BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
FLEMING ISLAND— Parents lined up to complain about the shortage of substitute teachers and bus drivers during the Oct. 7 meeting of the Clay County School Board.
The speakers told school board members that the labor shortages are having a negative impact on students’ education.
Patricia Shaefer said that even though the district’s bus drivers are doubling and tripling routes to make up for the lack of drivers, they take the brunt of complaints from parents.
“That’s not fair when a parent gets notified a half hour before school starts that a bus isn’t coming for their kids,” she said. “Not everyone in our county has transportation to drive their own child to school.”
She said that even though the child gets an excused absence for any days missed because of bus issues and that the district has Google Classroom to help students keep up if stranded at home, missing a must-needed day of education direct instruction hinders their progress.
“Half our county doesn’t have access to wi-fi,” she said of the district’s Google Classroom solution. “Something needs to be done to protect our students. They’re our future. Please show them the same compassion we’ve shown you.”
Parent Elizabeth Phelps told board members that because of the substitute shortage, her children have not been able to attend their school’s gifted program over the last two weeks.
“Right now, the gifted teachers are having to step in and sub for regular classes,” she said, ‘and even though I’m very grateful that they have the ability to pull a teacher from one place to help in an area that’s needed, I don’t see that this is something that is really fair to the children that are being put in the gifted program.”
Retired teacher Patricia Carpenter told board members that one reason the district is having a hard time recruiting bus drivers is a lack of student discipline on the busses.
“Believe me, it’s not because of the pay,” she said. “It’s because of the discipline on the school bus; it really is. If you give the school bus drivers a little bit of authority and the kids all know that they will get in trouble for their behavior on the bus, it will be taken care of.”
School board member Ashley Gilhousen said she has received many complaints about the shortages.
“It’s definitely a strain that’s felt across the district,” she said, “and at the same time, I want to give kudos to (Superintendent David Broskie) and his staff. I really have seen them go above and beyond to try to curb the effects and help wherever we can.”
Labor shortages everywhere
Broskie said that while attending a conference with other superintendents, the shortages of bus drivers, substitute teachers, custodians and ESE assistants were discussed.
He added that the dearth of support staff within public school systems are a reflection of worker shortages across the economy.
“There’s no doubt there is a nationwide shortage of all labor,” he said, “whether it’s the server at the restaurant you go to or wherever.”
He added that assuming schools are immune to the ups and downs of labor markets in the economy are false.
“Sometimes people look at schools, like whatever happens in the real world doesn’t happen in school,” he said. “That would be a fallacy. What happens in the real world also happens in school, because there’s real people that work within our school system.”
Broskie added that Clay’s fill rate: the percentage of classes that are filled with a substitute teacher when the regular teacher is out, is lower now than it has been in the past.
“Our fill rate is actually 79%,” he said. “Previously, we would have (a fill rate) as high as 95%.”
Broskie added that when meeting with his colleagues, he realized that Clay County is faring better than other districts in Florida.
“When I was sitting at a table with superintendents, not a single one (was above) the 50s in fill rate,” he said. “So, they were all asking me: What are you doing in Clay County? How did you get 79%?”
Out-of-the-box solutions
Broskie added that beginning this month, the district is providing additional pay to substitutes, especially in low-fill-rate schools.
He also said the district has hired additional long-term substitute teachers, and at the high school level has approved compensation packages for teaching teams, allowing two teachers to combine their efforts in one class.
“There’s a strategic plan to gauge that data between now and Christmas break to make the adjustments that need to be made,” he said. “To my knowledge, we’re the only district that has such a creative, out-of-the-box plan.”
“Do I believe that the plan that we’ve brought forward will solve the labor issue?” he asked. “If I was that good, I wouldn’t be here today. I would have written the book and retired long ago, right? It’s a complex problem that requires a complex solution.”
Broskie said that the district has hired seven new bus drivers that are starting routes soon. He added that, however, district leaders are still looking for a solution for its shortage of custodians and ESE assistants.
