Wednesday, July 31, 2002

Schools find new source for substitute teachers

Let's have a cheer for America's substitute teachers if you can find one.

On any given school day, one in every 10 classrooms needs a substitute teacher, according to The Substitute Teaching Institute at Utah State University. The nationwide shortage of teachers, including substitutes, has many schools scrambling to fill these classrooms.

"I have been a superintendent of schools for more than 20 years, and I can attest to the fact that finding qualified substitute teachers is a time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating, task," said Dr. Edward Favolise, superintendent of Ansonia Public Schools in Connecticut.

The Ansonia system struggled with a severe shortage of substitute teachers before trying an innovative approach to its predicament in 2000. The school outsourced its substitute teacher program on a pilot basis to a staffing company, Kelly Services, based in Troy, Mich.

The concept that Kelly launched in 1999 was simple: let the staffing company concentrate on placing good substitute teachers while school administrators focus on education. "For the first time in nearly two years, we didn't have to worry about finding qualified individuals to deliver lesson plans to our students," said Dr. Favolise.

Ansonia has relied on Kelly Educational Staffing to run its substitute teacher program ever since. It is among the first of more than 1,000 schools nationwide that have turned to Kelly to manage their substitute teacher program.

"Generally, educators like this program because it saves valuable time, resources and aspirin needed to address the daily burden of recruiting, interviewing, preparing and scheduling substitute teachers," said Teresa Setting, vice president in charge of Kelly Educational Staffing. "Staffing is what we do, so we have had great success in filling classrooms when a permanent teacher needs to be absent for professional or personal reasons."

Finding and placing more substitute teachers cannot come at the expense of quality. Substitute teachers from Kelly meet state and local certification requirements for any K-12 teaching situation in a public or private school. The company screens and checks references of every candidate, conducts training and orientation, and gives grade appropriate handbooks to every employee. This preparation, combined with Kelly's success in filling classrooms with substitute teachers, provides important classroom continuity for students while the permanent teacher is away.

Attracting and keeping good substitute teachers takes more than just paying them the going rate in the district. Kelly provides benefits that these teachers don't normally receive, including weekly pay, direct deposit, free software training, vacation and holiday pay, and access to health benefits and a 401(k) program. These substitute teachers also have the opportunity to pursue non-teaching assignments with Kelly during summer months or other vacation periods.

Where do substitute teachers come from? Some are career changers moving into teaching, like Dave Diamont of San Jose, Calif. After getting his college degree Diamont took a corporate job but had long felt a tug toward teaching. "I worked for six years in Silicon Valley, and did well, but I wanted to make a greater impact on society," Diamont said.

His first step into teaching was the substitute route. He began working for Kelly Educational Staffing at Mountain View/Los Altos High School District in northern California in 2001.

Diamont says teaching offers him an opportunity to use gifts and talents he didn't get a chance to use in the corporate world, and his sociology major in college now matters a lot more.

"I like teaching high school social studies, particularly history and government," he said. "I show students that history is our teacher, helping us put current events in perspective."

Diamont now is in a master's degree program pursuing a credential to teach full-time. "This is a calling as opposed to just a job. You have to go into teaching with that kind of outlook."

Utah State estimates that by the time a student completes 12 years of public school, she will have spent the equivalent of one school year being taught by a substitute teacher. For a growing number of schools, that teacher will come from a staffing company, prepared as a skilled stand-in for the permanent teacher.

For more information about Kelly Educational Staffing, visit www.kellyservices.com, or call (888) GO-KELLY.

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