The Mineola Board of Education unanimously voted at last Thursday night’s board workshop to hire 14 an additional permanent substitute teachers to the district for the current school year, putting the total projected cost of substitutes in the school district at $405,000.
Mineoal Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler said the school board’s objective is to create a pool of permanent substitutes to be matched to specific teachers, so they are familiar with the children in the classes, as well as the teaching style of each teacher. Different buildings will also be sharing a pool of substitute teachers.
Nagler said the Jackson Avenue, Meadow Drive and Hampton Street schools would be sharing roughly 15 substitute teachers.
“If for one reason, a building had more than five teachers out, they can go back and fourth” Nagler explained.
Nagler acknowledged that board members expressed concerns that when the district conducts a professional development day, children are missing their teachers.
“A substitute is not always delivering the same content that their classroom teacher would,” Nagler said.
Nagler said: “It was obvious for us to do something to control that budget.”
While Nagler acknowledged the plan is not ‘fail-proof,’ as more than one teacher assigned to a substitute can be absent on the same day. But he said the logic is to make children familiar with the substitute teachers.
“This way, real work is done,” he said.
Nagler said the board would also get to see prospective full-time teachers in action, “so if we’re going to hire someone, we’ll be able to see how professional they are as a substitute.”
This year, the board is aware of at least six pregnant teachers, three of them teaching third grade.
“I am very concerned about having appropriate leave replacements for those teachers,” Nagler said.
Based on a rate of $100 per day each with a total of 25 substitutes, the board estimates a cost of $375,000 (at roughly $15,000 per substitute). Each of the new substitutes is hired from October 1, 2012 to May 21, 2013. The cost of substitutes in September and June is an additional cost – estimated at $30,000 – making the total cost $405,000. The annual budget for substitute teachers in the district is $420,000.
Mineola resident Eileen Lusardi, who has worked as a substitute teacher for the district, expressed disappointment with the board’s decision to hire 14 permanent substitute teachers.
“You will now have people coming to school every day whether you need them or not, and you have to pay them” Lusardi said. “I think it’s going to cost this district more money than it’s costing now. There are a lot of days where you don’t need all those subs in the building.”
Lusardi also said only four of the 14 substitutes have worked within the district.
“We have great subs here, some who have been with this district for 10 to12 years. Now because of all these permanent subs, they will no longer be working here,” she said.
In other developments:
• The board rejected bids they had received for renovating the library at Meadow Drive. All bids received exceeded the budget available for the project. With delays to the project, including the death of the architect retained by the district, Nagler said the job could take six months to complete. The board met with architects last week to review the project, and is expected to hold a special meeting later this month on reopening bids.
• The board approved 18 lead evaluators, who have successfully completed Annual Professional Performance Review evaluator training and certification. Certification required them to take an online course from Teachscape varying from 15-20 hours. The cost for the online course was $450 per administrator.
• Nagler made a presentation on Compass Learning, a Web-based program the district is utilizing for K-7 to “differentiate work,” according to Nagler. Targeted but not restricted to homework, Nagler said: “The advancements in technology has allowed us to leverage our system in general to achieve this.” Students took the Northwest Evaluation Association exams beginning in August and September. He said the purpose of the programs used by Compass Learning is directly related to those exams.
“Those exams give us a bench mark of how students began a year, then we test them at the end of the year to see how they’ve grown,” he said.
