We continue our recap of the 11/23/2020 Board of Education meeting with Julie King’s presentation on AASD’s pool of substitutes.
The district is currently at 57% of their substitute pool compared to 2019. They had 469 last year but only 269 this year thus far. They did have a slight uptick this week due to some hiring and some individuals who had initially told them they weren’t willing to sub now changing their minds.
After surveying every substitute who took positions during the first quarter, they learned that only about 50% of their substitutes are actively taking jobs. [So it sounds like their sub pool is effectively only 135.] There could be multiple reasons for that, and they’re doing outreach to gain a fuller understanding.
Julie provided a chart comparing the 1st quarter of 2020/21 with the first quarter of 2019/20 and showing how many absences they had for educators and how many jobs went unfilled that first quarter. The term “Unfilled Jobs” means “unfilled by an external substitute” and does not include situations where they used internal staff to fill an opening.
Traditionally, the first quarter has fewer absences than the remaining quarters of the year.
The 2019 numbers include a category called “School Business” [it’s not clear to me exactly what “school business” and it wasn’t made clear during the presentation], but school business was suspended for the 2020/21 year because of their Covid mitigation efforts. The EPSLA and the EFMLA categories were added to the 2020/21 data; they are paid time off for Covid related reasons.
Educators had considerably fewer absences than in previous years. Paraprofessionals had markedly more absences.
Overall, AASD had approximately 2,500 fewer absences in 2020 than in 2019, for several reasons. Educators are teaching from home. If they aren’t feeling well, they can stay home and teach the class virtually. Additionally, they did suspend school business which further reduced those absences. Of those 2,600 absences, 32 went unfilled–a difference of 135 jobs from the previous year.
The situation with paraprofessionals is different than that of the teachers. Many paraprofessionals are working the Classroom Connections program. Their absences went up 994 as compared to last year, and they also increased their total number of unfilled jobs. Julie reiterated that jobs are “unfilled” when they don’t have anyone to fill in–not even someone internally that they can use. Paraprofessional absences increased by 523 over the previous year.
They believe the increase in absences is due to their Covid mitigation strategies (such as quarantining close contacts of Covid-positive people) and the fact that their substitute level is currently 60% of where it was last year.
Julie then opened the floor for questions.
Barry O’Connell wanted to know if she had an explanation for the increase in paraprofessional absences.
Julie said it was due to the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Act (EFMLA) and the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA) as well as some resignations which left them with some vacancies. [You can read more about the EFMLA and EPSLA here.]
Barry asked to clarify if FMLA absences were related to Covid.
Julie confirmed that both the EPSLA and EFMLA absences (almost 1,200 total) were Covid related. The EPSLA absences were if a person was quarantined, if they were positive, or if they had a family member they were caring for. The EFMLA absences would be if a school or daycare were closed.
Barry asked what happened when positions went unfilled; what happened to the children in Classroom Connections?
Per Julie, they seek substitutes. They’ve been successful in having the YMCA and Boys and Girls club find staff to fill those positions. Or they may have substitutes from their substitute pool to fill in as well. [I didn’t understand that answer at all; he was asking about unfilled positions and then she talked about getting subs which would make them filled positions instead of unfilled.]
She went on to say that regarding Classroom Connections, they’ve worked hard to reduce those pod sizes and have at least 2 teachers in those higher pod numbers as well as have the contingency plan of a YMCA member being available as backup. So even if there is a higher pod size, they’re keeping those pods intact at the elementary level. [I’ve listened to that explanation multiple times and honestly don’t understand what she was describing. Is she saying that they have 2 teachers per pod which sometimes drops down to one per pod in the case of an absence? Are they combining pods? I don’t understand why these people who are in charge of educating our city’s children are not able to speak clearly and articulately.]
She also said that in some situations they’ve had to shut down a pod.
Gary Jahnke pointed out that in 2019 there were 594 total unfilled jobs and this year there have been 982 which is about a 60% increase in unfilled jobs. He was concerned that that would impact the quality of education that AASD provides.
Per Julie, they depend on substitutes in any school year to make sure there’s continuity of learning. Of the 982 absences this year, only 32 were educators, which is a minimal impact for 2020. She did aver that in 2019 they had more options to achieve coverage. A lot of times they’d call in a staff member from a different department or sometimes have classes double up for a period of time. With mitigation strategies they can’t double up classrooms like they used to.
Gary asked if she had a sense of how the current model would play out with a 60% increase in unfilled jobs, and how would things change with different learning models.
Julie said that it’s clear there would be an increase in the number of absences for educators when AASD transitions to in-person learning. Other districts have had to deal with that as well, and AASD might have to provide instruction virtually not due to students being quarantined but rather because of too many staff members being quarantined at the same time. They will work through alternative plans to ensure that the instruction continues, but there will be disruptions due to quarantines and other things.
Deb Truymann also thought those were a lot of absences and thought the atmosphere in school would be different when in-person instruction starts again.
Julie agreed that the atmosphere will be different. But, pod sizes are very similar to what classroom sizes typically would be. The number of students an individual instructor would be working will be similar. The main difference will be that if an educator and a paraprofessional are servicing the same class and there’s a positive case, then both the educator and the paraprofessional will have to quarantine.
Kris Sauter said that the Board has received some communications from people who have looked at the number of substitutes currently available and think that there are plenty of subs to manage in-person school. She pointed out that not every substitute is willing to sub in every scenario and asked Julie to clarify how that impacts AASD’s substitute situation.
Per Julie, one of the things that attracts substitutes is the flexibility–the fact that they can choose when and where they want to work. One of their strategies as they transition back to in-person instruction is to tie substitutes to certain locations to provide consistency.
Additionally, their total pool of 269 substitutes consists of about 100 paraprofessionals and 169 educators. Of those 169 educators, some are more comfortable at the elementary level and some at the high school level. That contributes to unfilled jobs. There may be elementary vacancies but the subs available for that day are high school, or regular ed openings but only special ed subs. There may not be a match between jobs open and teachers available.
Kris stated that in the past many substitutes have been retired teachers and she wondered how the current coronavirus situation and mitigation efforts were affecting the substitute pool.
Julie couldn’t speak to the reason why more retirees didn’t elect to be substitutes this year, but she did confirm that there are significantly fewer teachers who retired last year coming back as substitutes this year.
Deb wondered if it would be possible for teachers out on quarantine to Zoom into the classroom and provide instruction while a paraprofessional provides in-person supervision. She also wondered if they could assign substitutes to certain locations.
Julie said that was part of the framework they are putting in place. They’re looking at tying multiple substitutes to one location. Additionally, they have many skilled paraprofessionals who also have teaching licenses, and also paraprofessionals who don’t have teaching licenses but are confident in managing a classroom should a teacher need to Zoom into a classroom.
Deb said it sounded like a lot of adjusting and shifting, but in the end she thought the students were worth it.
Barry wanted to know how many paraprofessionals are currently providing in-person special education services rather than overseeing Classroom Connections
Per Polly, there are about 166 paraprofessionals working in onsite special ed programs.
Per Julie there are around 100 paraprofessionals working in Classroom Connections. They also have DHH interpreters and EL interpreters, Occupational Therapy Assistants, and School Transportation Paraprofessionals. She wasn’t sure if Polly had included those in the 166 figure she had given. Multiple different areas are being serviced.
You can view the entire meeting here: https://youtu.be/-H-2LJ8eOAU
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