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

School Administrator, Jan, 2001 by Alexander Russo

Training also can help provide permanent teachers for the future. In Dumas, Texas, substitutes teach three days a week and attend college for two days, paid for by the district in exchange for a commitment to teach in the district for five years following certification.

Reducing Absenteeism

In the end, however, one of the most effective--and perhaps most difficult-ways of addressing the substitute teacher issue is to reduce the need for substitutes by reducing absences by teachers. "As an educator," says Nancy Slavin, manager of substitute services in Chicago, "I see a correlation between the days the teacher is in the classroom and the achievement of the students." As for substitutes, she adds, "no matter how great they are, they're still not the regular teacher."

The first step is raising awareness about staff attendance issues. Reporting faculty attendance rates, either internally or publicly, documents the problem and can spur needed changes. In Chicago, a new program to report faculty attendance internally was started in September. Three states-New Jersey, Ohio and Rhode Island-already require districts to publish staff attendance rates as part of mandatory school report cards, according to the 1999 edition of Education Week's "Quality Counts."

One popular method to reduce the need for substitutes is to coordinate and even cap staff development scheduling. After studying the effects of outside staff training on teacher absences, officials in Mesa, Ariz., decided to prohibit attendance at outside training events during the school day. "We were our own worst enemy," says Janice Ramirez, district administrator of the substitute teacher program. The change resulted in a first-year drop of 15 percent in teacher absences.

When administrators in Racine, Wis., realized that almost 30 teachers were out doing professional development on some days, especially Mondays and Fridays, the district set a ceiling of no more than 20 scheduled absences per day. Eventually, they lowered the cap to 12 and implemented an exemption process in which principals can request a leave of absence above the cap.

The 3,000-student Park City, Utah, schools have restricted professional development on Mondays and Fridays to address the problem. And administrators in Poudre, Colo., have built in limits to teacher absences on "variance" days into the contract. Based on data from the previous year, a list of these peak-demand days is published at the start of the school year, and requests for teacher absences for those days must bereviewed and approved by the district.

Setting limits on staff development schedules is not always easy, however, and in school districts with collective bargaining agreements in place, such a change may not even be allowed without adding professional days.

In the most serious situations involving teacher attendance, incentives may be warranted. In DeKalb County, Ga., the incentive program recognizes staff members who are absent fewer than four days a school year, with modest awards in the form of savings bonds and letters of recognition.