Washoe County Teacher Shortages Create Opportunities for Substitutes (AUDIO)
Reno, Nevada, and area schools are facing severe teacher shortages, creating both opportunity and concern. While Washoe County is finding new ways to recruit young substitutes, there are also concerns about the quality of teaching being offered and classes not being covered. Kennedy Vincent reports for the Reynolds Sandbox.
A recent message from Substitute Services at Washoe County indicated they had an extreme need for substitute teachers the next day. It called on substitutes to immediately log on even if they were available for just half a day.
Emily Burton is a new young teacher thrust much earlier than she thought into her chosen career. “I started with the emergency sublicense when they were really having a shortage of substitutes,” Burton said. “So you just needed a high school diploma to do that. Now I have my regular sub license and I’ve just been doing it ever since to get classroom experience. Clearly, if they’re just letting someone straight out of high school go in and work with high schoolers, that has to be like kind of a cry for help. the district just seems very short staffed.”
Some parents have expressed frustration on social media with the quality of teaching with younger and younger substitute teachers currently filling classrooms within the Washoe County School district.
The H.R. Supervisor for the Washoe County School District Kate Schum says it has not been easy to have a full roster of teachers and that her team has had to be creative to fill the gaps.
“They’ve been going out with community partners, and we’ve been doing job fairs and doing them a little more location specific,” Schum said. “Not just come to us, and we’ll help you, but just trying to make ourselves more accessible for these positions. just in general, like Come learn about what we have come see what we do not necessarily come dressed for an interview, we will take you but just more out there. Let us come to you. How can we help you?
Schum says it’s become an all out collaboration to make sure they even have candidates.
“We’ve been reaching out to our partners, TMCC, UNR, ‘can you post flyers in your education department’, 60 credits, you can become a sub,” Schum said. “I think going out and having a number of folks available to sit and help an applicant with the application like what is it asking here? What does it want here? How do I explain this situation? So that they have that confidence during the application in itself.”
Substitute teaching is clearly better than no teaching at all, a now common occurrence as well. In addition to fewer teachers, available teachers have been taking more sick days as precautionary measures.
A recent study by the Washington D.C based Brookings Institution says that in the pandemic era, 10 additional teacher absences have led to test score deviations of 1.2% and 0.6% in math and English Language Arts respectively on the national level.
Here, Washoe County officials say they are working diligently, still seeking substitute help and moving forward in confronting these unprecedented times.
