Frontline Blog

Teachers and other educational employees often have to be absent — for illness, jury duty or any number of personal reasons. But do you know how often employees are pulled out of their work for absences driven by your school or district?

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. This has resulted in a lot of problems. 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, and those teachers would have to double up. When we do that, our teachers' contract requires that we double up their pay. So we were seeing a huge cost increase, twice as much as it cost us for subs.

The lack of substitutes has continued to be a hot topic throughout 2014 and into this current school year. Dozens of news articles document the struggle districts have been facing since 2013 with declining fill rates and a lack of substitutes.

Across the country, districts nationwide have noticed an issue this school year: a substitute teacher shortage. In fact, in a recent survey by STEDI.org, nearly 50% of respondents said they are facing a somewhat or very severe shortage of substitutes.

Billions spent on substitutes. Up to 50% teacher absenteeism in Rhode Island. Reduced student achievement. Ever since the media got a hold of newly released data on teacher absenteeism, these kinds of statements are prompting raised eyebrows and tough questions from the public.  But is it the whole story? And how do districts need to respond?