|
News
| 11/12/2008 4:07:00 PM Email this article • Print this article | |
South Seneca Seeks Substitute Teachers
By Jamie Saine
In early October the South Seneca Central School Board of Education raised its daily wage for substitute teachers. The district, like many areas, has been having issues getting enough subs to fill openings.
South Seneca uses the substitute assignment system at Tompkins Seneca Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). The computerized system, called Sub Finder, is accessible to substitutes and teachers in the entire BOCES region, said Heather Sheridan-Thomas, BOCES assistant superintendent.
"The teachers all have a password to get into the system and if they have an absence they record it in the system, and if they need a sub and for how much of the day," she said.
Janie Nusser, superintendent of South Seneca Central School District, said a large part of why the district has trouble attracting substitutes is because of its distance from BOCES. Ovid is 30 miles from Ithaca, the regional headquarters of BOCES.
"If [subs] can make the same or more money in a district that's closer to home they're going to do that," Nusser said. "Maybe we're going to see a lessening of this now that the gas is going down."
Sheridan-Thomas said South Seneca has one of the highest "failure-to-fill" rates of the BOCES distract largely because it is one of the most outlying areas.
"The sub pool does tend to be (shallow) on this end," she said. "South Seneca is the farthest district out."
South Seneca raised substitute wages from $80 a day to $87 a day for teachers with degrees and from $70 to $80 a day for those without.
Nusser said the district has attempted to attract substitutes from deeper in Seneca County but the effort has had little success over the years.
"Though we've put ads in the Finger Lakes Times, we've never had luck in drawing teachers from that direction," she said. "They know the schools in that direction better so they tend to stay that way."
Sheridan-Thomas said another contributor to the failure-to-fill rates is the fact that the computerized system, not a person, calls potential fill-ins. The system stops calling potential subs one hour before they are needed, while a person may be able to call up until class time, she said. Still, the system calls as many people as possible and is set to locate the most qualified people first.
"It's a fairly sophisticated system to figure out who to call for what position," Sheridan-Thomas said. "It will go down the list from the most qualified person to the least qualified but still able to fill the position."
"There are ways that districts can make it more appealing for subs to sign up before," she said. "[Some districts] actually pay their subs a bonus for signing up early, if they pre-arrange for a specific day they get paid more."
Nusser said the district still has problems, but the wage increase seems to be helping.
"I haven't heard the principals complaining quite as much, usually I hear complaining if there's a problem," she said.
|  |
Article Comment Submission Form
|
|
The Youth Leadership Corps is a new Youth Council program to connect teens (14+) with their community through volunteer service while also doing workshops for leadership building and event/outreach planning. After two compelling opening productions, Glimmerglass Opera began its second weekend with an all-time favorite, Mozart's comic masterpiece "The Marriage of Figaro." Don't let the title fool you; with the libretto by genius collaborator Lorenzo da Ponte, this opera is presented in Italian with English projected titles. The show was a truly remarkable achievement-a seamless, clearly delineated, musically excellent, and emotionally telling performance-matched only by some unscheduled thunder and lightning theatrics outside.  |
