Substitute Shortage Is Worsening

In Room 202 of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s sprawling headquarters, time is running out for a supervisor and 31 clerks who are desperately trying to supply 2,500 classrooms with substitute teachers.

By 8 a.m. the tension is palpable. The clerks are speaking tersely into telephones while diligently riffling through teacher absentee slips fanned across their desks like poker hands.

Peering nervously over the shoulder of a clerk having a tough time finding three subs for McKinley Avenue Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles, supervisor Robert Fisher mutters, “This is what I call a CDM--career-defining moment.�

“With class scheduled to start within minutes, the school must decide whether we should keep calling around for subs,� he said, “or break up those classrooms and send the kids to other classes for the day.�

On this day, McKinley will get only one of the three substitutes it sought. Districtwide, about 1,400 students will go without subs and have to be sent to other classrooms--essentially losing a day of instruction.

Administrators are faced with the same dilemma every day because the district is able to fill only 90% of requests, compared to 97% only three years ago. In certain sections of the city the average is 60%.

The shortage seems to be getting worse by the day. On Feb. 12, the district for the first time had more unfilled requests for secondary school subs in South Los Angeles than filled ones. Last Tuesday, a record 3,600 requests poured in from schools citywide whose teaching ranks were clobbered by professional development programs and illnesses.

Educators give several reasons for the substitute shortage.

Class size reduction, begun three years ago, created a sudden demand for new teachers to handle the extra classes, which in turn thinned the ranks of substitutes. At the same time, teachers are spending more time away from the classroom for professional training, placing new demands on the district’s pool of 4,300 subs.

Combine those changes with the fact that each of the district’s 33,000 teachers is absent an average of about eight days a year, and the district’s antiquated system of processing substitute requests is overwhelmed.

The district still relies on telephone answering machines, pens and note pads instead of computers to get the job done.

It’s a labor-intensive process that starts at 4:30 a.m. when clerks begin transcribing messages left at all hours of the day and night by teachers who plan to be absent. The information--usually a teacher’s name, school, period of absence and the reason for it--is written on small slips of paper.

By 6 a.m., other clerks begin trying to round up available substitutes who live in the general vicinity of a given school. It’s not easy. A majority of substitutes live on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley, and prefer to work near their homes.

Substitutes can turn down up to 10 requests a semester before being bumped to the bottom of the call list.

For students, the shortcomings of the system mean that at least 70 classrooms must be broken up each day. The children are sent into other rooms that are almost always teaching different curricula with different books, even teaching to different grade levels. More often than not, there is no place for them to work, no materials for them to use.

Some schools seem to be harder hit than others. Take McKinley Avenue Elementary, a South-Central school that disperses at least one classroom a week.

“Some days we have to split up four classes, or 80 children,� said Assistant Principal Sergio Franco. “It’s frustrating and disheartening because it disrupts classrooms.�

A few miles away, Joyce Aguebor, a second-grade teacher at Holmes Avenue Elementary School, had just learned that she would have to accept six additional students.

Under district guidelines, teachers who take in at least six additional students are entitled to compensation averaging $25 a day.

“But if I had the choice between that $25 and not taking the extra kids, I’d leave the money,� Aguebor said. “It’s not worth it.�

“It’s totally changed my day for the worse,� she added. “I have no idea what the other kids are learning. Even if I did, there’s no room for them to write. Nobody learns anything. It’s a wasted day all around.�

Despite these problems--and a 1993 independent audit that chastised the district for failing to computerize its system--education officials are only now discussing possible remedies.

Boosting substitute pay is not among them. District officials said their substitute teachers usually earn about $133.89 a day. Most districts pay roughly $80 a day.

Still, some of the strategies under consideration seem painfully obvious.

For example, Assistant Supt. Irene Yamahara said she has suggested beefing up recruitment and working with union officials to develop ways of scheduling professional training programs when classes are not in session.

“Of course, we’d have to pay teachers to take training on weekends, which will require additional funds,� Yamahara said. “Overall, computerization will also help tremendously. We hope to have the system online next year.

“The bottom line is kids don’t have enough teachers right now,� she added. “When we split up classes, we may be putting kids further behind.�

In the meantime, schools and parents are forced to improvise.

Virginia Jimenez, whose daughter is a first-grader at Ivanhoe Elementary School, recalled how “it sure wasn’t amusing one day last November when I discovered there was no substitute--or anyone else--to cover my child’s class.�

With no officials on hand to turn to for guidance, Jimenez and four other worried mothers shepherded the children from a patio where they had assembled to their classroom. Then they tried to make sense of detailed instructions the teacher had left for a substitute.

“We gave up on the instructions because they were too hard and we were not teachers,� she recalled. “So we read stories and sang songs to the kids until someone finally showed up and told us the class was going to be dispersed.�

“We were in shock that it happened at all,� she said. “It has made us wonder what our school district leaders are doing, and whether the shortage of substitutes is only a symptom.�

Los Angeles Board of Education member David Tokofsky agreed that the current situation is inexcusable.

“I sympathize with students who lose a day of instruction,� he said, “with parents who thought the system was tightly organized, and with principals who must divide up a classroom and thereby burden four or more other teachers with additional students.

“There’s a simple solution: Upgrade the technology, hire more substitutes and instill a greater amount of respect for the teaching profession,� he added. “Why haven’t these things been done before today? The district’s priorities have not been in the classroom.�