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Monday, January 08, 2001
By Jane Elizabeth, Post-Gazette Education Writer
LOGAN, Utah -- In this college town cornered by mountains and a hundred miles from urbiculture, there's something you won't find anywhere else in the world: the Substitute Teaching Institute at Utah State University.
And in a way no one else has, it's attacking the shortage of quality substitute teachers that has overpowered school districts around the country.
The institute's main goal is simple: to train all substitutes in at least some basic teaching techniques. Better-trained subs mean better-prepared students, more respect from the education community and the public, and maybe even better pay.
Institute employees, for a fee, will travel from coast to coast to help school districts educate subs. Several substitutes in Pittsburgh's North Hills have participated in the institute training, which is used locally by Shaler human resources director Craig Von Behren as a three-afternoon program.
Other Pennsylvania districts and intermediate units, including the Allegheny Intermediate Unit and the Mon Valley Education Consortium, also hold training programs that last from a few hours to a few days. None is required, however.
Districts using Utah State's program also can have their substitutes tested and given "an SAT-type score," said Blaine L. Sorenson, administrative/secondary education specialist at the institute. But it isn't widely used, he acknowledged.
At training sessions, institute employees will show videos, lead discussions, role-play and answer questions. Nearly every minute focuses on "classroom management" and handling difficult students and tough situations.
As many students will tell you, a classroom run by a sub can quickly get out of control. One case that received much attention in the Pittsburgh area last year was an incident in which West Junior High School substitute Lois Sharlock used pepper spray to break up a fight in the classroom.
The fight between two girls at the Woodland Hills school had spread from a hallway into Sharlock's classroom. While students stood on chairs and screamed during the fight, Sharlock tried to get control by using a canister of pepper spray that she carried with her. Twenty-three students received medical treatment because they were hit by the spray.
Sharlock no longer subs in Woodland Hills but now works in Gateway School District.
A Medina County, Ohio, substitute is in a first-offender program after being charged with throwing school supplies at students while she was substituting in a class last school year.
Classroom behavior problems can be avoided if students are busy working on lessons plans their regular teacher has left behind, but too often, substitutes point out, they're left with no instructions.
That's why Geoffrey G. Smith, the Substitute Teaching Institute's director, developed the organization's trademark "Super Sub Pack." It's a fancy file box that contains some practical items such as a seating chart, Band-aids and scissors.
It also holds a Slinky, a bag of rubber bands so that subs can lead kids in a guess-how-many-rubber-bands game, fill-in-the-blank stories usually known as "Mad Libs," pictures that can be photocopied and then colored, and instructions for simple science projects such as how to make "fireworks" with a candle and a lemon.
That kind of "busy work" prompted Barb Mollineaux, a Hailey, Idaho, parent and sub in a recent training session, to tell Smith: "I don't send my kid to school so she can color all day."
That's why Smith emphasizes to school districts that regular classroom teachers need to be trained, too -- in how to deal with and prepare for the inevitable substitutes.
"Half the time you're caught flat-footed," said Sandy Devonshire of Shaler, who substitutes in several area schools. In one school where she was hired midyear, she had already missed some specialized math and reading training and "just made it up" when it came to classroom instruction. As a 53-year-old certified teacher, she's able to handle that challenge, she said, but wondered if untrained nonteachers could do the same.
"As a parent, that would give me some concern," said Devonshire. "Who's in that classroom? What are they saying and teaching my child?"
Pay and benefits
The Substitute Teaching Institute's research shows that subs' salaries average about $65 a day nationwide. But while big-city subs -- especially those represented by unions -- can make more than $100 a day, it's typical in rural areas to find rates as low as $40.
It's not a living wage, former Pittsburgh substitute teacher Terri O'Dea will tell you.
When she graduated from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, she moved to Castle Shannon hoping to find a teaching job around Pittsburgh.
For 31/2 years, she subbed nearly every day in school districts including Steel Valley, South Allegheny and Trinity Area. She was sent to a shop class where she didn't know how to operate the machinery and was forced to give the kids a study hall every day. She put up with seventh-graders who switched desks and made her seating chart -- and discipline -- useless. She worked at one school where "I feared for my life." She spent nights and weekends as a cheerleading coach.
And she made about $55 a day. Sometimes less. No benefits.
"There were some months I had to put the rent on a credit card," said O'Dea, who also tutored and worked at Pier 1 to make some extra cash. In the tight Pennsylvania teaching market, where full-time pay is relatively high, education graduates are plentiful and nepotism can be an obstacle in some small districts, O'Dea never got close to landing a full-time job.
She moved to Virginia where she immediately was hired as a first-grade teacher.
"What else could I have done?" said O'Dea, who said she misses the Pittsburgh Pirates and her brother but is happy to be free of credit-card worries.
"We're not training them, we're not compensating them," said Patrick O'Malley, human resources director for the St. Charles (La.) Parish Public Schools, where the substitute starting salary is $6.30 an hour and has increased only about 50 cents in recent years. "How do you attract good people into substituting if you're not doing that?"
While some districts around the country do have a higher pay rate for substitutes with better qualifications, some of those subs suspect they don't get as many jobs as lesser-qualified applicants.
"They call you less and less," said substitute John Quartuccio of Manatee County, Fla., who holds a bachelor's degree and believes subs with only a high school diploma get called to work more often. "It's cheaper to hire them. And then you have people with a high school education teaching differential calculus. It's not going to work. Some of these people can't speak English, and it's not because they're foreigners."
Trish Scarmuzzi, a full-time teacher in Noble County, Ohio, who worked for years as a substitute, advocates paying subs the same wages as a first-year teacher.
"It was not unusual for me to drive 20-25 miles" as a substitute teacher, said Scarmuzzi. "I would ask myself, am I even going to break even?"
Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Scrimenti, D-Erie, has introduced House Bill 406 that calls for substitute teachers to be paid between 60 to 90 percent of the starting salary in a school district. That's not unique; Oregon state law requires that subs get 85 percent of the base salary.
"They are impacting upon our children," said Scrimenti, who expects his bill to be considered during the upcoming session. "No longer can they be considered baby sitters. Right now some subs are making less than minimum wage. Just because they are not organized as a group doesn't mean that we shouldn't attend to the issue."
Al Fondy, president of both the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, is among those who believe providing benefits would help attract qualified substitute teachers.
"The best thing we could do is get them some health care," said Fondy, whose Pittsburgh organization is a rare union that represents some substitute teachers. "That would give a great deal more value to being a day-to-day sub. I think that's a way to draw them. It wouldn't be prohibitively expensive if you just provided individual coverage."
In the past year, several area school districts have raised daily pay for substitutes in an effort to get more applicants. But Smith of the Substitute Teaching Institute says that's one of two "knee-jerk reactions" to the substitute shortage; the other is lowering requirements for subs.
Smith said the institute's research has shown that while "there's nothing wrong with raising pay, it's done nothing to increase availability." His research shows that pay raises attract only a few more subs to a district, if any.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
So what do subs want?
Gloria Brown, who attended the recent Substitute Teaching Institute training session in Hailey, Idaho, explained her worst days this way: "when I walk into a classroom and see on the chalkboard, 'Guest Teacher: Turn video on.'
"I could have been home doing something constructive," said Brown.
As Ismat Abdul-Haaq says in her 1997 report, "Not Just a Warm Body," one of the few studies of substitute teaching: "The lot of substitute teachers is generally not a happy one. Children frequently view the substitute's entry as a signal to misbehave."
That's one reason institute leaders insist on calling subs "guest teachers," not substitutes, figuring that the title might encourage a more cordial relationship.
Ermalene Gault, a substitute teacher in Gary, Ind., said other problems experienced by subs could be mitigated if only the teachers and students showed some respect. If teachers wouldn't snub them in the teachers' lounge. If principals would just once make it a point to introduce themselves.
"A lot of times we're told by the students, 'We don't have to do that, you're just a sub.' Sometimes they tell me the teachers just throw my assignments in the garbage."
Treating substitutes with dignity "needs to be addressed in each individual school and by the school district. ... Substitutes need to be considered a viable part of education. They're there now as much as the teachers are."
Dorothy Hearn, a substitute teacher in Montgomery County, Md., doesn't like to go near the teachers' lounge. "You're completely ignored there," she said. "All they'll say is, 'Who are you today?' " -- a phrase that many substitutes say they find offensive.
"Sometimes they see you as their servant" and leave dittos to run off and bulletin boards to decorate. "I'm not sure where the attitude comes from," said Hearn, who was a full-time teacher until she married and had children. "They think that you are a sub because you weren't good enough to get a real job.
"But there are a lot of reasons that people are subbing...some of us do it because we like kids and we want kids to have a good teacher when their teacher has to leave."