Substitutes

There has been ongoing concern about the no fill rates on substitutes.  In January, 92% of sub jobs were filled.  That means in a large middle or high school, if 10 teachers are out on professional development, it is likely that one of those teacher's classes will not be covered.  This January there was 252 MORE sub jobs than last January.  Some of this is due to professional development, and some to the flu. 

Some suggestions to help ensure you have a substitute when needed:

• If you will be out for PD, personal day, sick day for doctor appointment, alternative day, or bereavement day, and you know in advance, enter the absence in Aesop as soon as you know
• If you are ill in the morning, don't wait for the sub office to open so you can call, enter the absence in Aesop immediately
• If you don't know how to use Aesop, ask someone on your team/department/secretary to set up a bookmark and walk you through how to use the system 
• Keep your Aesop information at home and at school

Meeting with Superintendent Johnson

I attended my regular monthly meeting with Dr. Johnson this morning.  We talked about safety in the schools.  She said the Board will be hearing more during closed study session over the next month.  Security can be discussed in closed session, because the general public shouldn't know about all of the security measures.  Some items will be discussed in open session.

We talked about co-teaching and what that should look like as more schools are going to a push-in model for Resource.  True co-teaching has both teachers presenting material and both teachers interacting with all students through group and independent work time.  The district has not adopted any particular model. 

She stated that there has been a 100% fill rate for substitute jobs the last two days.  Hopefully with the new subs that have been hired that this will continue, especially on Fridays. 

Substitutes

There has been an issue with having enough substitutes.  This was brought up in District Advisory Committee (DAC) as well as by administrators at their meeting.

In the past, the District has only accepted applications for substitutes twice a year, followed by interviews and a training class.  In October, there were 350 substitute applications received.  The training is now offered online.  Once new applicants are approved, they can take the online training whenever they would like, submit the paperwork required to prove they did the training, and be fingerprinted.  Then they are ready to sub.  This could happen as quickly as a week if the substitute is motivated to finish.  Now the District will accept substitute applications at any time, not just twice a year.

Part of the lack of substitutes has to do with them now being paid hourly instead of half-day or full-day.  The District website still shows half-day and full-day rates, not hourly rates, which may cause confusion for substitutes.

From June LeMaster, Human Resources Director:
-The substitute teacher pay has also changed in that subs are paid hourly and not by half days or full days.  They are used to arriving late and leaving early and expecting to be paid the full day.  As subs are paid with taxpayer money, we are holding them accountable and paying them only for time worked. 
-Principals have always maintained the authority to have a substitute work a full day even when students are not at school, as long there is work for the substitute to do.
-We realize some subs are disgruntled with the changes, specifically for being paid only for the hours they work; however, we believe we are being fiscally responsible with taxpayer money. The money saved will be diverted to other District needs.

Secretaries are being asked to "babysit" substitutes and have them working with students all day, including covering other classes during the one teacher's prep if a sub is unavailable at the secondary level.

There was a concern mentioned that secondary teachers feel that not subbing on their prep period when a substitute has not arrived may be held against them in the future.  This should not be happening.  Teachers should not feel guilty for not covering a class during their prep period.

If you are having problems with not enough substitutes or complaints about the pay of substitutes, please let me know.  This issue may need to return to DAC.