Regional superintendent: ‘The substitute shortage is very real and has been amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic’

Fewer people are enrolling in teacher preparation programs.

This means fewer qualified candidates can take the spots of teachers when they retire or move to another district, according to Shawn Walsh, regional superintendent of schools at the Will County Regional Office of Education.

Will County also has an increased need for teachers in certain areas, such as English Language Learners and special education, Walsh said.

“Will County has largely escaped the severe teaching shortages that my colleagues in the western and southern parts of the state have faced,” Walsh said in an email. “The concern in Will County is the shrinking number of qualified candidates who apply for high demand teaching positions.”

The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t helping the situation. School districts must add a remote learning option for students who opt out of in-person learning, which means districts may need to hire more staff, Walsh said.

Other factors that increase the need for additional staff include ensuring social distancing by reducing classes sizes and having substitutes available when staff are required to quarantine due to symptoms or exposure to COVID-19, Walsh said.

“The substitute shortage is very real and has been amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Walsh said in an email.

The regional office of education has also actively promoted the need for substitute teachers in the county, he said.

“Will County has a lot to offer,” Walsh said in an email. “We have great school districts and communities to reside in. Also, the county benefits from the outstanding teacher preparation programs at our local universities.”

Community partners

Theresa Rouse, the superintendent Joliet Public Grade Schools District 86, feels the teacher shortages, in general, began roughly during the recession in 2008 to 2010 when districts were forced to make cuts and lay off teachers, especially teachers who had only been in the profession a couple of years.

Consequently, the number of students coming into colleges to study education has shrunk. Students, Rouse feels, should be encouraged to pursue education, and she’s in favor of programs where local students go to local colleges and universities and then complete their student teaching in local classrooms.

“Anyone with student teachers needing to be placed, we do our best to get them placed,” Rouse said.

Rouse said District 86 strongly encourages its student teachers to apply for any positions District 86 may have available. But that’s no guarantee of a job, Rouse said.

“Right now, we don’t have any open teaching positions for this year,” Rouse said.

Still, District 86 has trouble filling these areas: special education bilingual and junior high positions in math and science. Not every teacher can be a math or science teacher and it’s hard to find special education teachers who are proficient in English and Spanish, Rouse said.

“When we have student teachers in any of those categories, we really try to keep them,” Rouse said.

But the type of shortages District 86 experiences varies from year to year, Rouse said.

“A couple of years ago, we had a drought of P.E. teachers,” Rouse said. “We had a hard time filling P.E. positions.”

In the meantime, Rouse said student teachers are encouraged to apply for a substitute teaching position “to get their feet wet.” District 86 has a shortage of substitute teachers and getting subs can be challenging because “all the school districts in the area are sharing the same sub pool,” Rouse said.

Substitute teachers

District 86 sometimes uses “internal subbing,” or asking another teacher in the district to help out, Rouse said.

“We don’t want to do that too much,” Rouse said. “Our teachers need their breaks. But that’s the way we have to fill the gaps sometimes.”

COVID-19 has impacted the availability of substitute teachers because many subs are retired and not comfortable with the technology required for remote learning, Rouse said. But the district did offer training for the subs, too, she added.

Nevertheless, some teachers decided to retire during the pandemic, Rouse said.

Tom Hernandez, public information officer for Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202, said filling substitute teacher positions at District 202 has been more challenging during the pandemic than in other years.

“Substitute teaching is one of those things people do when they need a little something extra,” Hernandez said. “When the economy is bad, we see tons of people apply.”

With 2,000 teachers in 30 schools teaching 25 to 26,000 students, District 202 needs 550 substitute teachers each day, he said. But District 202 currently only has 204 certified subs as well as 19 certified subs and two non-certified paraprofessionals District 202 is in the process of hiring, Hernandez said.

“Right now we have less than half the number of subs we need on a normal day to make this operate. So it’s a very real concern,” Hernandez said. “Part of the good news, with vaccinations starting, is that they will help people feel more confident and secure among our own staff.”

Hernandez said the reason for the low sub pool is obvious: subs are at home with their own kids or working somewhere else. But when the sub pool is too large, it also means many teachers will never get a call to sub, Hernandez said.

“I know that, at one time, we had over 1,200 people in our sub pool,” Hernandez said. “We had to drain the pool and start over.”

Hernandez said parents, overall, really want their kids back to in-person learning and District 202 has been phasing students back into classrooms over the last few weeks.

“It feels good to have something that looks like normal again,” Hernandez said. “But we are a long way from what life looked like in February 2020.”