Sturgis school board raises permanent substitute wage
Sturgis Public Schools Board of Education took immediate action on several topics Monday at a study session.
Board members voted to change the permanent substitute wage, from $110 per day to $125 per day, and permanent substitutes will be provided with a Sturgis Public Schools digital tablet. A permanent substitute is one who commits to work for the district the entire school year as needed, compared to a daily sub or a long-term substitute.
Superintendent Art Ebert said the matter has a level of urgency. Hence, the board did not wait until their regular meeting to approve the change.
“As will come as no surprise, it is very difficult to find and retain substitute teachers,” Ebert said. “Everyone is pulling from the same pool of substitutes, which makes it very difficult, and there’s just very few. It’s not even just hourly positions anymore. Any employer knows that finding staff right now is very difficult.”
Ebert said students still need to be taught, so what happens is that school staff members (mainly teachers) lead other classes during their planning period.
“What happens is that in an already stressful environment, they lose their planning period and they’re further and further behind,” he said.
Teacher Allen Meyer, who was in attendance at Monday’s meeting, said he has used his planning period to substitute 27 times so far this academic year.
“Your options are you can close school or you can ask people to do a lot of things,” Ebert said.
When asked about the root of the problem by board member Scott Swihart, Ebert said the need for substitutes is due not only to COVID-19 and quarantining, but also because there simply is a smaller pool of substitutes due to staffing shortages.
“It’s an unusual time,” Ebert said.
In a separate matter, during the board-comment portion of the session, Lynn Brand expressed concerns about teacher burnout.
“I’m worried about it,” the former teacher said. “I think we need to somehow have a plan ... I don’t know if there are answers, but I also know I’ve heard more frustration just from my circle of friends and acquaintances and colleagues and it scares me.”
Additional news from the meeting:
The board voted to approve a new hire, Tori Metzge, as a GSRP teacher. She graduated from Indiana University - Purdue University of Fort Wayne with a degree in elementary education and a concentration in early childhood education. During the 2020-21 academic year, she was a preschool teacher at Messiah Lutheran Preschool and Childcare in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Board members OK'd Sturgis Middle School electives classes: Historical fiction; "History Heroes and Villains"; conservation-environmental history; mythology (myths and legends); astronomy; beginning theater; and "Image, Text and Story," an exploration of graphic novels/comics.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: news-Sturgis Public Schools-permanent substitute wage
