South Dakota schools are evidently having a hard time finding substitute teachers. That’s why Huron lawyer Rodney Freeman, speaking for the Council of School Attorneys, told the Board of Education Standards yesterday that they need to loosen the rules for hiring uncertified substitute teachers:
He said the state Department of Education has taken “a very firm position” that schools can use non-certified substitutes only when the regular teacher intends to return. If there’s a violation, the school principal and the district’s superintendent can be charged with breaking the code of ethics, and the school district can be placed on probation and lose accreditation.
…He continued, “Every district in this state, whether it’s large or small, has difficulty, major obstacles, in trying to find enough substitutes. The rules, the way they’re being interpreted, are creating a terrible burden for many, if not most, of the schools in this state, and the Council of School Attorneys believes it’s going to ultimately hurt children” [Bob Mercer, “School Districts’ Attorneys Formally Petition South Dakota Board over Substitute Teachers,” KELO-TV, 2021.05.17].
Freeman and his lawyers group argue that new rules enacted last year that appear to limit a an uncertified long-term substitute to six weeks of filling in for a specific teacher. The lawyers’ petition contends that state law gives the Board of Education Standards no authority to define or regulate substitute teachers who hold no teaching certificate. Sure enough, SDCL 13-42-1(7) defines “teacher” as “a person whose assigned duties require the person to be issued a certificate as a teacher.”
Freeman and friends might want to be careful what they ask for: if we read and apply that definition strictly to all school matters, we might conclude that the only person who can stand at the white board and lead children is a holder of a South Dakota Teaching Certificate, and then poor Brock Greenfield would really have to pick up full-time work.
Again and again the same narrative: SD wages do not allow employees to exploit a workforce for the nominal pay they want to give. So a request is made to the big-bad government to ease some rule or regulation. This time it is not to propagate profit, but to continue to dismiss the absolute failure of the system to address its need for a qualified workforce.
This is nothing more than slapping the most flimsy band-aid on a long-term education funding issue SD refuses to deal with in a sustained way.
Be clear, Freeman was not at that hearing representing SD school children (who are constitutionally guaranteed an education), he was there representing school administration facing a crisis of staffing.
O is right again. Losing accreditation and ethics charges are powerful penalties needed to keep administrators focused or quality education, which begins with qualified teachers. Eroding the quality of teaching is not the way to solve this problem, which is caused mainly by failure to pay adequate salaries.
Well…Of course its a problem for school administrators especially in small districts (under 150 in enrollment in high school) in small communities or counties (the vast majority of school districts have enrollments under 100 in high school…there are entire counties where the school districts graduated less that 50 high school seniors this spring). The dwindling population in rural South Dakota not only lacks unemployed people with active teacher certificates, there is a shortage of people with college degrees, of any kind, who are unemployed or underemployed.Rodney Freeman has had a career defending small districts from their own inefficiency. The State Board of Education should stand firm for established standards. Non certified teachers just reinforce the “third world” pay scale of South Dakota teachers. Let the small districts get away with a sub standard faculty and it will negatively impact teacher salaries in all district s.
Jeez, can’t they all learn kristi’s civics and use the year 1776, thats all the So Dak kids need isn’t it? What do want them to be, Lawyers and Doctors and such?
As a certified substitute teacher, I will say this is not going to bode well for our children. I’ve had experience with non-certified substitutes in the past when I had my own classroom. It is was clear those people didn’t have proper training. The pay for long term subbing is set up to only benefit the administration’s budget. We are expected to do the same work as the regular classroom teacher while receiving very little pay. For example, the pay per day for the first two weeks of a maternity leave is the same as if I go in for one day in that room. After two weeks, I receive $10.00 more per day. That does not change until 30 days has gone by. Then, and only then, do I receive fair compensation for my work. By that time, the regular teacher has returned and no higher pay is every achieved. Many of the certified substitutes I know are refusing to do the longer gigs because of that low pay grade. Why have the added stress in your life for an extra $10.00? Rodney Freeman has never been a friend of teachers. He needs to stop trying to dumb down our educational system and start encouraging the state and school administrators to pay certified teachers, contracted and substitutes, a fair wage.
In between more permanent jobs, I subbed for a year or two in the early 90s in Lake County. All that was required was a high school diploma or a GED. The pay was $50 a day, no benefits, no matter how long you subbed. BTW, since I had a masters in history and could function in French (back then they were still teaching French), I got called on a lot. There was no question of certification at all.
Actually, I think this discussion is off the mark of what this fundamental issue really is. I believe the issue (and correct me if I am wrong) is not substitute teachers in the sense we all commonly think: it is about districts not able to staff positions for full-time teachers, so they hire “long-term substitutes” to be the teacher of a class. This is not really about filling in for a qualified teacher; it is about having a loophole to have a class without having a certified teacher. it is a workaround to remedy the teacher shortage that still plagues many SD schools.
This is a problem throughout the country and in colleges too. I retired two years ago. My full time position wasn’t refilled. Two adjuncts fill the position and together earn less than I did. What can I say?
Well…O, if you are correct, if schools use the long term sub classification instead of hiring a qualified teacher in a non emergency situation, that is a very serious situation that needs to be referred to the Department of Education, Office of School Accreditation. At one time, they took allegations of this sort very seriously.