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Schools try perks, 'temps' to solve sub shortage
Monday, January 08, 2001
By Jane Elizabeth, Post-Gazette Education Writer
Schools in the small Texas panhandle community of Dumas had a big problem. Not only was there a teacher shortage in this town of 13,000, but the district couldn't find substitutes either -- especially subs with training or experience.
So Lawrence Bussard, an assistant school superintendent, came up with a unique plan the district hopes will result in better-trained subs and more full-time teachers.
The district signed up 20 local college students who, in return for tuition help from the district, work in the school district as subs three days a week. And when they graduate, they agree to spend five years teaching in the 4,200-student district.
With the program that began in September, Dumas became one of just a few school districts nationwide that have taken aggressive, unusual approaches to solving a critical shortage of substitutes.
Dumas has already lost one of the enrollees, an 18-year-old who decided teaching wasn't for her. But the 19 other college students, like Kelli Simmons, said they're in it for keeps.
Simmons, who takes classes at the local community college and at West Texas A&M University, was a substitute before she enrolled in the Dumas program -- and it made her nervous.
Her neighbor, a school vice principal, asked Simmons to fill in for a seventh-grade geography teacher who went on maternity leave. Simmons' qualifications? A high school diploma "and he liked how I was raising my son" who was then 2 years old.
She got through the seven-week subbing job but said, "I felt I was not qualified enough. I had no college."
The petite Simmons, who in typical Texas fashion is called simply "Miss" by the students, subbed on a recent Friday in a business class. She kept the teens focused on their PowerPoint assignment -- even though she doesn't know how to do PowerPoint presentations herself, and the drug dog was out in the hallway making his monthly locker search, and the entire school had just filed out of a pep rally in support of their football team, which was scheduled to play arch rival Hereford High School that night.
This is what prospective teachers need to experience before they decide on a teaching career, said Simmons. "I would rather know before I jump in," she said. "If you don't want to be a teacher, by all means, please leave."
Kristi Flusche, another West Texas student and Dumas sub, was filling in for the creative writing teacher who had taken the day off, the students informed her, to go shopping in Las Vegas with her mother. The fact that the small classroom was under control, even though they didn't have much work to do, is a credit to the new substitute program, she said. "The students know that I'm part of the staff. They know they could have me for three or four other classes."
Down the hall, though, substitute John Vincent had had about as much as he could take. In the room crowded with too many students, Vincent tried to get them to do the lesson plan the teacher left behind -- making a brief speech about any story in the day's newspaper -- but few volunteered and even fewer were listening. Some students napped, one looked quietly through an old yearbook, but most socialized and the decibel level increased.
It's all part of the learning experience, Vincent noted. Substituting is "like test-driving a car," he said. "It allows people to get their feet wet."
These "permanent substitutes" get $50 a day, health insurance, three sick days and three personal days, in addition to tuition assistance.
No one's guaranteeing that the program will save money, noted Bussard. "But we had a $320,000 sub bill last year and something had to be done. It goes up and up every year." And the substitutes enrolled in the college program get special training and are generally more qualified than some other Texas subs, who only are required to have a high school diploma.
"Knowledge-wise, they're better. They're a higher quality of subs," said Bussard.
But for the most part, complex or long-term programs to battle the substitute shortage and lack of expertise are the exception. Many schools are overwhelmed by the task and simply want to find substitutes, fast. It's no surprise, then, that private enterprise discovered the fertile sub market.
'Kelly girls'
Here's a chance to relive your childhood from the other side of the desk! Flexible hours, vacation & holiday pay, medical benefits and free software training. Call now!!!! Be a substitute teacher -- chances are you're already qualified.
-- Employment ad on www. kellyservices.com
To those who remember "Kelly Girls" as fill-in typists, cashiers and department store clerks, the move into educating the nation's children may be a little startling. But Kelly already is hiring subs in 25 states and expects to go nationwide some time this year, said Teresa Setting, vice president of product management and recruiting.
"We will take over an administrative task that [school districts] are not used to handling," said Setting. "We relieve a huge headache, and we relieve the burden of scheduling every day."
Contracting with "temp agencies" -- Kelly's the largest, but not the only one -- is becoming a last-ditch effort by school districts suffering under a severe substitute shortage.
When Penn Hills School District Superintendent Joe Saeli read in a professional journal that Kelly was being hired by other school districts around the country, "I called them. I guess I was just frustrated. I don't know any district that can fill their positions."
The call ended in a contract approved just weeks ago in Penn Hills. The contract is more of an agreement, said Saeli -- open-ended and subject to modifications.
"We don't really have any idea how successful we'll be, and neither does Dr. Saeli," said Steve Martin, district manager for Kelly's Pittsburgh office.
But Saeli and Martin believe Kelly should be able to find substitute teachers that school staff can't -- especially during the current flu season. "They're in the business of recruiting, we're in the business of educating," said Saeli.
The "temp" solution may be one of the more creative solutions to the sub shortage. And creativity is what's needed, says David Haselkorn, president of Recruiting New Teachers Inc., a nonprofit corporation that has joined with the U.S. Department of Education to provide an on-line clearinghouse for teaching jobs.
His suggestion: "Like we use artists in the schools, maybe we need mathematicians in the schools. Maybe we can't expect to fill our needs so quickly with fully licensed teachers."
Other paths
Other schools around the country have taken unusual steps to find subs:
Teachers now get 10 mental health days, and the district is trying another incentive that has worked in a few other schools around the country -- giving teachers cash bonuses if they don't actually use all those days. "We'll see if it works," said Diaz. "But I seriously doubt it. I think it's a bigger issue, like how teachers feel about their jobs in general, and class size, and making the workplace as good as it can get.
"That's what we have to strive for," she said. "It's a major overhaul of all education."
While "combat pay" and programs that put undertrained subs in the classroom are ideas that have some support from educators nationwide, some take offense at the idea that anyone can be a teacher.
"It's a tough job and it takes a special person," said Patrick O'Malley, human resources director for the St. Charles (La.) Parish Public Schools. "Many people, professional people, would not last 10 minutes in a classroom full of second-graders."
Recruiting retirees, students
O'Malley has another preference: In Louisiana, the state legislature recently approved a bill that allows retired teachers to continue working as substitute teachers without affecting retirement benefits. In Pennsylvania, individual school boards must approve such changes. However, a bill in the Pennsylvania legislature, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Stetler, D-York, would change the rules statewide so that retired teachers could work more hours without docking their retirement pay.
House Bill 2653 "would help deal daily with a shortage of substitute teachers," Stetler said in announcing the legislation. "The problem hurts our children's education, as teachers often must oversee students from two classrooms when a substitute is unavailable. This bill would help school districts provide quality education."
But not all retired teachers are interested in subbing or feel able to keep up with some classrooms. Ann Fomby, a retired teacher who substitutes in Amarillo, Texas, said that while she believes she's "called by the Lord to do this," she is, after all, 60 years old. "I am more tired after I get home from pre-kindergarten or kindergarten."
A younger and more energetic work force -- college students -- is a growing target of some districts. It's how Schenley High School substitute teacher Pete Candreva got his start.
Before he even started his student teaching through the University of Pittsburgh, Candreva was asked to sub in a physics class at Allderdice High School last year, and this year he took on a Schenley physics class.
"I was a last resort at Allderdice," said Candreva, a Ben Avon resident whose wife is a teacher in Pine-Richland School District. But his year was successful and led to his current long-term substituting job, he noted.
"It was great for me because I like to be thrown to the wolves and see what happens."
Said Louisiana's O'Malley: "Every education major should be substituting. It's win-win. It's flexible hours and gives them a chance to put into practice what they've been learning. No nights or weekends or holidays."
Some Pennsylvania districts have established pilot programs with local colleges that bring in students as substitutes.
However, when state Rep. Craig Dally, R-Nazareth, proposed House Bill 2505 to allow statewide the hiring of substitutes who hadn't graduated from a four-year college, it met with resistance from teachers unions and others.
The bill, which Dally said is modeled after New Jersey's law that allows substitutes to have a two-year associates degree, was pulled off the House education committee agenda. "But I haven't given up," said Dally.
Keeping teachers in school
One solution that's almost too obvious to mention: If teachers weren't absent so often, substitutes wouldn't be needed.
But solving teacher absenteeism is far from simple. One problem is that most states avoid collecting such data and therefore don't have a grip on the extent of absenteeism. Pennsylvania is one of only a few states that compile those figures, which are posted on line at www.paprofiles.org .
Those figures show, for instance, that South Fayette School District's teachers absentee rate of 11.4 percent is higher than most in Western Pennsylvania. But high school Principal Ann Bisignani said that most of the teacher absenteeism is due to staff development programs.
Teachers in South Fayette are encouraged to take advantage of education seminars including those offered by the Carnegie Science Center and the South Hills Area School District Association. "We want our teachers to be on the cutting edge," said Bisignani.
But teacher training should take its cue from corporate training, said William H. Banach of Banach, Banach and Cassidy of Ray Township, Mich., a consulting and marketing firm whose clients include school districts and education organizations.
"Teachers should be told, the training is part of your job, and you're going to be there, whether that's weekends, summers, after school, or whatever." Money used to pay substitutes should be used to pay teachers who attend "in-service" programs on their off-time.
Among recommendations from Philip A. Griswold, an Ashland (Ohio) University professor who conducted one of the few studies on the substitute teaching crisis, was extending the school day for teachers and using the extra time for professional development.
Hayes Mizell, director of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's program for student achievement, advocates the school-based "peer coaches" -- experienced teachers who can give other teachers on-the-job training.
"They model classroom management and pedagogy, and meet with teachers during prep periods," he said. "Teachers are not out of the classroom."
Barnett Barry, an education professor at the University of South Carolina and a director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, would like to see all schools move to the "team approach" to teaching.
"Districts ought to be staffing their schools differently," said Barry.
"Instead of having one teacher solely responsible for one group of kids, you have a team that's multidisciplinary and knowledge-based, so if one teacher is not there, other teachers on that team can fill in."
Several school districts have hired "permanent subs" who report to a school every day and are used wherever they're needed. While that's been a reasonable short-term solution, in most cases the pay is still low with no benefits, and applicants are hard to find.
Whatever approach is taken, said Mizell, the primary goal should be student achievement.
"This is not rocket science," he said. "Just like students, if teachers come to school and pay attention to their class, their students will do well."
Part One: A Substitute for Education: When the teacher's away
Related articles, illustration, links 
Institute helps teacher replacements learn to teach Substitutes alliance works for respect Illustration: State requirements for substitute teachers 
Substitute teacher Sandy Giannuzzi checks a "Super Sub Pack," a survival kit that's part of a training program developed by the Substitute Teaching Institute at Utah State University. Looking on are substitute teacher James Regan (seated) and Craig von Behren, personnel director for Shaler Area School District, which uses Utah State's training program. (Joyce Mendelsohn, Post-Gazette) In Orange County, Fla., there are about 30 schools that the district calls "high needs" but that substitutes call "schools you don't want to work in." So to encourage subs to take jobs at those schools, the district began paying $100 a day -- up to $40 more than subs can make at other schools. It worked, and that didn't surprise supervisor Patricia Masciantoni, who said she's had a 96-99 percent "fill rate" on those jobs compared to 75-80 percent last year. "If you have a young woman majoring in elementary education," she said, "an extra $30 a day can make a lot of difference." The Warren County, Ky., school district is one of several participating in a statewide program in which the school principal finds three community members -- often parents -- who are at least 25 years old. They're given a one-day training program, training materials, and are required to "shadow" a teacher for two days. In return, the schools can waive the state requirement that subs must have 64 hours of college. "It's really been a plus," said Superintendent Dale Brown. "These individuals are really focused on teaching." In Broward County, Fla., the fifth-largest school district in the country with 250,000 kids and a critical substitute shortage, school officials did some research and found that teachers were missing an average of 20 days per year -- each. "We conducted some focus groups of teachers and asked them what's happening, why are you missing so many days, what can we do to keep you in the classroom? They basically said, we need mental health days," said Gracie Diaz, director of instructional staffing for Broward schools.