require the ALT to be physically present at the school for a certain number of days per term. If you are absent (even for illness), you need to “compensate” that day by being present on a day when you otherwise would not have been at the school.

The WFH days are a convenient place to slot these make-up days — even though nobody expects you to do actual work on them.

A Better Way Forward

The solution isn’t to eliminate work-from-home days. It’s to define them. If WFH days had clear expectations — such as lesson planning, material prep, or online training — the make-up system would make more sense. You would be trading one work day for another.

But when they are left as vague, zero-task days, the system feels punitive. Taking care of your health shouldn’t mean losing a rare day of genuine rest.

It’s time for dispatch companies to either clarify the WFH role with real tasks, or stop treating them as “work days” that require make-ups. Teachers shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their mental break.