Is There a Substitute Teacher Shortage Crisis?

Across the country, districts nationwide have noticed an issue this school year in recent school years: a substitute teacher shortage.

Theories circulate about why fill rates and sub shortages are a bigger issue in recent years:

• Districts limiting substitute hours for because of the Affordable Care Act
• An improving economy and more competitive job market
• Increased teacher absenteeism
• Effects of the pandemic on applications to schools

But what’s the real reason? 

We dug into data from Frontline Absence & Time and other sources. While we found that there is indeed a substitute teacher shortage, we looked into what’s really causing it — and what’s not — to find real answers and solutions for school districts.

What’s Not Causing the Substitute Teacher Shortage

1. Districts Limiting Substitute Hours because of the Affordable Care Act

Many districts are concerned about the Affordable Care Act — and the potential that substitute teachers, who’ve never previously qualified for benefits, could become eligible under the new law. Out of concern for the financial impact this could have, some districts have already taken the precaution to limit the number of hours substitutes can work. The most common is limiting substitutes to no more than 30 hours per week.

Not long after, the media, districts and teachers alike began to wonder if fill rates for teacher absences would take a hit from this precaution. Surprisingly, the data from Frontline Absence & Time shows that, on average, districts limiting substitute hours per week have identical fill rates to those not limiting hours.

Most likely, districts generally in reality have very few substitutes who routinely work more than 30 hours a week. Of course, the full impact of the law has yet to be seen and the number above is based on an average. Districts should monitor their own data carefully and make informed decisions about whether or not to limit hours for substitutes.

2. There Are Too Many “Inactive” Substitutes

Another theory is that districts with a higher percentage of inactive substitutes in their sub pool experience lower fill rates. It turns out that, at least for districts using a web-based sub-calling system, this is not a major factor.

Our data shows that even districts with a large percentage of inactive subs (those working less than 1 time per month) have similar fill rates to those with a lower percentage of inactive subs. Most likely, this result is because the vast majority of absences are filled by proactive substitutes accepting jobs online or the district assigning a specific sub.

Also, Importantly, this result may be vastly different in a district manually calling substitutes, where the sub-caller is wasting time every time he or she contacts a substitute who doesn’t want to work.

Either way, best practices do still recommend taking the time at least annually to remove substitutes from the list who no longer intend to work. The effect on fill rates varies for each district, and a cleaner pool of active subs will allow you to accurately report on your sub to teacher ratio and other fill rate-related data.

What Is Contributing to a Substitute Teacher Shortage 

1. Economic Improvement and a Lower Unemployment Rate

While a lower unemployment rate is good news for the nation, this improvement has had some impact on the number of substitutes available for school districts. As the economy improves, more potential substitutes — including new college graduates — are taking full-time teaching jobs or working in other fields.

Our data, as well as data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, show that as the unemployment rate is steadily decreases, the substitute-to-teacher ratio also decreases.

Since 2011, the unemployment rate has gone down from 8.4% to the current 7.2%. Consequently, the sub-to-teacher ratio has decreased from 1 sub for every 3.22 teachers in 2011 to 1 sub for every 5.98 teachers so far this school year.

The substitute to teacher ratio has a direct impact on fill rates. Data shows that the average fill rates stay at 90% when districts have a 1:3 ratio, but fill rates slip to an 89% average when the sub to teacher ratio approaches 1:6.

2. Increased Teacher Absenteeism

While also not a new issue, districts should not overlook the effect of increased teacher absenteeism on the shortage of substitute teachers. Teacher absenteeism rates have definitely increased — often due to increased professional development at the district. If you’re looking ahead to next year’s professional development (PD) programming, consider planning it with teachers’ time out of the classroom in mind. Additionally, with the pandemic changing perceptions around staying home when feeling under-the-weather, teachers may be calling out at higher than pre-pandemic rates. In some cases, absenteeism is also up due to teachers using up days that they will otherwise lose.

What Your District Can Do About Substitute Teacher Shortage

1. Understand Your District’s Data

The #1 thing districts should do is collect and analyze their own data to drive decisions. Districts can be looking at information like:

• Substitute pool: What is your districts ratio of total substitute to teachers?
• Fill rates: What are your best and worst fill rates when you consider school location and skills required?
• Teacher absenteeism: What are your highest absentee days per week? What role is PD playing?

Austin ISD is a perfect example — they used the real-time dashboard and reporting tool in Frontline Absence & Time to determine that they needed to double the size of their substitute pool. The online tools and resulting changes they made allowed them to hit 100% fill rates.

2. Improve the Substitute Hiring Process

For some districts, recruiting and hiring substitutes requires a huge amount of time and effort. One big potential for improvement is to integrate your absence and substitute management system with payroll.

Before they integrated their systems, the personnel at Garland ISD were spending three days every six weeks hand-keying information for new substitutes into payroll and their substitute management system. The Substitute Office Manager said substitutes often had to wait a week or more before they could start working as the office entered all their information.

Now that they integrated their systems, substitutes can begin work immediately after orientation — and the office saved hours of manual entry.

3. Make Substitute Teaching More Attractive

Many districts are increasing substitute pay to attract more substitutes and compete for the best substitutes. Some districts are increasing pay only for harder-to-fill positions, like special education. If this is not an option, oOther districts are offering incentives, such as free or discounted tickets to school events or even discounts in partnership with local businesses.

Keep communication with substitutes frequent and positive. You can use tools like the Letter Writer in Frontline Absence & Time to communicate more frequently with all of your substitutes, whether it’s providing reminders and tips or asking for feedback.

4. Manage District-Wide Absenteeism

Last but not least, see what measure you can take to reduce the time teachers are out of the classroom, especially for professional development.

Careful management of the district calendar — and coordination with building-level administration — can help avoid excessive absenteeism. Holland Public Schools in Michigan, for example, started moving their teacher training to specific in-service days and after-school sessions to minimize teacher absences.

“It’s about looking at the calendar and time differently,” the superintendent said. “I would much rather have our teachers in front of them than a guest teacher.”

Try these approaches to curb the substitute teacher shortage in your district, and see how Frontline Absence & Time can help.