Area districts struggling with substitute teacher shortage

HUMBOLDT — A shortage of substitute teachers within the USD 258 school district is becoming increasingly difficult to remedy, Superintendent Amber Wheeler said during February’s Board of Education meeting.

Wheeler hopes to deliver an in-person presentation at next month’s Kansas State Board of Education meeting in Topeka, advocating for the state board to extend its Temporary Emergency Authorized License (TEAL), which is set to expire on June 30. 

“I’m specifically going to talk about TEAL licenses, if they allow for public comments during that session,” she said. 

Amid a statewide substitute teacher shortage, the state approved the emergency declaration in Jan. 2022, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the primary cause for the substitute shortage. 

The declaration removed the previously mandatory requirement of 60 credit hours from a regionally accredited college or university in order for individuals to obtain an emergency substitute license.

Wheeler indicated that opponents of the TEAL licensure have argued that it lowers classroom standards and should not be renewed.

“I’m going to tell you that for our district, it has raised standards,” Wheeler said. “We are extremely happy with our TEAL substitutes and they have done an excellent job for us.” 

Another point of contention is that TEAL could lead to 18-year-olds teaching. Hires, however, are vetted and certified by the district itself. Hires are exclusive to that district and cannot use the license to teach elsewhere. 

“I don’t know that anybody has hired 18-year-olds off the street,” Wheeler said, noting that she herself was 19 when she began substitute teaching. “There are cases where that would be appropriate, but the important thing about the TEAL license is that districts get to make the decision. They get to say that this is a person we want in our schools, with our kids.”

Wheeler said that the district currently has 10 substitute teachers at its disposal. 

“We know that 10 is not enough,” she said.

The list is often thinned out due to time-off requests and personal leave, teacher meetings and professional development. Wheeler said that this has left the district with zero substitute teacher availability for an entire week on previous occasions. 

“So if someone calls in sick for the rest of the week, we don’t have a sub available,” she said. 

Wheeler said that the problem places added pressure on staff.

“We have teachers that will have to give up their planning time. Or we have to find somewhere in the building for those kids to be,” she said. “It’s not a good situation.”

Wheeler said that USD 258 employs three subs under TEAL.

“They’ve been phenomenal and are engaged and active in our community. One of them has been a president of our PTO (Parent-Techer Organization),” Wheeler said. “We’ve gotten really quality people from that. People that we know are going to be good with our kids — and that state is going to take away at the end of the school year.”

USD 101 Superintendent Troy Damman said that the Erie district is dealing with the same issue.

“We are in the same situation as a majority of school districts across the state and nation. Substitutes are very difficult to find,” he said. 

Damman said that USD 101 has not employed anyone with TEAL qualifications, and wasn’t sure about the number of subs available to the district.

“We’re always less than we want to be. We have a need for a sub and we’re not able to meet that demand; we’re always short a substitute,” Damman said.

Damman said that the district is limited in its ability to deploy subs.

“We have subs that only work in specific buildings. They may only work at the elementary school level or they may only work at the high school level,” he explained. “Not many of them are K-12 throughout the district.”

The district has addressed the issue by employing two full-time subs.

“Both of those individuals are subbing in the classrooms on a daily basis,” he said.

Damman expressed skepticism that the K-12 staffing crunch will soon improve. The number of statewide vacancies swelled to more than 1,600 in October 2022, an increase of approximately 350 from the prior year, with some of the vacancies accounting for non-teaching positions. While Damman mentioned a decrease in the overall teaching pool, retention past three years and pay are also driving the shortage.

“I don’t see it getting better, I see it getting worse,” he said. “I think it’s going to get more and more difficult to find substitutes every year, just like it is getting more and more difficult to hire teachers every year.”