Like most school districts, the substitute shortage has affected Elk River School District 728. Over the last three years, our district has struggled to fill all of its open jobs. In recent years, our district has struggled to fill all of its open jobs, which has created a few problems for us.
The Problems of Unfilled Absences
If we can’t get a substitute to fill an absence, we have to parcel out the students in a variety of ways to other teachers who are on the job. Some teachers have had to give up their prep hour to cover a class. In the elementary schools, we sometimes have had to move kids into other classrooms, with teachers doubling up. When we do that, our teachers’ contract requires that we double their pay, too. So we were seeing a huge cost increase, twice as much as it cost us for subs.
Shuffling students had other potential consequences that we were concerned about, too:
- Quality of learning was likely diminished on those days.
- Having underprepared teachers who were frustrated about doubling up
- Students unfamiliar with the teacher they had
- Overcrowding in the classroom.
Obviously, something needed to be done. The more I looked at it, the more I realized that the problem wasn’t that we didn’t have enough subs on our call list. The issue was getting subs that are on the list to say “yes” to us. We were making declarations about the reason for our problem while sitting here in the district office — and no one had actually asked a substitute. We surveyed our substitutes to learn more about subbing habits, preferences, and issues.
The Survey & What We Learned
We launched a survey electronically to our entire substitute list using Survey Monkey. In the survey, we asked them questions like: How long have you been substituting? At what districts? Which districts do you sub for most? Are there certain teachers or certain shifts you prefer? Would you choose to accept a job at another district over ours? Why?
We had a great response to the survey — 60% of our substitutes participated. From the results, we determined four primary factors that affected our substitutes’ motivation to work in our district.
1. We Needed to Adjust Our Pay Rate & Schedule Structure
We had a two-tiered pay rate schedule in which a substitute could reach the next pay rate within a given school year if they worked 20 full days. However, they’d have to start all over each school year. Naturally, most substitutes said they preferred to work in districts where a pay increase rolled into the following school year. As a solution, we raised our rates, added a third tier, and allowed substitutes — provided that their quality of service remained high — to roll over a pay rate increase from year to year.
2. We Needed to Train Subs on Internal Curriculum and Technology
We found that some substitutes felt unequipped or unprepared for certain educational technologies they found in the classroom, so we created a voluntary training program to help them feel more confident in the classroom.
3. We Needed to Improve Our Communication & Expectations
We found that our substitutes felt a lack of clarity in their roles, especially through:
- Lapses in communication with the district and school staff at different times.
- Little to no feedback on their performance, which makes it difficult to learn and improve.
- Unknowns about what to expect or what is expected of them on a given day.
We want to engage and appreciate our substitutes, and we want them to know what we expect. To curtail some of the issues substitutes are experiencing, we’re working to develop a standard process for them to be onboarded and trained more fully. We’re also defining, documenting and implementing a standard process for providing feedback to substitutes on their performance. We don’t just want to hear about when a substitute trips up; we want to provide encouragement based on positive feedback, and we want to know how well we’re accommodating them.
4. We Needed To Give More Advance Notice
Finally, our substitutes reported that they want notice further in advance for available jobs. Using Frontline Absence & Time, we allow our different buildings and teachers to keep a list of preferred substitutes to work in their classrooms, based on substitute knowledge and past performance. However, we realized that we had made the window of time that other substitutes could see jobs far too small. By the time jobs became visible to them, they had already accepted jobs in other districts.
Now, we still allow our teachers to keep a preferred substitute list, but only for a very limited window of time. We encourage them to prearrange a job if they really need a specific substitute, and we now keep our visibility for all substitutes as open as possible, so that substitutes can see and accept our jobs before making other plans.
Conclusion
If your district is struggling to attract substitutes, make sure you understand your population. Track absence metrics and build reports that show which substitutes are or aren’t working, and what types of jobs they’re accepting, so you can get a better understanding of your district and what substitutes are expecting. If done properly with the right tools, the result will benefit everyone — supervised classrooms at the district and substitutes who are happy and prepared for their work.