District officials said this week that they’re offering more money to substitute teachers who commit to working three more days within a week.
New Canaan Public Schools administrators met this summer with two companies that “professionally secure substitute candidates” in order to address a recurring shortage within the district, according to Director of Human Resources Darlene Pianka.
While discussing the issue among members of the administration’s “cabinet,” Director of Finance Sean O’Keefe shared the higher-pay strategy that came out of Greenwich.
“So if a substitute is working for us and commits to working three or more days within a week, we’re looking to offer more money, and hope to secure them for us,” Pianka said during an update on hiring at Monday’s Board of Education meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.
“And we put that out there on the website and hopefully announce that in public. We’ll see how that goes. I think that it will have a very positive effect on people wanting to come here and be a substitute in our school district position as well.”
According to the district’s website, subs who work three or more days within a week will earn $150 per day.
Pianka noted during the update that NCPS has done very well this year in recruiting interns for each of the elementary schools and one for Saxe Middle School, as well as “building subs,” which she described as “a really wonderful model for providing consistent, good quality substitute people in all of our buildings.”
“And we’re also actively recruiting for substitute teachers,” she continued. “Continue to do that. Our numbers are growing. Not exponentially, but they certainly are growing as that, I think, will continue to be a need in the future and has been very, very complicated for the last three years or so.”
In all, the district on Monday welcomed 44 new educators for the school year that starts next Tuesday, Pianka said, up from 40 last year.
“They come very well qualified, even the newer ones,” she said. “Those 44 staff members represent all areas of teaching, moreso on the elementary and middle school level. The high school was a little sparse in hiring this year, which is great.”
Some of the positions are new, such as a pre-K director and some staffing for the district’s Literacy Academy, a new program that addresses the needs of students struggling the most with learning to read.
“But we had hires in every shortage area,” Pianka said. “So VPA [Visual and Performing Arts, World Language, and all of the content areas that are shortage areas were hired.”
Administrators and faculty did a “wonderful job” in recruiting early on for hard-to-fill positions, such as in special education, she said.
“I think we hired a couple of special education teachers, BCBA [Board Certified Behavior Analyst], some school psychologists, some speech pathologists, and those are all really hard to fill,” Pianka said. “So kudos to all of my colleagues for working so hard. That number also includes all of our building subs and our long-term subs. So we’ve proactively filled some leave replacements for teachers who already know they’re going to be out on maternity leave or something has come up in the last couple of weeks that I know about that’s a medical leave and we’ve already proactively filled many of those. We have very few positions open at this time, except for a very recent resignation of last week.”
The district is seeking a preschool teacher who has a special education certification, she added.
Five NCPS educators retired this year, and others left due to “quality of life” issues, Pianka said.
“The commute situation is becoming more and more of an issue with the traffic patterns and people really realizing that it adds some time on to the beginning and end of their day that they would like to spend with their families,” she said. “So, they’re actually taking jobs that are closer to home. But again, we were lucky enough to hire for those positions with people that we feel strongly will meet our needs and we’re working on the problem of that—except to say, it is an expensive area to live in and the commute is the commute. But we’re doing everything we can to recruit as many people as we can and look at the best candidates and be really encouraging.”
Another barrier to hiring is the district’s rigorous application process in terms of both the number and depth of interviews.
“There are a couple of interviews and then there’s also either a demonstration lesson or some sort of performance task by a group or committee of people,” Pianka said. “They’re then asked to meet with the principal of the building. They then come to me.”
Applicants tell the administration that “ ‘it is the most rigorous hiring process we’ve ever been through,’ ” Pianka said, but also that “ ‘it says so much about who you are and what your expectations are,’ and that everyone was so nice.’ ”
“ ‘I really want to work here because that combination is really what I’m looking for,’ ” Pianka said, citing feedback from candidates. “ ‘I’m looking to be in a really high-performing place that has high expectations for its staff, but supports them and has resources and gives them what they need.’ And we’re really cognizant of that as the year begins, with not only our wellness committee and looking at our staff and ensuring that they’re comfortable and happy, but also in all our administrative teams. And the teams that work down from there in terms of teacher leadership teams and all of the support positions that we have for teachers. to coach them and help them learn and grow. That reputation is out there. And it says a lot for who we are as a district, and what we can provide for people. So they want to be here. I think they’re excited to be here.”
Board of Ed members asked whether the newly hired teachers are just starting out in the field (10 of the 44 staff members are “newish” while others have a decade-plus of experience) and whether the interns that have been hired are coming from the same sources as in the past (there were no “sources” before, strictly speaking—rather, NCPS contacted universities and the district is getting more student-teachers).
Board Chair Katrina Parkhill thanked Pianka and the administrators involved in hiring “because this is very significant in this time.”
“I know that every day when I read the news, the headlines are covered with the number of districts in our state and also nationwide that are scrambling to hire teachers and in many cases are opening their doors this year with classrooms that are merged,” she said.
“So this is really significant and really important for our kids, I think, to be successful,” Parkhill added. “And our teachers, because I think it sets up our teachers to be able to do their jobs well. So, thank you to you and to everyone involved.”