MANSFIELD The Mansfield Board of Education has hired an employment agency that specializes in providing substitute teachers.
By:David Koch
In a motion passed July 17, the school board voted to contract with Source for Teachers, which is based in Mount Laurel, as a backup service to help deal with the problem of finding substitute teachers for its classrooms.
The cost of the temporary help service will depend on how many times a school district uses Source For Teachers to find a substitute. The school district will be charged that district’s normal rate for a substitute teacher plus a small fee for using the service. Mansfield schools pay $65 a day for a substitute teacher.
"There are many days when we are scrambling," said Mansfield School District Superintendent Joseph Bruni.
Currently, Mansfield and 11 other school districts in Burlington County use a service from the Westampton School District called the Local Educational Association (LEA) to find substitute teachers.
The service began about 30 years ago, when area superintendents decided to use one centralized service for obtaining their substitute teachers, said Westampton School District Superintendent Walter Bowyer.
Districts call up the LEA at Westampton, which uses a teacher registry to contact substitutes. However, last year substitutes were harder to get, said Karen Bailey, business administrator for the Mansfield School District.
"The last three years or so it’s gotten more difficult (to provide substitutes)," agreed Mr. Bowyer. He said last year the LEA couldn’t find substitutes teachers at least once a week, or 20 percent of the time. During certain times of the year, like the weeks before Christmas, the LEA may be unable to find substitute teachers three or four times a week.
"Sometimes in lower grades, we may have to split the kids up with the other classes. We don’t do that often, but only as a last resort," said Mr. Bowyer.
Some school officials point to the economy to explain the substitute teacher shortage.
"When the economy is good, people don’t want to be substitutes," said Ms. Bailey.
Bordentown Regional School District Superintendent John Polomano said that during the recession of the early ’90s, finding a substitute was easy. "You could get thousands of substitutes because there were lots of people unemployed," said Mr. Polomano, whose school district uses Source for Tecahers.
Mr. Bowyer said he expects more substitutes to be available if the economy slows down as some experts are predicting, but that could take a year or two to happen.
"This coming school year, I don’t think the economy slowing down is going to help us out," said Mr. Bowyer.
Mr. Bowyer also said he’s not sure if an economic slowdown will bring in more substitute teachers. Many times, substitute teachers are recent college graduates who work as substitutes until a full-time teaching position becomes available.
But an increase in the amount of retiring teachers has created a higher demand for new teachers.
"The districts are hiring more teachers out of school, and that’s going to hurt us," said Mr. Bowyer.
A good economy, more retiring teachers, and less young people studying to be teachers adds to a national trend of a substitute teacher shortage, said Source For Teachers’ owner Ron Blair.
"The pool (of substitutes) has become a little puddle," said Mr. Blair. "It’s not as deep as it once was."
Source For Teachers was founded a year and a half ago, but is now adding four or five new school districts as clients a month, said Mr. Blair. Their latest client is Mansfield, which will use the temp agency as a backup.
Ms. Bailey said that if no substitute could be found at the LEA, then Westampton would call Source For Teachers.
Mr. Polomano, the Bordentown Regional School District’s superintendent, said that there has never been any real problem with finding substitutes in his school district.
"We have an occasional day, but it’s not an ongoing problem," said Mr. Polomano. "Our teacher attendance rate is very high. We don’t have a lot of teachers out at any time."
Mr. Polomano said he believes that the substitute teacher shortage is a nationwide problem, and belonging to Source For Teachers has helped his district.
Meanwhile, business is booming over at Source for Teachers. Mr. Blair said at the end of this past school year his business had only six clients, but by next September he expects to have 30.
Currently, Source For Teachers has a pool of 300 to 350 substitute teachers for its clients. Mr. Blair said he expects to have about 500 substitute teachers available by September.
