What happened when I tried to become a substitute teacher

In December 2021, it became clear that the latest COVID-19 variant — omicron — would impact schools after the holiday break. Thanks to the widespread accessibility of vaccines, the mild nature of omicron infections, and nearly two years of protocols that limit COVID transmissions inside schools remarkably well, I was not worried about sending my kids — a 7th grader and 10th grader — to their large public schools in our 60,000-person Connecticut town. Even more importantly, they were not worried. They wanted to go back to school.

We all knew, though, that opening schools would require having enough grown-ups — in all buildings, most classrooms, many periods, every day. And clearly omicron wasn’t going to let that happen. Teachers, paraprofessionals, aides, administrators, custodians, security officers, and all the other essential adults in the school community would have to take days off for a variety of reasons — symptomatic COVID cases, asymptomatic COVID cases, symptoms that were caused by something other than COVID, quarantined kids or other family members, not to mention PTO for dentist appointments, out-of-town weddings, personal days, and all the other relics of pre-pandemic life.

I wanted to contribute to keeping schools open, and I figured I had two choices — (1) rant and rave on Twitter or (2) become a sub. Since I am a college teacher, I have more banked vacation days than I can possibly use, my work schedule is tremendously flexible in January, and I was afraid my liberal bubble would disown me for #openschools Tweets, I chose the latter. I knew that my ambition to sub wouldn’t be enough to mitigate a full-blown staffing shortage, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Fast-forward almost a month. School schedules have indeed been interrupted due to staffing shortages. And not only am I not a bona fide substitute, but I haven’t even managed to apply. It’s not for lack of trying, I assure you. I’ll speculate about the reasons below, but first, here’s the play-by-play:

On December 31, I looked on the Hamden Public Schools website, assuming I’d find an “apply now” button somewhere. Instead I found this:

So, I sent an email:

Four days later, I received a reply telling me I had actually reached out to the wrong place:

I waited a couple of days, hoping I’d hear directly from the “recruiting team,” but I did not. So I followed up with a separate email to them.

Meanwhile, staffing shortages caused closures at my son’s middle school and my daughter’s high school. The district was scrambling to adapt, so they announced a plan to switch to half days occasionally:

At that point, two weeks after I sent my original inquiry, I still hadn’t heard from Kelly Educational Staffing, so I decided to reach out to the human resources director for Hamden Public Schools:

Hallelujah! I received a speedy response, and after some back-and-forth, I understood — or so I thought — my next steps: (1) Create an account on the Kelly Services website and (2) come in to the Hamden Public Schools administration building at 60 Putnam Avenue to complete the application paperwork.

That same day, January 13, I registered on the Kelly website. And a few days later, I went to 60 Putnam at the scheduled time, wearing actual work clothes for the first time in ages. Exciting! When I got there, all doors were locked, so I called the phone number for Human Resources. The administrative assistant begrudgingly let me in and explained that they do not take applications there — that I had been given the wrong information. Eventually her boss — my email connection — intervened and suggested that they have me complete their regular hiring packet, which is not usually used for substitutes. It became clear to me that even if I did apply there, they would have no mechanism for assigning me sub gigs. The district doesn’t handle that; Kelly Services does.

But I figured I’d come this far, I might as well see it through. So I sat with the assistant while she gave me a stack of papers that made my head spin. With no red pen or cute little post-it arrows in hand, she pointed out all the places I would need to write my information, sign and date, photocopy and attach my documents, go to a website to obtain additional forms that I would have to print (in triplicate), and pay $88 and go to the police station to get fingerprinted.

Remember, doing all this wouldn’t actually put me in the sub pool. But I thanked her and took the paperwork with me nevertheless:

By coincidence, it was at that same time that I finally heard back from Kelly Services. I received a voice mail (pardon the transcription errors):

I returned the call, answered some preliminary screening questions (including whether I was married to anyone under the age of 18 who attends the school where I would substitute; I’m not), and was told to await an email with a link to the rest of the application materials.

I refreshed my inbox eagerly for the next few hours. Nothing. So I followed up:

Several days — and texts — later, and I still don’t have that email. I tried offering an alternate (Gmail) address in case my regular (@wesleyan.edu) domain was blocking it. Alas, I’m still refreshing my inbox and scouring my spam folder, but I’m no closer to being a substitute teacher.

And public school systems around the country, including the one my kids attend, are struggling to stay open:

Now that I’ve bored you with the play-by-play, I’ll close with some speculations about why I am having this experience.

1. Public infrastructure is inefficient. I don’t blame the people in charge; their hands are tied by archaic regulations (federal, state, and local), lack of up-front resources (state-of-the-art software costs money, but imagine how much would be saved if public school operations went paperless?), and job descriptions that were written decades ago.
2. The pandemic response in public education across the country has been chaotic and reactive. More than a year ago, there was talk of having college students deployed as subs during winter break — a win for the schools, the k-12 students, and the college students — but there’s still no mechanism for making that happen. When we know we’re headed towards another COVID spike, schools should have contingency plans already in place.
3. Individual public school employees are not encouraged to think about the system as a whole or empowered to make improvements to it. The opposite is the case, it seems.
4. Kelly Services is not good at the one thing they are hired to do.

I don’t know what I’ll do next — whether I’ll keep hustling to become a substitute teacher or find another way to try to support my kids’ schools during this challenging time — but I do know that this is not an isolated incident.

Public education is “too big to fail,” too important to our democracy, and the most powerful lever to address the massive inequities in America. My experience is a canary in the coal mine, and we’ll need sweeping civic innovation to revive her. Given my background in systems design and education administration, I’d like to help.

Does anyone know where I can apply?