Rogers to let company handle substitute teachers

ROGERS — Placement and payment of the School District’s substitute teachers will be managed by a private firm starting this fall, a move district officials believe will improve the rate at which teacher absences are covered.

The School Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a three-year contract with SubTeach USA, a Paragould-based company managing substitute teachers for most of the school districts in Arkansas.

Rogers was able to find substitutes for absent teachers 93.6 percent of the time last school year. Roger Hill, assistant superintendent for human resources, said he believes SubTeach will improve that rate by 2 or 3 percentage points.

SubTeach also pays substitute teachers weekly, whereas the School District pays its teachers only once per month. That will be a benefit to the teachers, Hill said.

When a school can’t find a substitute for a regular teacher, there’s a ripple effect on the rest of the school because of how staff members must stretch their duties, Hill said.

“We want to make sure we have a quality person

to outperform what we’ve been able to do.”

Outsourcing the management of substitute teachers is something Rogers has considered for several years. Hill said he has talked with officials in the Bentonville and Fayetteville districts, both of which have contracted with SubTeach for five years.

The district would have paid about $76,000 more last school year for substitute teachers if it had outsourced the service rather than doing it in house. Hill said he expects the cost to be similar this coming school year.

Six workers in the district’s central office who were involved to some degree in locating and paying substitutes now will have more time to do other work, officials said. Their time spent on substitute-related tasks amounted to 253 days of work, according to a district document.

“This helps us with a growing school district and a very lean central-office staff,” said Superintendent Marlin Berry. “The time we’re going to get back from some of these people

will be really beneficial.”

The district pays substitute teachers between $75 and $88 per day depending on their education level. That will not change with SubTeach managing them.

In other news from Tuesday’s meeting, the board unanimously approved a name for the district’s next new building: Fairview Elementary School.

The school, under construction at West Garrett and South Bellview roads, is scheduled to open in August 2019.

The name was chosen for its historic significance. The school is being built in an area where there once was a school and a school district called Fairview Elementary, which was established in 1879, Berry said. That was at a time when there were many small school districts across the county and state.

The Fairview district was incorporated into the Rogers School District in 1946. The new Fairview school isn’t in the same place as the original Fairview Elementary, but it does encompass some of the area that was Fairview, Berry said.

Tuesday was the first time the naming of the school was discussed at any length at a board meeting. Board members had little discussion of it.

“I think it’s a classy nod to the history of the area,” said Curtis Clements, board vice president. “I like it.”

District staff members have been floating various ideas for names since construction started last year. It was Ashley Siwiec, director of communications, who found an old newspaper article that talked about the Fairview district, Berry said.