Land Park and East Sacramento schools get substitutes when they call. It’s a crisis elsewhere

Rosemont High School teacher Allison Alair has about four doctor appointments each month.

She has breast cancer, and is undergoing radiation. She won’t take a day off work.

Instead she schedules her appointments on holidays and over spring break.

Alair won’t request a substitute teacher, even for part of the day, because she knows what it will mean for her AP World History students: they will likely be corralled into the school auditorium and monitored by a teacher who is on their prep period with little to no instruction.

“I cannot miss a day of school because it hurts my kids,” Alair said.

The staffing situation is bleak at Sacramento City Unified schools, where requests for substitutes go unfilled daily.

Some schools have it even worse than others, especially campuses in lower-income neighborhoods and ones with a higher percentage of English language learners and foster youth, according to documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee. The data shows substitute shortages from January through February of this year.

About 3,000 students — predominantly at schools that serve low-income students — don’t have a teacher each day.

That’s one of the reasons Sacramento teachers say they’re striking, demanding better working conditions. Schools were closed on Monday, marking the fourth day of a strike by the Sacramento City Teachers Association and the classified staff union SEIU Local 1021. Ongoing negotiations have not yet brought the district and the two unions to a resolution.

Inequities in Sacramento schools

Father Keith B Kenny Elementary School, where 92% of students were identified as students in need, requested 113 substitute teachers from January through February of this year. Only 40 of those requests were filled at the school in Oak Park.

Substitute teachers were requested at Meadowview’s Rosa Parks 257 times, but only 113 of those requests were filled.

Teresa Hanneman-Snow teaches second grade at Parkway Elementary, where there are currently three classrooms with long-term substitutes. They’re all special day classes for students with additional needs and identified disabilities.

Hanneman-Snow worries about getting sick and needing a substitute. Of the 330 substitute requests Parkway Elementary school, 203 will filled.

“There is a staffing shortage, and there is not a lot of incentive for folks to apply to the district,” she said. “I don’t think our district looks like a desirable place. My school is a more challenging school to work at. There are sites that get filled much quicker than sites like parkway.”

In contrast, Land Park neighborhood schools like Alice Birney, Crocker Riverside and Sutterville had the vast majority of their substitute teacher requests fulfilled. Phoebe Hearst Elementary teachers in East Sacramento requested substitute teachers 50 times, and 50 substitute teachers filled the spots.

“It bothers me that the students with the highest needs are often overlooked,” said Eric Richards, a special day classes teacher at Health Professions High School.

Richards said when he covers for colleagues during his prep period, his students lose out because he is unable to plan effective lessons.

Why are there so few substitutes?

Several factors could be at play as to why Sacramento City Unified District faces such a severe substitute shortage.

Hanneman-Snow said having a larger sub-pool would help teachers and students tremendously.

Every year, the district asks substitutes if they intend to return to service, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused many people to either not respond or turn down jobs at schools. The district also removes inactive substitutes who have not picked up an assignment for two months. But according to district officials, they “work swiftly to reinstate anyone who reaches out and asked to be reinstated.”

Substitutes also get paid more in neighboring districts. In 2021, Elk Grove Unified proposed rates ranging from $160 to as high as $350 per day, while Sacramento City Unified is offering around $244 a day.

The district and teachers union are in agreement on at least one method to attract more substitutes to Sacramento City Unified: Better pay.

The district is offering to raise substitute wages by 25%, a proposal it put forward months ago. Substitutes are represented by the teachers union, and the pay won’t increase until the district and union reach a deal.

Although school districts like Sacramento City Unified can work to evenly distribute substitutes, substitute teachers can turn jobs down for any reason.

Hanneman-Snow said additional incentives to work at schools that experience even more severe staffing shortages may be necessary.

Substitutes make their own decisions

Joan Cochrane is constantly working as a substitute in Sacramento City Unified. She’s a former teacher, and comes from a family of teachers. Her father a was principal at Bret Harte Elementary for 20 years.

She has breast cancer and initially hesitated to substitute. She changed her mind after hearing that teachers were missing doctor appointments and funerals because they couldn’t take time off.

On any given day, she will walk onto a campus and see other substitutes, many who are elderly and walk with canes.

The job can be challenging. Many substitute choose the campuses they prefer to work at, logging into an app called Frontline, which shows a list of substitute jobs.

“I’ve had kids spit on me, pinch me and throw things.” Cochrane said. “There’s no hazard pay for that.”

The district says it asks substitutes to commit to serving all Sacramento City Unified campuses.

“However, we don’t not have any over sight of what jobs substitutes ultimately decide to take,” the district said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee. “We also allow school sites to select their preferred substitutes. Additionally, our (collective bargaining agreement) allows teachers to have a list of preferred substitutes, which as you can imagine may have substitutes working at one site more than others.

Sarah Stickney Garner, a teacher at Albert Einstein Middle School, said she is committed to teaching during her prep period as the shortage continues. She picked up an additional class mid-year.

“Had I not agreed to teach the class of English language development students, some very recently from Afghanistan would have had a sub maybe for the remainder of the year,” she said.

In the English Language Development class of 17 students, 12 students are from Afghanistan, two are Ukrainian and Russian, one is from Vietnam and two speak Spanish.

“I know there are many teachers in the district who have offered to do what I am doing so students would have the stability they need this year.”

This story was originally published March 29, 2022 at 5:25 AM.