3 R’s for Building a Strong Substitute Workforce

FOCUS: PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Ever since COVID-19, our school district, like most, has been pressed to find substitute employees to fill various key positions. The scarcity of substitute staff to support teachers and other personnel is often a daily challenge for us.

The continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been the major factor. Employees are taking their own health and their children’s health more seriously. They are choosing to stay home when ill and taking time for their mental health to handle daily work demands better.

On any given day, the district needs 47 to 55 certified substitutes to cover classrooms. This, coupled with the need for teaching assistants, custodians, food service personnel, security guards, secretaries and school nurses, also numbering in double-digit needs per day, can be challenging. The situation concerning employee vacancies was testing us.

In the 4,400-student Crete-Monee School District, located 30 minutes south of Chicago, we have designed solutions to meet the challenge of employee shortages in our school community. The result is a more robust substitute staff, a positive and supportive environment and a sense of optimism for the future within our substitute workforce team.

We developed a program that addressed the three R’s for building a strong substitute work team: retain, recruit, recognize. It’s proven to be an effective approach for filling our substitute needs.