Officials Recruiting Substitutes for Next School Year

Officials have begun recruiting substitute teachers for the 2013-14 school year.

An ad for “per diem substitutes” has been placed on applitrack.com.

School and district administrators will interview candidates for the position. They will recommend to Superintendent Ray Gonzalez which applicants should be hired.

The pay structure for substitute teachers, which Gonzalez said has not been finalized, will vary. Compensation will be based on an applicant’s qualifications and what certifications he or she possesses.

Applicants must be certified substitute teachers and be eligible to work as substitutes by the state Department of Education’s regulations.

The district is going back to interviewing and hiring substitute teachers after a substitute reportedly hit two kindergarten students at Pines Lake Elementary School in March. The individual worked for Source4Teachers, an independent agency that hires and assigns substitute teachers to school districts.

Other parents complained that substitutes could not speak English well, did not understand lesson plans and could not discipline their students.

Parents and residents blasted Gonzalez, the Board of Education, and other district officials at a board meeting, blaming them for allowing the alleged abuse to occur, and for not responding to their questions in a timely manner.

“I am more disgusted at the way the administration has handled the communication than what has actually happened with Resource4Teachers,” Karen Veal, the mother of one of the allegedly abused children said at the meeting. “It’s almost more appalling that the administration waited almost one month to comment on this situation.”

Source4Teachers did not find “any validity” to the abuse claim.

Officials used to hire substitutes directly but decided to outsource the responsibility to Source4Teachers a few years ago. The move saved the district $250,000 annually.

The district and Source4Teachers parted ways earlier this year. The district and the firm issued statements mere minutes apart from each other stating that they were the party that decided they did not want to renew the contract.

A community group was formed to discuss how the district should approach filling substitute teaching positions.

Four parents, two of children from elementary schools, and one each of a middle- and high school-aged student, three teachers, and three principals served on the committee. A teacher and principal from both an elementary, middle, and high school were selected.

Gonzalez and Kurt Praschak, a spokesman with Success Communications, the public relations firm that represents the district, declined to provide the names of anyone serving on the committee.

— Have a question or news tip? Contact editor Daniel Hubbard at Daniel.Hubbard@patch.com or find us on Facebook and Twitter. For news straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.