Substitute teachers at Guilderland schools will continue receiving less money than they have in past years following a contentious debate over costs of the savings.
Guilderland Board of Education members Tuesday, July 1, voted 5-4 to maintain daily rates for substitute teachers during the 2014-15 school year. District administrators recommended restoring substitute teacher daily pay rates to $95 for middle and elementary schools, and $100 for the high school. Last year, the board reduced each rate by $5 in an attempt to save money.
A month after the reduced rates were adopted last July, four board members voted to rescind the decrease, but five voted to maintain it.
School board member Christine Hayes said she had not seen enough “compelling information” to restore the substitutes teacher rates.
“We had several hundred more absences this year than last year, however the district ended up saving over $68,000,” said Hayes. “We had one teacher come here at the very beginning of the year and talk about it; that is the only person who works in the schools on a daily basis that would have been directly impacted that I head from.”
Demian Singleton, assistant superintendent for instruction, later said getting substitute teachers was “hugely problematic” this school year.
“Whether it’s attributed to the rates or not, it was noticeably different this year than it was from last year,” Singleton said.
Board member Judy Slack was “very upset” about how many hours a substitute did not cover. There were 287 uncovered absences during the 2013-14 school year.
“To me, $68,000 is not worth it,” said Slack.
Slack, who retired from the district after working 24 years an elementary teaching assistant, said several substitute teachers have told her they were “very disappointed” over the reduced rate. Substitutes are often retired teachers from Guilderland.
“They have come, but may not continue coming,” she said. “They feel it is a slap in the face to what they do. … People come to me and say, ‘What do you think that you’re doing? You realize how this has bothered people.’”
Board member Catherine Barber added the vote to reduce rates was based “on nothing,” but to save money.
“There was no evidence that it wouldn’t impact kids negatively,” said Barber.
Board President Barbara Fraterrigo argued seeking the savings is justified because of cuts the board has made to programming as revenue has declined.
“We scrimp and we scrape and do everything we can to maintain programs, and I just see this as sort of shared sacrifice that [if] everybody pitches in a little tiny bit you help out the whole student body,” Fraterrigo said. “I just wish some of these people wouldn’t be so hardcore … it’s not that we don’t value their services; we’re just trying to stretch every single dollar to keep the quality of regular teachers as well as our other teachers.”
Board Vice President Allan Simpson pointed to the debate around cutting 0.3 full-time equivalent teaching positions from the music department, which music teachers unsuccessfully petitioned to restore 0.25 from the reduction. This represented a savings of $20,000, which was three times less than what the district saved in substitute expenses this year.
“The data we have gone through haven’t given us any hard facts on what is really going on here,” said Simpson. “Everything we’re getting tonight, in my opinion, is anecdotal.”
The approximately $68,000 savings roughly equals one teaching position.
Board member Colleen O’Connell said some elementary school principals have expressed concern over the quality of substitutes being hired at the reduced rate. She also said some of the longtime substitutes for certain schools were not willing to work at the reduced rate.
“I understand we save $68,000, but from what I’m hearing from three elementary school principals, it was at quite a cost,” said O’Connell.
Superintendent of Schools Marie Wiles said the difficulty obtaining substitutes led to middle school physical education being doubled up “many days,” reading instruction at Lynnwood sometimes not occurring and principals “scrambling” to find someone to simply supervise a classroom.
“All of that adds up, and it’s hard to find the data and numbers to capture the impact, but it absolutely had an impact,” said Wiles. “Every morning in one of our schools, there was the sense of unsettledness of who is going to watch these youngsters while we don’t have an adult here. That over a cumulative of time does have an impact on the quality of instruction.”
Wiles said the reduced rate sends a negative message about the district.
Guilderland also requires substitutes to stay longer than other districts, allowing them to leave once students left the building, but Wiles has “relaxed” the requirement.
“That made a little bit of a difference for some of the folks that have distances to travel,” Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Lin Severance said, “but there is no way to know if that had any impact.”
Fraterrigo said she wonders about the “sour grapes effect” over the reduced rate, but hopes the situation will improve next school year.
“I’m more than willing to give it another year because once people are adjusted and the time is adjusted, I would like to see if we get some of these people back,” Fraterrigo said.
O’Connell said maintaining the reduced rate would make it difficult to attract substitutes.
“If, two years in a row, we have said this is what it is, people are going to shut us out,” said O’Connell. “This is our opportunity to try to get subs back into the building.”
Fraterrigo, Simpson, Hayes, Jennifer Charron and Chris McManus voted to keep the reduced rate.