Substitute teachers in high demand across Sonoma County

Shirley Weyker, who has substitute-taught in the Sebastopol area since 2011, has never been as busy as she is this year.

Not only does she have work every day, if she wants it; she sometimes finds herself faced with as many as five teaching requests on the same day.

“Everyone is bombarding me,” she said.

Weyker is one of many substitutes who find themselves in high demand this school year as districts grapple with a sudden shortage of substitute teachers. Struggling to secure qualified replacements who can provide students a quality education when their regular teachers are absent, officials are taking a number of measures to lure more substitutes to their district.

Districts began to feel a lack of substitutes last school year, but the shortage intensified this fall, said Jeff Heller, assistant superintendent of human resources for the Sonoma County Office of Education.

His office oversees the countywide recruitment and hiring of substitutes. After would-be substitutes meet a number of basic requirements, such as getting fingerprinted and attending an orientation, they’re entered into software called Aesop, where they become visible to most school districts. In the past, when there were ample substitutes, districts were often highly selective about who they chose. But now, Heller said, “everyone is trying to get the same people.”

Starting in 2011-12, the county’s supply of new substitutes plummeted. That year, it received just 246 applicants compared to 326 the previous year. In 2012-13, new applicants dropped to 178. This year, since July, just 111 have applied, though the county expects more applicants during the year. The total pool of substitutes for the county is 2,476.

Jason Lea, assistant superintendent of human resources for Santa Rosa City Schools, said he has dealt with the shortage on a near daily basis since starting his position this fall.

He said the shortage is keenly felt as school officials try to increase teacher trainings to prepare them for teaching new Common Core standards. Without someone to cover their classes, teachers can’t attend.

“It impacts what training we can do, and it impacts instruction for our kids,” Lea said.

At Oak Grove Elementary School in Sebastopol, teachers this year struggled to find replacements to cover their classes as they administered one-on-one reading tests to students, Principal Paige Gardner said. That slowed down testing, which meant teachers had to rush to meet their fall deadline for reporting student grades.

“Right now, they’re scrambling to finish their report cards,” Gardner said. “It would be nice to have a bigger, more consistent pool of subs.”

Santa Rosa High School Secretary Marlene Callen, who coordinates substitutes for the school, must ask teachers to use their prep periods to fill in for an absent colleagues when she can’t find enough substitutes.

“Our saving grace is that we have these great teachers who are more than willing to jump in and help,” Callen said. “If it weren’t for that, I’d be sunk.”

The lack of substitutes isn’t unique to Sonoma County: School districts around the state and country have reported the same shortage, attributing it to a shrinking unemployment rate and an increase in teacher absenteeism brought on by more training days.

Locally, the shortage comes after a period of about a decade in which most districts hadn’t raised their substitute pay at all, Heller said. Some districts on the low end of the pay scale were offering just $90 a day, which equals about $12 an hour.

The low pay grade wasn’t as much of a problem during the recession. But with the county’s jobless rate dipping to 4.9 percent, substitute teaching is suddenly less attractive to people who have other job options, he said.

“To be honest with you, it’s a hard job. People are saying, ‘Maybe I can go to Target or down to the casino and make more an hour,’?” Heller said.

Also, he said, more teachers are retiring, with more than a third of teachers in Sonoma County currently eligible to retire. That creates full-time openings for new teachers who previously might have subbed for a year or two until a teaching position became available.

At the same time, far fewer people are training to become teachers in the first place. That’s perhaps a result of the fact that open teaching positions shriveled up during the recession, when districts cut budgets because of declining property tax revenues.

Fewer new teachers seeking job experience means fewer substitutes.

Many school districts have found themselves bidding for good substitutes, raising pay rates and offering other incentives to make the work more appealing.

The county’s largest district, Santa Rosa City Schools, this month increased its base daily pay rate from $100 to $115. It’s also starting to offer substitutes professional training, based on a survey that found they wanted more professional support.

Last spring, the district restored a 5 percent cut to substitutes’ pay made in 2011, but it simply wasn’t enough, Lea said. Santa Rosa’s rate of $100 a day was slightly below the county average of $102, Lea found.

After the board approved the pay increase, Lea said, the district’s pay floated to the top of the county spectrum, and the increase already has brought in a handful of new workers.

Also this fall, Bellevue Union School District increased its base pay from $100 to $115 in response to a shortage, Superintendent Alicia Henderson said. Like Santa Rosa, it has also started including substitutes in teacher training. Many will be present Monday at an all-day session on discipline, she said.

“We want them to feel welcome, to encourage them to come here with the knowledge there’s a lot of competition out there,” she said.

Petaluma City Schools this January increased its pay from $95 to $100, said Ron Everett, director of human resources for the district.

The Sonoma County Office of Education, or SCOE, is considering increasing its pay rate from $115 to $125 for the substitutes it uses to cover special education and other specialized classes, Heller said.

To address the broader countywide issue, his office has increased substitute orientations and is talking with various districts about teaming up to hire substitutes on a full-time basis, Heller said. SCOE would hire people, guaranteeing full-time work and health benefits, and then contract them out to districts as needed.

Meanwhile, districts are doing what they can to make substitutes feel welcome and appreciated.

Petaluma City Schools, along with some other districts, has started referring to them as “guest teachers.”

“I remind teachers they’re having a guest teacher for the day,” said Vicky Hill, a fourth-grade teacher at Oak Grove Elementary. She remembers being a substitute herself and dealing with the challenges of unruly students, such as a band session where all the kids switched instruments before class began.

That’s not the experience she wants her favorite substitutes, such as Shirley Weyker, to have, Hill said. “We want them to think well of us and have a good experience so they come back when they’re needed.”

Staff Writer Jamie Hansen blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach her at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.