The COVID substitute teacher shortage caused a lot of difficulties for administrators in finding substitutes for the absent teachers. However, as of now, this shortage has abated.
PUSD Director of Human Resources Ricardo Cecena is in charge of overseeing and handling the hiring, recruiting, and processing of all the substitutes who work in the district.
“I started as a substitute teacher, and that’s how I got into education,” Cecena said. “Substitute teaching is very important. Teachers get sick, and we have to make sure we have enough subs to support and continue the learning.”
Cecena said that the pandemic started the noticeable substitute teacher shortage.
“COVID was very challenging because we had many of our substitute teachers hold off from subbing,” Cecena said. “We had a limited number of substitutes who were willing to come in and work during that time, for both safety and personal reasons.”
During her first year as Assistant Principal during the 2021-2022 school year, Shannon Parker said that she remembers being shocked by the daily disruption that the substitute teacher shortage caused during the first year back from lockdown.
“There’s a trickle-down effect,” Parker said. “It impacts everybody within the system, especially with our workload that gets pushed back.”
School Administrative Specialist Ester Berry is in charge of the substitute teachers. She said that the first year back was the hardest for teachers, substitutes, and administration.
“Every day was different,” Berry said. “We never knew how many absences we would have on any given day, so there was a lot of juggling, trying to fill vacancies.”
Cecena’s department noticed, once schools opened back up, that the shortage needed to be addressed immediately.
“Right away we started to hear reports from school sites that sub positions weren’t being filled,” Cecena said. “[The fill rates] fluctuated from 70–80%.”
About a year and a half after the reopening of schools, Cecena said the district started to see the substitute teacher fill rate improve because of changes PUSD implemented.
“We [temporarily] instituted site-assigned substitutes who would be there to fill the [teacher] absences,” Cecena said. “This new institution really helped us, as we assigned one substitute per site.”
However, though it may have helped the district overall, the administrators of Westview still felt the pressure of having to fill in for absent teachers and substitutes.
“Us three assistant principals were trying to juggle over the course of a day who was going to sub what classroom,” Parker said. “This happened weekly.”
A lot of administrators, as well as directors from the PUSD headquarters, had to take time out from their own work to make sure the students were supervised.
As the 2021-22 school year turned into 2022-23, PUSD saw a significant increase in the fill rate. Cecena said that PUSD’s substitute system can now accommodate the need for substitutes, and site-assigned substitute positions were no longer needed.
“We are seeing that we have a large number of subs in the pool,” Cecena said. “A part of that has to do with the fact that the average daily rate substitutes receive in SD County is $196 while we pay our subs $205 for a full day.”
After the increase in substitute teachers, Cecena said PUSD’s goal is to now maintain the influx of substitutes, working to maintain the current 98% average fill-rate.
“The increase in substitute availability and quality has been a huge relief for our sites,” Cecena said. “It’s also been a huge support for school administrators because they don’t have to worry about not being able to find a substitute.”
Both Parker and Berry said that last school year and this school year, they have not had to fill in for teachers at all.
“I learned that 300+ substitutes were hired as of this school year,” Berry said. “Since the beginning of the school year, it has been rare that I have had a struggle filling in positions.”
