750+ substitute openings in APS alone

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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This is such a specific question that it's suspicious. Why are you asking?


With such an acute sub shortage. are there ways to relieve pressure? Could temporarily scaling back required PD during school hours reduce the demand for subs? It could give teachers a break temporarily as well given all the other things they're juggling. But maybe APS already does this, which was what the question related to. If PD is scheduled but it can be adjusted depending on sub availability, that's another way to relieve pressure too.
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What on earth makes you think there is all this PD going on during regular school hours? There simply isn't. This is a red herring.
Some ways to resolve the problem:
--have the Syphax staff help out
--have parents, community members, and local business folks sign up to be subs

Jay Mathews had a column a while back where he highlighted one sub's assignments. (Yes, a sample size of one is just that). But it was remarkable how many assignments were due to increased time demands being placed on teachers to juggle a range of requirements from planning, admin meetings, etc. Curious if this applies here as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/substitute-teachers-use-less/2021/08/22/ff3d4946-0031-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html

With the sub shortage persisting unfortunately, any way to decrease sub pressure while simultaneously lifting additional demands on teachers could be helpful. Of course, trying to get more community members to sign up would be best.

I’m a classroom based assistant. In the last 5 years I can think of one time my lead teacher was out for PD for more than 1 hour. You may be lumping things like IEP meetings in with that, those are not optional. In my experience at the elementary level those are the easiest things to get subs for. Meetings are all scheduled on two days and we’ve always had regulars for that, people tend to like the meeting floater jobs. (There is a large edmentum rollout this year that might drive up the PD numbers but at least at elementary level it hasn’t been an issue for my teams)

Thanks, interesting to know. Has anyone looked at the overall sources of sub demand? In an ideal world, we'd have enough subs so it wouldn't matter. But given the current shortages are so great & persistent, are there ways to cut back on demand that could also benefit teachers by lightening their non-classroom responsibilities? Of course, teacher sick and personal days are a given. IEP as you note are mandatory. Maybe there's not a lot beyond that that can be scaled back. But it could be good to look at the data just in case. It might also provide a visible illustration of the myriad of responsibilities we've asked teachers to shoulder that may be contributing to stress and burnout. Of course, the best option is to continue with vigorous efforts to boost the sub supply.

At least one major cause of a vacancy is a teacher shortage. I’m not sure if that’s an easier problem to solve than the substitute shortage, but as a matter of quality education, that would be the better place to start.

Yes! Lots of my stable of subs have been hired as teachers or assistants. I’m happy for them, bummed for me. If you want a full time position in a school right now it’s yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is 100% the fault of APS. Many principals are already reaching out to the community, and then when you go to apply to become a substitute all excited to help out with the crisis, you run into a bureaucratic mess. My principal sent out an email begging for subs a few weeks before school started, I submitted by application a week later, and I was hired in November. All this for the privilege of dealing with difficult kids all day for $18 an hour.

I do very much enjoy substituting and I am happy to help, but I can only do it because im a privileged SAHM with kids in school full time who happens to have a passion for education. If they paid a lot more and were able to get the ball rolling at HR they wouldn’t leave teachers scrambling. (Of course I think they first need to pay teachers a lot more so I dunno how that would work out).

Another thing is that they haven’t done a good job of letting the public know that school-based subs (who come to school every day and just cover for whoever needs it) get benefits. If I didn’t have a chronic illness that makes it so I can’t work every day I would gun for that job since DH is self employed and our health insurance is ridiculously expensive.

I did not know that SBS get benefits! Is that new?

School based subs do get benefits, but they're still paid at $18.25/hour.

I'd much rather have the flexibility of subbing whenever you want (because as a SBS you WILL be needed every day, often juggling many different classrooms in a single day), or a long term sub for higher pay but no benefits.

All in all, it's a complete mess. This time last year, there were like 200-300 advance notice sub openings. This morning it's over 800.

A few years ago I was asking our school based sub why she didn’t want to make more money as an assistant, and it was because she could actually take time off whenever she needed to as a school-based sub. She didn’t get paid for the days off but it offered flexibility

A friend of mine was a SBS for several years. She didn't do it for the money, but wanted access to the benefits since her spouse was self-employed and hours that matched her kids' schedules. It gave them the flexibility for her to cover any house/kid issues and gave them access to group health insurance. The SBS doesn't get to chose jobs, however, like the per-diem sub. So, if there is a class that is never gets picked up (sometimes for good reason), she would always get that class.

[Anonymous]

Syphax really should be covering these openings. I wish the news would make this more public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

HR person in charge of subs is completely incompetent. Doesn't return phone calls or emails, doesn’t contact applicants to follow up, doesn’t inform potential subs about required orientation. You literally have to hound her and maybe even get someone to intervene on your behalf in order to be placed in the sub system. It's completely ridiculous and frustrating!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

HR person in charge of subs is completely incompetent. Doesn't return phone calls or emails, doesn’t contact applicants to follow up, doesn’t inform potential subs about required orientation. You literally have to hound her and maybe even get someone to intervene on your behalf in order to be placed in the sub system. It's completely ridiculous and frustrating!

+100

I was a LTS, and my payroll got messed up somehow, reverting to the regular sub pay instead of LTS - I was shortchanged about $700. The sub coordinator woman at Syphax, is supposed to be my go-to contact person for this. For over 2 weeks she never responded to any emails about it. I ended up contacting as many other people as I could to try and get it resolved (I did, eventually). But the Sub coordinator is useless. Completely non-responsive. In the rare event that she sends out mass emails to subs, it's often <24 hours before some deadline and has a bad link. She's useless.

[Anonymous]

Full-time teacher positions are there for anyone (qualified) who wants one, so that winnows the sub pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

HR person in charge of subs is completely incompetent. Doesn't return phone calls or emails, doesn’t contact applicants to follow up, doesn’t inform potential subs about required orientation. You literally have to hound her and maybe even get someone to intervene on your behalf in order to be placed in the sub system. It's completely ridiculous and frustrating!

please make a public comment about this before the school board!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

HR person in charge of subs is completely incompetent. Doesn't return phone calls or emails, doesn’t contact applicants to follow up, doesn’t inform potential subs about required orientation. You literally have to hound her and maybe even get someone to intervene on your behalf in order to be placed in the sub system. It's completely ridiculous and frustrating!

please make a public comment about this before the school board!!!

They just gave her two extra weeks of paid vacation, too. Good job, APS.

[Anonymous]

The NoVa community will probably never fix this by getting parents, business leaders to come in as subs. This area is too Type A, too VIP, too workaholic. Parents have kids later in life and except for Big Law and the like, both spouses have careers and jobs they cherish. This community craves dropoff opportunities, and it would rather throw money at a problem than their own time and effort. Just an honest observation from someone who is a bit of a freak and actually does volunteer a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

A few of APS HR’s blunders:

- Messed up the board certified teachers’ pay bonuses – paid everyone in group A the amounts that should’ve gone to group B, and everyone in group B the amounts that were due group A. Then it took three separate tries (complete with surveys, of course) to be fixed.

- Not moving on substitute applications. Retired APS teachers report being told that they will have to have background checks, fingerprints, and in-person and interviews to sub.

- Over the last few years, APS has put a lot of energy and effort into name changes — focusing on whether it should be “Personnel”, or “HR, and now there is “Talent Acquisition” too. Overall, totally on point with the APS trend of paying more attention to how things look and what they are called than to how they work or don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

A few of APS HR’s blunders:

- Messed up the board certified teachers’ pay bonuses – paid everyone in group A the amounts that should’ve gone to group B, and everyone in group B the amounts that were due group A. Then it took three separate tries (complete with surveys, of course) to be fixed.

- Not moving on substitute applications. Retired APS teachers report being told that they will have to have background checks, fingerprints, and in-person and interviews to sub.

- Over the last few years, APS has put a lot of energy and effort into name changes — focusing on whether it should be “Personnel”, or “HR, and now there is “Talent Acquisition” too. Overall, totally on point with the APS trend of paying more attention to how things look and what they are called than to how they work or don’t.

Yeah. I’m beginning to understand that Duran is running APS like FCPS. Meaning he wants lots of middle managers and layers of bureaucracy between himself and the teachers/children/parents he is serving. He is over hiring at this level and not understanding that the beauty of APS is that it needs to be sleek and responsive with 3-5 high schools. It should not be overrun with higher ups because it is not necessary. Sad to see that go because as a system gets bigger it gets less responsive and less nimble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

HR person in charge of subs is completely incompetent. Doesn't return phone calls or emails, doesn’t contact applicants to follow up, doesn’t inform potential subs about required orientation. You literally have to hound her and maybe even get someone to intervene on your behalf in order to be placed in the sub system. It's completely ridiculous and frustrating!

please make a public comment about this before the school board!!!

I emailed the school board a detailed list of my unsuccessful attempts to become a sub. That's what finally resulted in a call from the sub coordinator. The school board knows about these problems but doesn’t want to do anything about them.

[Anonymous]

The NoVa community will probably never fix this by getting parents, business leaders to come in as subs. This area is too Type A, too VIP, too workaholic. Parents have kids later in life and except for Big Law and the like, both spouses have careers and jobs they cherish. This community craves dropoff opportunities, and it would rather throw money at a problem than their own time and effort. Just an honest observation from someone who is a bit of a freak and actually does volunteer a lot.

Agree with this. Many of them also think that working in a school is beneath them, even though school is critical to their own children's success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The NoVa community will probably never fix this by getting parents, business leaders to come in as subs. This area is too Type A, too VIP, too workaholic. Parents have kids later in life and except for Big Law and the like, both spouses have careers and jobs they cherish. This community craves dropoff opportunities, and it would rather throw money at a problem than their own time and effort. Just an honest observation from someone who is a bit of a freak and actually does volunteer a lot.

Agree with this. Many of them also think that working in a school is beneath them, even though school is critical to their own children's success.

I would love to sub and have at earlier times in my life. Not big law but definitely spot on for PP description. Simply not possible with my current job. My down times are school break times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard from multiple sources that hr doesn’t act on sub applications they get. Until they fix the hr problem it won’t work

Everyone refers to HR problems all the time but never specifics. What are the problems there?

A few of APS HR’s blunders:

- Messed up the board certified teachers’ pay bonuses – paid everyone in group A the amounts that should’ve gone to group B, and everyone in group B the amounts that were due group A. Then it took three separate tries (complete with surveys, of course) to be fixed.

- Not moving on substitute applications. Retired APS teachers report being told that they will have to have background checks, fingerprints, and in-person and interviews to sub.

- Over the last few years, APS has put a lot of energy and effort into name changes — focusing on whether it should be “Personnel”, or “HR, and now there is “Talent Acquisition” too. Overall, totally on point with the APS trend of paying more attention to how things look and what they are called than to how they work or don’t.

Yikes. Who do they report to in CoC? Mayo? Someone else? Sounds like a mess.