The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Schools struggle with shortage of substitutes
If Erin Daly is sick or needs someone to cover her elementary school class in Danbury, generally a substitute will fill in.
But in the event the district can’t find a sub — a growing problem around the state — she might have to split her students between other classes, regardless of the subject or grade.
This disrupts a student’s learning and is challenging for the classroom teacher, she says.
“We’ve had an ongoing problem for several years that has been at crisislevel at times,” said Daly, who is also the union president for Danbury teachers.
She said Danbury has done some things in the past year to help attract more substitutes, including increasing pay and
firm to help recruit and fill vacancies. So she said it’s gotten a little better — but there are still shortages, especially in the winter when people are sick.
Districts throughout the area are using similar methods to boost their sub pools, which have been dipping for the past several years making it harder to find people to fill in when teachers, paraprofessionals, nurses and custodians are out.
“We were in the same position as probably every other district in the state and the nation is with finding substitutes,” said Ellamae Baldelli, New Milford Schools’ human resources director.
New Fairfield Superintendent Pat Cosentino said she’s unable to fill a vacancy about two or three times a week.
Students are always supervised and if a substitute can’t be found it could mean an administrator is filling in, or another teacher is using their prep period to cover a class at the middle or high school levels.
“You can’t have a classroom with 25 kids and no teacher for the day,” Baldelli said. “You’ve got to make that work, so you pull from other places in the building.”
Why it’s happening
Most districts started seeing the shortage several years ago, about when the economy started to rebound and more of their subs were finding fulltime jobs.
“It’s hard to hold on to them,” Cosentino said, adding that good subs who are also certified teachers generally become long-term subs or full-time teachers.
The low unemployment rate is a big factor for the problem because people aren’t looking for the the per diem work. The unemployment rate in the Danbury area ranges from 2.4 percent in Ridgefield to 3 percent in New Milford.
People are also opting for higher paying jobs and others aren’t able to commit the whole day.
“Getting quality subs is tough,” said Terri Cavanaugh, Brookfield schools’ human resources director.
Cosentino, who also saw this problem as the Region 12 superintendent, said fewer people in Connecticut and not as many people going into education might also be a reason.
Daly said it’s also easier for potential substitutes to decline jobs online rather than over the phone when someone from the district would call years ago.
Districts across the state are trying to build their substitute pools in a variety of ways.
Contracting with an outside firm to help recruit and fill vacancies is gaining popularity. Brookfield signed a contract with ESS, a national educational staffing firm, this month and New Milford has used the firm since 2017.
Cavanaugh said the firm was appealing because it offers things the schools can’t, such as training, benefits, five days of work a week and incentives for hard to fill positions.
“It really should be cost neutral,” she said.
Baldelli said the subs are still earning the same amount of money, though the district is paying a little more to cover part of the company’s services.
The general daily rate in the Danbury area is $90 or $95 a day for a teacher sub, with the rates increasing based on the amount of time they are working and certification.
Paraprofessionals make less but also only need a high school degree or GED, while teacher subs must have at least a bachelor’s degree.
In New Milford the extra cost has ranged from $12.71 on top of the sub’s pay for a half-day paraprofessional, to nearly $38 more for a full-day, long-term sub.
She said she appreciates the partnership, which has brought the fill rate from the 70s back up to around 80 percent. They were able to gain about 25 teachers and 10 or so paraprofessionals in the first year alone.
They’ve also improved their custodial and nursing numbers, which were the most depleted.
“At one point we had no one in the pool,” Baldelli said. “Nurses would have to do their own recruiting.”
Baldelli said she really appreciates the recruiting component offered through ESS to build the pool because her department isn’t able to attend the job fairs and other events to make those connections.
“Being a small office here, there’s not enough resources to go recruiting,” she said.
Danbury has also started using an outside firm to bring people in. Flyers calling for more applicants were posted throughout Danbury last year and remain on the schools’ homepage.
New Fairfield has asked for subs in its newsletters and at school board meetings. Administrators have also encouraged teachers to ask people they know and college students home on breaks to sub.
The district also sped up the process to become one and started inviting subs to district training sessions. Cosentino said they met with an outside firm to help, but isn’t sure if the district will ultimately go with them.
In the meantime, they’re trying to not plan professional development and field trips for the same time to reduce the burden.
Bethel isn’t considering an outside firm yet and has instead found success by turning to its parents.
“We’ve tried to encourage parents and stay at home moms that meet the requirements,” Bethel Superintendent Christine Carver said. “It puts them on their children’s schedules.”
Increasing pay
Daly said the low pay is one of the biggest hurdles to attracting more people, especially for an urban district like Danbury.
She said all of the districts in the area tend to pay the same, but the perception of work is not equal. People view subbing in the suburban districts as easier than the city schools and so will tend to go for those schools if it comes down to that or a city option.
Both Danbury and Bethel have slightly increased their fees in the past year to help.
Carver said Bethel just increased its rate by $5 in December to $90 to become more competitive because they started to see a downturn in subs at the beginning of the year.
Bethel averages a 90 percent fill rate, which is the target for several area districts, and struggles more with meeting the demand when there is professional development, rather than a daily basis.
Daly said she’s encouraged by the progress so far and cooperation between the union and administrators, but said there is more to do.
“I think there’s room for improvement,” Daly said. “I wouldn’t be an educator if I didn’t see a chance for reflection and growth.”