A significant need for substitute teachers has prompted the Warren County R-III School District to evaluate its current policy and pay scale for the positions.At its monthly meeting Dec. 10, the board approved a change to its pay rates.Assistant Superintendent of Personnel Aaron Jones says the district has experienced difficulty in filling its positions in the absence of salaried teachers.“We feel like with the economy improving, people are able to go back to work so the challenge of finding available subs is increasing,” said Jones.He said the pool of substitute candidates is fairly vast, but the district is finding many of those individuals turning down positions offered to them.Oftentimes, it has been the same individuals filling the vacancies on a consistent basis.“We believe people might be bypassing us for other opportunities at other places that pay more,” said Jones. “Principals and secretaries are spending hours in the morning trying to find subs. Then when we can’t, we have to build schedules to find teachers to cover.”It’s why the district decided to provide a step scale for substitutes who teach for extended periods of a substantial amount of days.Presently, a substitute in the R-III district makes $85 per day, with substitutes who are retired teachers making $95 per day.Under the incentive program, a substitute who teaches more than 25 days would receive a $95 rate for days 26 through 50. For any days beyond 50, they would receive $105 per day. For retired teacher substitutes that rate would be $105 and $115.To put the change into perspective, a regular substitute who teaches the entire 174 days in the school year would receive $14,790 on the old scale and will receive $17,520 on the new scale. The changes will take effect beginning with the second semester.Substitutes will carry over the amount of days they have accumulated on the step scale.In the case a substitute is considered long-term after filling a vacancy for 10 consecutive days, that individual would receive an additional $10 per day on top of those aforementioned rates.On many occasions, salaried teachers are having to step into other classrooms to fill in for absent colleagues.“Teachers are giving up their plan time to cover another class, which means they can fall behind on their own duties,” said Jones. “That can be very hard on teachers and administrators.”As a reward to those teachers volunteering their time to cover other classes, the district is offering a $50 stipend for classroom supplies for those having covered at least 25 times. For those covering classes on at least 50 occasions, they will receive a $100 supply stipend.“Our goal is to have as little drop-off as possible when a teacher is out of the building,” said Jones.School news