With kids returning to classrooms across the country, some school districts are struggling to find substitute teachers to cover for regular teachers who need a day off.
The shortage of teachers has caused some schools to create new strategies for ensuring students have a teacher for the day. This includes raising pay and asking parents to get licensed and fill in.
Teacher shortages are not a new phenomenon, as schools struggled to fill spots long before the pandemic started.
However, school leaders think the issue has worsened with retired teachers who often worked as substitute teachers, not wanting to return to the classroom, the Star Tribune reported.
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In Minnesota, the issue is being handled by classrooms being combined or administrators and other staff stepping in to fill holes when needed.
In Florida, the Palm Beach County School District has 348 vacant teaching jobs, up from 221 in 2020, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
In years past, the district has been able to fill at least 87% of vacant roles with substitute teachers, but this year continues to be a different story. This school year, the district has only placed substitutes in about 69% of those vacant jobs.
With the average substitute teacher making $14 an hour, according to ZipRecruiter, many have looked elsewhere as other part-time jobs offer more money and more regular hours.
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For example, Starbucks and Costco recently announced that they will be bumping their employees' pay to $17 an hour.
The Philadelphia School District recently announced a daily bonus for substitute teachers in an effort to double its number of subs.
Through next April, substitute teachers, librarians, and counselors will get $50 more each day. Nurses who sub will receive an extra $100 a day.
"This is a response directly aimed at the wage and bonus structure to entice individuals that maybe had previous experience to come back into the classroom," Brad Beckner, the northeast regional vice president of operations for Kelly Education, said. Kelly Education provides substitutes for the Philadelphia School District.
To make the issue more complex, no tracking system monitors unfilled requests for short-term subs or teacher absences, Alex Liuzzi told the Tribune. Because of this, it is not clear how big the issue actually is.
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