Substitute Teachers Get A Raise For Upcoming School Year

Substitute teachers, who haven’t had a pay raise in more than a decade, will receive a bump in their checks for the upcoming school year.

The Board of Education in a move that is sure to please substitutes in the district voted unanimously at its last meeting to approve a new pay scale for substitute teachers.

The district’s pay was well below comparable districts, according to board member Robin Cervantes, and it was becoming difficult to cover teacher absences. The district had been paying substitute teachers $70 a day and a hourly rate of $9.33 for paraprofessionals since 2001, Cervantes said.

“Many districts in the area are offering between $85 and $100 a day for substitute teachers,’’ Cervantes said.

The new rates will be based on a two-tiered system. Substitute teachers who hold a county certification will be paid $90 a day and those who hold a state certification will receive $100 a day.

Paraprofessionals will also get an increase to $12.67 an hour, Cervantes said.

The substitute pay rates were something new Schools Superintendent Daniel Simon said he wanted to tackle right away.

“As a district, we were consistently unable to obtain full building coverage for absent staff, which requires scrambling to find sufficient internal coverage,” Simon said this week. “It was my suspicion that many of our substitutes are on multiple call lists and turn us down when they get a call from these other districts with higher rates.”

So Simon said he suggested the new rates, proposed them to the board’s Personnel Committee, which recommended the raises to the full board.