Substitute Teachers Valued at AHS

• January 13, 2022

Sonja Kruecker-Green

CORRESPONDENT

Across the United States, chaos has, yet again, hit the classrooms this school year: some classes were canceled for thousands of students in Seattle and Denver in November, and several other school districts have followed suit. Meanwhile, students elsewhere have remained at school without proper instruction.  

 What is behind this chaos? The root of the problem can be found in staff shortages, and a lack of substitutes to fill in for absent teachers. 

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for substitute teachers across the nation has been overwhelmingly high, yet the supply has remained significantly low. Many districts have had to resort to desperate measures to find people willing to fill in for absent teachers. 

The substitute teacher situation in the Andover Public School District (APS) has not been dire despite the nationwide shortage. 

According to Andover High School Principal Caitlin Brown, “we do have a lot of teachers that are out, and it’s been harder to fill those positions, or even [find] just like a long-term substitute for when someone is out for a short period of time or sick.” However, this year, the school has more per diem and full time substitutes compared to last year during the hybrid learning model.

The problem lies in the fact that many full-time teachers have had to be absent, sometimes for extended periods of time, and although the substitute pool is large, it isn’t enough to cover the many longer-term absences. 

In some states, the full-time teacher shortage has been extreme. A combination of low pay and challenging working conditions, especially in the context of COVID, has led many teachers to retire early. This is especially true in states that have been less likely to support mask mandates, and where the COVID vaccination rate is lower than the national average. 

According to New York Times reporting, in Arizona, nearly 1400 teachers left their jobs within the first couple of months of the school year. Likewise, according to Florida Education Association president, Andrew Spar, the school year in Florida began with 5000 teacher vacancies. ​​

Recently, many districts made the announcement that one day of each school week would become a “remote-school day”, in an effort to prevent teacher burnout. The hope was that this would deter more teachers from resigning, and therefore schools might avoid the need for more substitutes.

Even in the nearby town of Lowell, the pool of substitutes remains alarmingly small despite the increase in wages taken effect there in October. In Lowell, changes to the academic calendar have had to be made, converting the last day of school before the holiday break into a half-day, thus encouraging teachers to be in school.  

Here in Andover, some attempt has been made to make the substitute teacher salary more competitive with some nearby communities. The current minimum wage in Massachusetts is $13.50 and is set to increase to $14.25 in January 2022. Many substitute teachers in Andover get $75 a day. This means that if they are teaching a full 6 ½  hour day at $75 a day, they have been earning less than the minimum wage.

At a recent APS School Committee meeting on December 2, it was unanimously voted to revise the current substitute rates. More specifically, the daily substitute rate was raised from $75 to $85 per day; the daily rate for substitutes who have at least a bachelor degree was $85 and is set to be raised to $100 per day; the daily rate for substitutes who are retired teachers was $105, and will now be raised to $115 per day. These rate changes for short-term substitutes are set to take effect on January 3, 2022.  

Despite the number of short-term substitutes that APS has managed to acquire, there are still substitute position openings that are harder to fill: According to Principal Brown, finding longer-term substitutes for a specific subject or class has proved to be quite a challenging task. This likely stems from the major difference in the necessary background for a short-term versus a long-term substitute.

While a short-term substitute needs only to have graduated high school, in the case of a long-term substitute, “We’d like you to be licensed in the field that you are subbing for, so it is a little bit harder to find, there’s not enough people available to choose from,” Ms. Brown said.  

According to School Committee member, Shannon Scully, the longer-term substitute pay is commensurate with experience. The teacher Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) allows the district to employ a “permanent substitute” – defined by at least 10 consecutive days of substitute service – at a daily rate between $280 and $307.  

With COVID cases surging in Massachusetts and the threat of a new and more aggressively transmissible variant – Omicron – APS may need to prepare for the possibility of more teacher absences, and thus the need for more substitutes; new approaches to attracting substitute teachers and dealing with staff shortages may become necessary in the future.