Valley City Times-Record

Area faces substitute teacher shortage

By Iain Woessner treditor@times-online.com

Manpower shortages have left Valley City Public Schools scrambling to find reliable substitute teachers to fill in for teaching or administrative staff.

“We’re really scrambling to fill in other administrators or teachers and there’s some days where it’s really difficult,” Troy Miller, principal of Jefferson Elementary, said. “Certain years have been better than others … and this time of the year … a few of (our retired teachers who usually sub) go south for the winter or just aren’t as available this time of the year.”

The problem isn’t just in Valley City – the whole state is suffering from a shortage of substitute teachers, and there’s been a lot of changes over the past two years to try and encourage more people to apply. For one, the Department of Education now allows students getting degrees in education to get their substitute license before they’ve even graduated. All you need now to qualify to be a sub is 48 credit hours.

“You don’t have to be completely done to get a sub license,” Miller said. “The last couple years through COVID the district has … been willing to pay for that sub license, the background check and all that … one of the hangups (to getting college students to) apply is that it costs money, that license, so we’ve been doing that the past couple years.”

Now the regulations have gone one step further – due to the shortage, anyone who has a college degree, or 48 college credit hours, even if they’re not majoring in an education field, could qualify as a substitute teacher.

“I don’t want that to come across as we don’t have qualified people in the classrooms … (but) that’s really the group we’re out there trying to get interested,” Miller said. “You don’t have to be a licensed teacher to sub in a classroom if you have 48 hours of credits.”

Background checks still apply, of course. Yet Miller said they want to encourage people to push past reservations or worries about how they’ll do at the job, particularly if they lack experience.

“I’ve seen that, we’ve had some individuals who were very nervous about it their first few times and they either decide ‘this isn’t for me’ or they’ve become very qualified subs,” Miller said. “The ability to work with children is number one.”

The school district has worked closely with Valley City State University, whose education program

is well-regarded, and they’ve had various systems in place to help bolster the district’s substitute teaching numbers.

We work with them very closely, we met with them last winter about our shortage,” Miller said. “That’s when we drew up the guidelines so that we could talk to their students about it in college.”

Still, all of these measures have still not solve the trouble, and the need for substitute teachers remains. Some days are better than others, but when short-term notice is all the district is afforded, it can be challenging to find people able and willing to fill in.

“It’s not every day, but there are certain days when all of a sudden, especially when illnesses are going around, when we might need three subs at Jefferson or Washington,”

Miller said. “And those are the days where we really suffer.”

If you qualify under the new requirements and are interested in substitute teaching, the school is willing to pay serious candidates for a day to come in and observe and learn the intricacies of teaching before they dive right in. Miller said that the elementary school’s layout also allows teachers to help each other should challenges arise.

Pay rate for substitute teachers is a flat rate, set at $120 a day for the high school and $140 a day for the elementary school. The reason for the differences in pay, according to VCPS Business Manager Tom Vanorny, is due to the differences in the work day. The high school work day isn’t as long as the elementary one.

Contact Valley City Public Schools at 701-845-0483 to learn more about how to apply to be a substitute teacher.

LOCAL

en-us

2022-01-14T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-14T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://times-online.pressreader.com/article/281573769057834

Alberta Newspaper Group