LOW-INCOME STUDENTS HURT BY SUBSTITUTE TEACHER SHORTAGE
California schools with large numbers of high-needs students — low-income, English learners and foster youth — have always struggled to find substitute teachers, but this year's COVID-19 omicron surge brought them to a breaking point.
The staffing crisis forced school administrators to find alternatives for full-day substitutes, such as math and reading coaches or a rotating cast of office staff, disrupting instruction for students who already may have been lagging academically. While school officials statewide worry about the possibility of another surge, they know teacher shortages are a constant reality, prompting one California legislator to propose funding to attract more substitutes.
CalMatters analyzed data from the state's seven largest urban school districts for January to determine where the substitute teacher shortage was most acute. The data shows that on average, the schools with the most high-needs students filled about 42% of their teacher absences with substitutes. The schools with the fewest high-needs students found subs for 63% of teacher absences.
But the disparities varied across the districts. For example, at Los Angeles Unified, schools with the most low-income students found substitutes for 23% of absent teachers. Those with the fewest low-income students found substitutes for 45%. At Fresno Unified, substitutes filled about 68% of absences at the schools with the most high-needs students, while they filled 85% at the schools with the fewest high-needs students.
“Unfortunately that doesn't surprise me,” said Tara Kini, director of state policy at the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit education research organization. “It reflects long-standing patterns for both subs and permanent teachers.”
According to a 2021 study by the Learning Policy Institute, the substitute teacher shortage exposed and strained an underlying teacher shortage during the pandemic. Because some schools rely on shortand long-term substitutes to fill vacant teaching positions, a sub shortage means an even bigger disruption for schools that struggle to hire full-time teachers. And schools in low-income communities have always had a harder time hiring, a previous study found.
Officials at both Los Angeles and San Diego Unified, the state's largest districts, said they had plenty of substitutes before the pandemic. Ileana Davalos, who oversees human resources at the Los Angeles district, said she “rarely had an unfilled absence.” Yet as California's largest district, it faced the same crisis as others did during the omicron surge.
“When we hire you as a substitute, you pick the area that you want to work in,” Davalos said. “But during omicron we put out calls to everybody.”
Officials at many school districts said both substitute and full-time teacher shortages are not just a pandemic problem. Schools serving more low-income families have always been harder to staff, they say.
At Sacramento City Unified, teachers held an eightday strike in late March to protest staffing shortages. While close to 70% of the district's students qualify for free or reduced-price meals — the definition of low-income — the schools with fewer of those students had an easier time finding subs in January.
Ultimately, the teachers' union — the Sacramento City Teachers Association — was able to get a 25% raise for subs, boosting their pay to about $280 a day. But in the event of another surge in COVID-19 cases, teachers union president David Fisher
said the same schools will again be hit the hardest.
“It's not that different from the teacher shortage,” Fisher said. “It affects the most vulnerable districts and the most vulnerable schools. These schools have the most turnover and the most difficulty attracting subs.”
When teachers are absent, schools post their openings and substitutes choose which ones they want to accept. Some substitute teachers say they have personal preferences for certain schools and sometimes avoid low-income communities.
District administrators say it's not always a matter of choice. Those communities with large percentages of high-needs students had disproportionately higher case rates during the omicron surge, and substitutes who live in those neighborhoods might not have been able to work. Others say it really is harder for subs to work in low-income schools where more students are experiencing homelessness and food insecurity.
“There's a lot going on in those classrooms,” said Nathalie Hrizi, the vice president of substitutes for the San Francisco Unified teachers union who is also running for California state insurance commissioner. “The substitutes are highly impacted by that because they don't have the relationships that education is built around.”
San Francisco Unified tried to address these inequities with mixed results. A San Francisco ballot measure passed in 2008 levied a local parcel tax that helped fund benefits and higher pay for substitutes who work for certain highneeds schools.
Those subs make $241 a day compared to the standard rate of $225 a day for their first 10 days of work. Their pay is then bumped to $271 a day. But the 23 schools selected for the program on average filled less than 30% of their teacher absences with substitutes during the January surge. Districtwide, schools on average filled 45% of their teacher absences.
No San Francisco Unified officials would be interviewed, but district spokesperson Laura Dudnick said the district is actively recruiting subs and that many districts in the region are facing a “dire substitute shortage.”
Cindy Diaz, a substitute at Long Beach Unified, said subs worry about their personal safety working in neighborhoods that have reputations for violent crime. She said some subs who don't speak Spanish will avoid schools with high numbers of English learners.
“It's about the unknown,” she said. “Is it a safe area for me to park? Am I going to need to worry about my personal safety? Am I going to have a problem with discipline?”
While some schools are overlooked by subs, subs themselves often feel underappreciated.