No Substitute for Quality - efforts of school districts to hire and retain substitute teachers

School Administrator, Jan, 2001 by Alexander Russo

In Poudre, Cola., the district hired four special education paraprofessionals as floating subs in order to meet an area of severe need. Even with a higher pay rate than regular substitutes, as well as benefits, the district chose special education paraprofessionals because their field had vacancies hard to fill. As paraprofessionals, their pay scale was relatively tow.

However, permanent substitutes are an expensive way to lock out the competition, as well as an easy way for principals to add clerical staff. Permanent substitutes sometimes limit the flexibility of building administrators in deciding whom they want to fill vacancies. For these and other reasons, the 11,000-student Rogers, Ark., Public Schools abandoned its permanent substitute teacher program in 1996 after only one year. The district had hired five certified elementary school substitutes and five more high school teachers certified in various areas, paying them for a 150-day school year at a rate $15 per day over the standard rate for substitute teachers plus benefits. The plan failed in large part because the permanent substitutes didn't teach the full 150 days, making the program unjustifiably expensive. In addition, the system for monitoring and allocating subs within the district wasn't sufficiently flexible.

"The principals still wanted to be able to request favorite subs," says Jane Webb, the district's assistant superintendent for human resources. "What it cost us didn't make up for the fact that it just didn't help that much."

Instead of competing, some districts have taken the opposite approach by banding together to increase the pool in their region. Last August, seven of the 10 districts in Wisconsin's Fox River Valley conducted a regional job fair that attracted 150 new substitutes, according to Bill Fitzpatrick, superintendent of the Little Chute Area School District, one of the smaller districts in the consortium with 1,400 students. With districts as big as the 14,650-student Appleton school system, the seven cooperating districts serve almost 35,000 students combined. "There was some skepticism about acting together," he acknowledges, but no one wanted to start a bidding war.

To make the fair more successful, the participating Fox River Valley districts developed a streamlined application process that includes a common application form, on-site medical and criminal background checks and pre-service training for those without teaching certification. The districts also collaborate in staging a two-day training session for substitute candidates and provide additional training for special education. The training rotates from district to district each semester. The regional job fair will be held every year.

Temp Staffing

* Strategy 4: Bring in Outside Expertise.

Given the size and complexity of the challenge, school leaders increasingly turn to external expertise for help, usually in the form of computerized calling systems or outside staffing agencies.

Automated calling systems usually are the first stop when it comes to outside help with substitute teacher shortages. Computerized calling systems speed the calling process and ensure that as many potential subs as possible are contacted. "We have used the computerized system for about 10 years now," says Danny DeGuire, who is responsible for handling San Antonio's staffing needs, "and even on days when the computer wheezes and burps, the schools are better off than when they had to find the substitutes on their own."